War and the Ottoman collapse changed the political setting for Kurdish communities, while violence and forced displacement devastated civilian life. This selected timeline separates wartime events, diplomatic proposals and the later peace settlement. It also explains what Sèvres and Lausanne actually provided.

Three black-and-white oval portraits of Ottoman treaty signatories with a French caption underneath
Portrait montage of the Ottoman signatories to the Treaty of Sèvres, signed on 10 August 1920. Photographer unidentified. The catalogue’s modern upload date is not the date of the historical event. Wikimedia Commons · historical portrait montage · public domain.

Selected timeline: events and overlapping processes

The dates below use year–month–day; some developments span longer periods. The final column identifies the sources listed at the end. British military records also show attempts to recruit Kurdish allies and local efforts to influence imperial policy, rather than one shared Kurdish wartime position. [12]

Selected chronology. Dates are year–month–day; ranges overlap. Source numbers refer to the bibliography.
Date / periodEvent or developmentSource
1914-11British and Indian forces occupy Basra as war spreads into Ottoman Mesopotamia.1
1915–1916Genocidal persecution destroys Armenian and Syriac Christian communities in Diyarbekir province.2
1916-05The Sykes–Picot arrangement plans British and French zones of control or influence.3
1916-06British war diaries record raids by Qizilbash Kurds on Ottoman communications.12
1917-03-11British forces enter Baghdad; Ottoman forces withdraw north toward Mosul.1
1918-01-08Wilson presents the Fourteen Points; Point XII addresses nationalities under Ottoman rule.5
1918-10-30The Armistice of Mudros is signed between the Ottoman Empire and Britain representing the Allies.6
1918-11British forces occupy Mosul after the armistice.1
1918–1920The Society for the Rise of Kurdistan organises amid the transition from Istanbul to Ankara.7
1919-11-20A Kurdish–Armenian declaration seeks cooperation on national claims at the peace conference.8
1920-04San Remo negotiations allocate mandates and revise earlier imperial arrangements.3
1920-08-10Sèvres provides a conditional Kurdish autonomy and independence mechanism; it never enters into force.9, 10
1921-04–06Ankara’s counteroffensive suppresses Koçgiri, with extensive violence against villages.7
1923-07-24Lausanne is signed without a Kurdish autonomy scheme; the Iraq frontier remains for subsequent settlement.11

Civilian suffering and responsibility

Uğur Ümit Üngör’s Diyarbekir study traces the genocide of Armenians and the destruction of Syriac Christian communities through Ottoman decisions, provincial officials, militias and participating local actors, including some Kurdish chiefs. [2] His research on population policy also documents forced deportations of Kurds to central and western Anatolia and deaths from hunger and cold. [4] These histories require attention to particular victims, perpetrators and places. They cannot be compressed into collective guilt or an account in which Kurdish civilian suffering makes anti-Christian violence disappear.

Diplomatic aims were not implemented borders

Wilson’s Point XII addressed the security and autonomous development of non-Turkish nationalities under Ottoman rule; it did not name or establish a Kurdish state. [5] The Kurdish–Armenian declaration dated 20 November 1919 requested independent Armenia and Kurdistan with external assistance, leaving disputed territories and final frontiers to the peace conference. The text survives in a documented transcription in Najat Abdulla-Ali’s archival thesis. [8] A joint proposal was therefore different from a completed boundary settlement.

Sèvres: autonomy and independence were conditional

Articles 62–63 envisaged a commission’s scheme for local autonomy in specified predominantly Kurdish areas. Article 64 made possible independence dependent on a majority request and a favourable League of Nations assessment and recommendation; it also contemplated voluntary adherence by Kurds in the Mosul vilayet. [9] This did not create an immediately functioning state. The treaty never entered into force, as the British government expressly confirmed in Parliament in 1983. [10]

Koçgiri: local revolt and repression

Élise Massicard’s study follows the Koçgiri movement through competing centres of power in Istanbul and Ankara, Kurdish political organising and local Alevi Kurdish networks. It dates the main counteroffensive to April–June 1921 and describes village destruction, displacement and contemporary criticism of excessive violence. [7] Its account also shows disagreements among Kurdish actors. Neither the rebels’ aims nor the decisions of Kurdish supporters of Ankara represented a unanimous national position.

Lausanne: no autonomy scheme, and Mosul unresolved

Lausanne included no Kurdish autonomy framework corresponding to Sèvres. Article 3 left the Turkey–Iraq frontier to subsequent British–Turkish agreement or, failing that, the League of Nations. It did not settle every border that day. Articles 38–39 contain protections extending to all inhabitants or Turkish nationals, including language use, while Articles 40–41 provide particular institutional and educational protections for non-Muslim minorities. [11] Saying that Muslim Kurds received no Kurdish autonomy arrangement is more accurate than claiming they were excluded from every protection in the treaty.

Sources and further reading

  1. National Army Museum, Mesopotamia campaign; Basra, Baghdad and the November 1918 advance to Mosul.
  2. Uğur Ümit Üngör, Diyarbekir (1915–1916): Young Turk Mass Killings at the Provincial Level, Sciences Po, 25 March 2009.
  3. French Diplomatic Archives, Haut-commissariat in Syria and Lebanon, thematic series 1SL/1V/2323–2356; historical introduction on Sykes–Picot and San Remo.
  4. Uğur Ümit Üngör, Geographies of Nationalism and Violence: Rethinking Young Turk Social Engineering, European Journal of Turkish Studies 7 (2008); published passage on Kurdish deportations.
  5. US National Archives, President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points, 8 January 1918; original speech transcript, Point XII.
  6. Australian Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Sinai and Palestine Campaign; Armistice of Mudros, signed 30 October 1918.
  7. Élise Massicard, The Repression of the Koçgiri Rebellion, 1920–1921, Sciences Po, 28 September 2009; context, actors and victims.
  8. Najat Abdulla-Ali, Empire, frontière et tribu, Paris X–Nanterre doctoral thesis (2006), pp. 428–429; French declaration and archival references.
  9. Treaty of Sèvres, British Treaty Series No. 11 (1920), printed p. 21, Articles 62–64; original Foreign Office scan.
  10. UK Parliament, Hansard, Treaty of Sevres, 18 February 1983; Douglas Hurd’s answer on non-entry into force.
  11. Treaty of Lausanne, signed 24 July 1923, Part I, Articles 3 and 38–41; English text published by Türkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
  12. Dan McKee, British Library, Anglo-Kurdish Relations during the Mesopotamia Campaign (1914–1918), Qatar Digital Library, 31 May 2022; opening and intelligence-gathering sections.