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Projection orthogonale de l'Arménie Wilsonienne.

Wilsonian Armenia according to the Treaty of Sèvres.

Map showing the boundaries of Armenia as awarded by President Wilson

L'Arménie Wilsonienne (Wilsonian Armenia, Վիլսոնյան Հայաստան) correspond aux frontières de la Première République d'Arménie décidées dans le Traité de Sèvres (1920) et déterminées par le Département d'État des États-Unis de Woodrow Wilson. The Treaty of Sèvres was a peace treaty that had been drafted and signed between the Western Allied Powers and the defeated government of the Ottoman Empire in August 1920. The treaty was never signed by the United States of America. The treaty was signed but never ratified by the Ottoman Empire.

The proposed boundaries incorporated the Ottoman vilayets of Erzurum, Bitlis, and Van, which once had Armenian populations of varying sizes. This region was extended to the north, up to the west side of Trabzon to provide the First Republic of Armenia with an outlet to the Black Sea at the port of Trabzon. The proposed state of Pontus was discussed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, but the Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos feared the precarious position of such a state and so it was included instead in the larger proposed state of Wilsonian Armenia.

The United States Senate rejected the mandate for Armenia in 1920. The outbreak of the Turkish War of Independence led to the Ottoman Empire not ratifying the Treaty of Sèvres. Later in that year, the Turkish–Armenian War broke out. Armenia was defeated and signed the Treaty of Alexandropol on November 2, 1920 renouncing its territorial integrity under the Sèvres Treaty. The Treaty of Kars was negotiated between Soviet Russia and Turkey following the annexation of the Democratic Republic of Armenia by the Soviet Army in December 2, 1920, and signed between the Soviet government in Armenia on October 23, 1921. The latter was never accepted, either by the overthrown Armenian government nor later by the Republic of Armenia. The government of Soviet Russia separately negotiated a similar border between what it considered its territory of Armenia and Turkey in the Treaty of Moscow (1921).

The final Turkish and Armenian borders were internationally agreed upon in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 which replaced the generally unratified and unimplemented Sèvres Treaty.

Négociations

Pendant la Conférence de Londres de 1920, David Lloyd George encourage son homologue américain Woodrow Wilson à accepter la mise en place d'un mandat américain sur l'Anatolie, et plus particulièrement pour les territoires contrôlés par l'Administration de l'Arménie occidentale. Le président y envoie la Commission King-Crane ainsi que le général James Harbord afin d'étudier les revendications du Mouvement national arménien et afin de voir si lesdites revendications sont compatibles avec les ses quatorze points. Le douzième est le suivant :

« Aux régions turques de l'Empire ottoman actuel devraient être assurées la souveraineté et la sécurité ; mais aux autres nations qui sont maintenant sous la domination turque on devrait garantir une sécurité absolue de vie et la pleine possibilité de se développer d'une façon autonome ; quant aux Dardanelles, elles devraient rester ouvertes en permanence, afin de permettre le libre passage aux vaisseaux et au commerce de toutes les nations, sous garantie internationale. »

La Commission King-Crane s'intéresse notamment au sujet de savoir si oui ou non un État arménien doit exister et, si c'est le cas, s'il doit être fondé sous mandat américain ; elle conclut que oui.

The King-Crane Commission noted that the Armenians had suffered a traumatic experience, that they couldn't trust the Ottoman Empire to respect their rights any more, and that the Armenians were "a people." The Commission therefore recommended that the hard-won Armenian independence established during the Caucasus Campaign should be respected by the international community and insured by the Allies.

De son côté, James Harbord préconise que les territoires habités par les Arméniens doivent rester d'un seul bloc, mais que la paix serait difficile à maintenir dans la région du fait de tensions intercommunautaires.

Arguments arméniens

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), using their position of leaders of the Armenian national movement, claimed that this region should not be part of the Ottoman Empire based on their assertion that Armenians had the capability to build a nation. Armenians had de facto control over a region surrounding the Van Province of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 3 years (1915-1918). The ARF stated that it was natural to annex this region to the newly established First Republic of Armenia (1918-1920), the first modern Armenian republic created after the collapse of the Russian Empire.

Another argument developed during this period was that the population was becoming increasingly more Armenian, and therefore Armenians were not a minority but a plurality; moving the displaced Armenians to this area should be considered as an option. In 1917, some 150,000 Armenians relocated to the provinces of Erzurum, Bitlis, Muş, and Van. The Armenians had already begun building their houses and creating their farmlands. In 1917, the provincial governor Aram Manukian stated that a new autonomous state in the region should be founded, under Russia or the Ottoman Empire. Armen Garo (Karekin Pastermajian) and other spokesmen proposed to have Armenian soldiers in Europe transfer to the Caucasus front for the protection and stability of the new establishment. Armenian soldiers began to create a protective line between the Ottoman Army and Armenian front.

Aftermath

In the aftermath of the King-Crane Commissions, events on the ground took their own course. President Wilson asked the United States Congress for the authority to establish a mandate for Armenia on May 24, 1920. The United States Senate rejected his request by a vote of 52 to 23 on June 1, 1920. In September 1920, the Turkish–Armenian War broke out. The First Republic of Armenia was defeated in November 1920 and signed the Treaty of Alexandropol under which it renounced the Treaty of Sèvres along with various territorial claims to "Western Armenia". The government of Armenia was subsequently overthrown. The new Armenian government signed the Treaty of Kars, which reaffirmed the previous Armenian concessions to Turkey and determined the modern-day borders between the two countries.

In late 1922, the various international parties negotiated the Treaty of Lausanne as a replacement for the Treaty of Sèvres. Given previous Turkish-Armenian treaties and the views of the then-current Soviet Armenian government, the issue of Armenian claims to "Western Armenia" was dropped.

After World War II, the Soviet Union attempted to annul the Treaty of Kars and regain the lands ceded to Turkey. The Soviet claims were backed by much of the international Armenian diaspora, as well as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Armenian leaders attempted to gather British and American support for the reclamation of eastern Anatolia from Turkey, but Winston Churchill objected to the Soviet and Armenian territorial claims. Likewise, the United States State Department backed Turkey as well, saying, as it had since 1934, that its previous support for Wilsonian Armenia had since expired. The Soviet Union dropped its claims against Turkey after Stalin's death in 1953.

Aujourd'hui

Today, as a continuation of the initial goal, the creation of an independent and united Armenia consisting of all territories designated as Wilsonian Armenia by the Treaty of Sèvres is a stated aim of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, regardless of the United States's official ending of support for the idea in 1934 and the fact that these territories are now inhabited mainly by ethnic Kurds and Turks. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, as well as the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party and the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party in a joint statement on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Sevres, stated that it still needs to be implemented, and that it is the only treaty signed by Turkey and the Republic of Armenia, by the free will of the Armenian side. On 10 July 2020 the President of Armenia Armen Sargsyan stated that "The Treaty of Sèvres even today remains an essential document for the right of the Armenian people to achieve a fair resolution of the Armenian issue" and that it is "a legal, interstate agreement which is de facto still in force".

Armenian Genocide historian Vahakn Dadrian argued that, though it began as an effort to improve the lot of Armenians, the Treaty of Sèvres served mainly to compound the misfortunes of Armenians. He wrote that:"However long overdue and deserved its terms might have seemed to the Armenians, its promise of restoring to the Armenians a large chunk of historic Armenia fueled extravagant Armenian hopes and irredentist aspirations." Genesis of the Sèvres Treaty also coincided with the definitive defeat of the Damat Ferit's Cabinet in Istanbul which had initiated the prosecution against the authors of the genocide. From that period on court martial proceedings slackened and gradually disappeared.

Voir aussi

Articles connexes

• Conférence de la paix de Paris
• Frontière entre l'Arménie et la Turquie
• Partition de l'Empire ottoman
• Accords Sykes-Picot
• Grande Arménie (irrédentisme)

Bibliographie

• (en) Richard G. Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, vol. III : From London to Sèvres, February-August, 1920, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996, 528 p. (ISBN 978-0520088030)
• (en) Richard G. Hovannisian, The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, vol. II : Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, 508 p. (ISBN 978-1-4039-6422-9)
• (en) Arbitral Award of the President of the United States of America Woodrow Wilson : Full Report of the Committee upon the Arbitration of the Boundary between Turkey and Armenia. Washington, November 22nd, 1920. (préf. Ara Papian), 2011, 305 p. (ISBN 978-9939-50-160-4, lire en ligne [PDF])