Lausanne Peace Treaty of 24 July 1923: A Critical Assessment of Hans-Lucas Kieser’s When Democracy Died: The Middle East’s Enduring Peace of Lausanne

Abstract

The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on 24 July 1923 between Turkey and the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, is the only treaty freely negotiated by the parties following the First World War which is still valid presently. The treaty was widely discussed in Tur-key and abroad in 2023, the centenary of its signing. In his book, the Swiss-German history professor Hans-Lukas Kieser addresses the topics he covers not so much from the perspective of the Republic of Turkey but rather from the perspective of Arme-nians, Kurds, Assyrians and other minorities, and claims that the treaty legitimised the genocide these groups suffered at the hands of the Turks. It is evident that Kieser has used sources in the literature incompletely and incorrectly. Furthermore, he has clearly distorted concepts such as peace, democracy, ethnic cleansing and genocide from their true meanings. The book claims that the Nazis “sent poison gas to Ankara for the killing of Alevi Kurds during the Dersim genocide”, that 10,000 Armeni-ans were massacred by Turks in Maraş in February 1920, and that Armenian repre-sentatives received strong moral and intellectual support at the League of Nations Council’s 1921 meetings. However, no documents or concrete evidence have been produced to substantiate these allegations. When Democracy Died: The Middle East’s Enduring Peace of Lausanne does not make a positive contribution to the increasingly developed field of contemporary Turkish studies, nor does it constitute a substantial addition to the ongoing debates regarding the Treaty of Lausanne.