Tag: World War 1

On October 30, 1918, aboard the British battleship Agamemnon, anchored in the port of Mudros on the Aegean island of Lemnos, representatives of Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire sign an armistice treaty marking the end of Ottoman participation in the First World War. The Armistice of Mudros, which was concluded on October 30, 1918, ended the hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of war between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies. It was signed by Rauf Bey, the Ottoman Minister of Marine, and the British Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe, on board Agamemnon in Mudros harbor on the Aegean island of Lemnos. The armistice was followed with occupation of Istanbul, the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the Treaty of Sèvres, although the latter was never ratified due to the Turkish victory at the War of Liberation. Negotiations between Calthorpe’s team and the delegation from Constantinople, led by the Ottoman Minister of Marine Affairs Rauf Bey, began at 9:30 on the morning of October 30, 1918, aboard the Agamemnon. The Treaty of Mudros, signed that evening, stated that hostilities would end at noon the following day. By its terms, Turkey had to open the Dardanelle and Bosporus straits to Allied warships and its forts to military occupation; it was also to demobilize its army, release all prisoners of war and evacuate its Arab provinces, the majority of which were already under Allied control. Bey and his fellow delegates refused to paint the treaty as an act of surrender for Turkey—later causing disillusionment and anger in Constantinople—but in fact that is what it was. The Treaty of Mudros ended Ottoman participation in World War I and effectively—if not legally—marked the dissolution of a once mighty empire. From its ruins, the victors of the First World War attempted to use the