Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/327

 *ulations and the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, the Pact is explicit: "With a view to assuring our national and economic development," it reads, "and with the end of securing to the country a more regular and more modern administration, the signatories of the present pact consider the possession of complete independence and liberty as the sine qua non of our national existence. In consequence, we oppose all juridical or financial restrictions of any nature which would arrest our national development." Rather that Turkey should die free than live in slavery! Foreswearing any intention of recovering the Sultan's former Arab possessions, the Pact proceeded to serve notice, however, that Cilicia, Mosul, and the Turkish portions of Thrace must be reunited with the fatherland. "The Ottoman Empire is dead! Long live Turkey!"[42]

With this amazing program Mustapha Kemal Pasha undertook to liberate Turkey. In April, 1920, the government of the Grand National Assembly was instituted in Angora and proceeded to administer those portions of Anatolia which were not under Allied or Greek occupation. The proposed Treaty of Sèvres—which was handed to the Turkish delegates at Paris on May 11—was condemned as inconsistent with the legitimate national aspirations of the Turkish people. The Allies and the Constantinople Government were denounced—the former as invaders of the sacred soil of Turkey, the latter as tools of European imperialists. Then followed a series of successful military campaigns: by October, 1920, the French position in Cilicia had been rendered untenable, the Armenian Republic had been obliterated, the British forces of occupation had been forced back into the Ismid peninsula, and the Italians had withdrawn their troops to Adalia. In the spring of 1921 separate treaties were negotiated with Russia, Italy, and France, providing for