Agreement on Constantinople and the Straits

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The Agreement on Constantinople and the Straits was a secret contractual arrangement, consisting of diplomatic exchange of notes from February 19th jul. / March 4, 1915 greg. until March 28th jul. / April 10, 1915 greg. , in which Great Britain and France allowed the Russian Empire to rule over this area in the event of a victory in World War I.

With the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the world war, the Russian public only got their real goal of participating in the war: Russian society turned its gaze to Constantinople as the highest victory prize . The conquest of the straits was the "old Slavophile dream" of the nationalist-minded circles of Russia. Accordingly, on March 4, 1915 , Foreign Minister Sasonov warned Great Britain and France, who fought in the Dardanelles without Russian participation , that any solution that would not bring Constantinople and the Bosporus into Russia would be unsatisfactory and unsafe (“Every solution will be inadequate and precarious .. . "). He specifically called for Constantinople, the European coast of the Black Sea to the Dardanelles , the Asian coast of the Bosporus, the islands of the Marmara Sea and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos .

In the note of February 14th, Jul. / February 27, 1915 greg. British Foreign Minister Edward Gray refers to the Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 1907. In this treaty, Persia was divided into three zones, a Russian zone in the north, a neutral zone in the center and a British zone in the south of Persia. Gray noted that when the war ended victoriously, the neutral zone would be dissolved and the area would become part of the British zone. The areas around Isfahan and Yazd, which, due to existing Russian interests, were to become part of the Russian zone, were to be excluded. The UK government also stated that it has unlimited economic and financial room to maneuver in its zone.

In March / April 1915 the Western Allies, who feared a separate peace for Russia, yielded to the Agreement on Constantinople and the Straits (“... the British Government has expressed to us in writing full accord in the matter of the annexation by Russia of the Straits and Constantinople within the boundaries fixed by us; "). Russia was awarded: The city of Constantinople, which was to become a free port , the west bank of the straits and areas in Eastern Thrace (up to the Enos - Midia line ), areas in northeast Asia Minor, west of Trabzon , and northern Armenia and Kurdistan . Tsar Nicholas II reacted enthusiastically and generously: Take the right bank of the Rhine, take Mainz , take Koblenz , go further if it suits you . In addition to this freedom in determining the German western border, he also agreed to France's demands in Syria , Cilicia and Palestine , except in the holy places.

For Edward Gray, the deal was a "change for an indefinite future," but the abandonment of what was actually the most valuable prize of the war constituted the overthrow of traditional British government policy. In November 1917 the secret agreement was published by the Bolsheviks for propaganda purposes along with other war target agreements of the Allies .

As for the agreements regarding Persia, the British government considered the agreements to be obsolete after the October Revolution. British troops occupied all of Persia and marched as far as Baku to secure the oil wells there for the British crown. With the Anglo-Iranian Treaty of 1919, British influence was to be established throughout Persia.

  • Edward Gray

  • Sergei Dmitrievich Sasonov

  • Tsar Nicholas II

  • The Enos Midia line

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ E. Adamov: The European Powers and Turkey during the World War. Volume 1/2: Constantinople and the Straits. According to secret documents of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dresden 1930/32, volume 1, p. 118.
  2. ↑ Carsten Goerke, Manfred Hellmann, Richard Lorenz, Peter Scheibert: Russia. (= Fischer Weltgeschichte Volume 31) Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 265.
  3. ↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and War Aims 1914-1917. Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , p. 239; and AJP Taylor : The war aims of the Allies in the First World War. In: Richard Pares (Ed.): Essays presented to Sir Lewis Namier. Macmillan, London 1956, pp. 475-505, here: p. 482.
  4. ^ Aaron S. Kliemann: Britain's War Aims in the Middle East in 1915. In: The Journal of Contemporary History 3, No 3 (1968), pp. 237-251, here: p. 240.
  5. ^ E. Adamov: The European Powers and Turkey during the World War. Volume 3/4: The Division of Asiatic Turkey. According to secret documents of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dresden 1930/32, Volume 3, pp. 65f and 135f; and AJP Taylor: The war aims of the Allies in the First World War. In: Essays presented to Sir Lewis Namier. London 1956, pp. 475-505, here: p. 482; and Jacob C. Hurewitz: Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East. A documentary record. Van Nostrand, Princeton 1956, Volume 2: 1914-1956. P. 10.
  6. ^ E. Adamov: The European Powers and Turkey during the World War. Volume 3/4: The Division of Asiatic Turkey. According to secret documents of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dresden 1930/32, Volume 3, pp. 90, 106 and 135f.
  7. ^ AJP Taylor: The war aims of the Allies in the First World War. In: Richard Pares (Ed.): Essays presented to Sir Lewis Namier. Macmillan, London 1956, pp. 475-505, here: p. 483; and David Stevenson: French war aims against Germany 1914-1919 . Oxford University Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-19-822574-1 , p. 27.
  8. ↑ Eastern Europe. Journal for all questions of the European East. Volume 11 Society for the Study of Eastern Europe, 11 (1967), p. 445.