Özet:

Ali Fethi (Okyar) Bey, the interior minister of the Grand National Assembly government, took a two-month leave on 3 July 1922 to receive treatment in Europe. During this time, he conducted negotiations in Italy, France and England on the joint peace terms of March 1922, which England and France presented to Turkey and Greece. He arrived in London on 30 July 1922 after Rome and Paris; but unlike other countries, he could not hold high-level talks there. During August, his requests to meet with Foreign Minister Lord Curzon were rejected on various excuses. He could only meet with secondary officials who had no power to influence the foreign policy. Therefore, the current literature is dominated by the opinion that Fethi Bey's London mission ended in failure and the Turkish Great Offensive decision was taken after that. However, the meetings and correspondence between Mustafa Kemal Pasha and Fethi Bey before the Turkish Great Offensive allows for a different interpretation. According to these meetings, which Fethi Bey mentioned in his memoirs, delaying the England’s realization of the situation was of great importance for the preparations for the Turkish offensive, which was carried out with the utmost secrecy, and this was the main goal of Fethi Bey's London mission. The main purpose of Fethi Bey's visit to Europe was to prevent an actual intervention by England until the attack takes place, and to create public opinion in favor of the national struggle and against the British government, rather than holding peace talks with Italy, France and England. In this study, Fethi Bey's visit to London, which took place just before the Great Offensive, was considered as one of the measures taken to protect the confidentiality of the attack, as a diplomatic maneuver, and Fethi Bey's attempts at the British government and his public opinion-building activities in London were examined. The main source of the study is Fethi Bey's memoirs and British archive documents.

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