Turkish peace note

On 14 October 1918 the Spanish ambassador in Washington, Juan Riaño, handed President Woodrow Wilson a note from the government of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman chargé d’affaires in Madrid had delivered it to the Spanish foreign minister on 12 October (the British official history of the war in Mesopotamia gives 13 October), and the telegram with its text reached the ambassador late on the evening of Sunday, 13 October. Turkey and the United States were not at war, but since April 1917 they had not maintained diplomatic relations, so the Ottoman government had to use the good offices of a neutral state.

The note was an almost word-for-word repetition of the requests from Germany and Austria-Hungary ten days earlier. The Ottoman government asked the President to take up the task of restoring peace, to inform all the belligerent states of this request and to invite them to send plenipotentiaries to negotiations. As their basis it accepted the programme set out in Wilson’s address to Congress of 8 January 1918, that is, the Fourteen Points, and the President’s later statements, especially his speech of 27 September. The twelfth point promised the Turkish portions of the empire a secure sovereignty and the nationalities under Turkish rule an opportunity of autonomous development, and in Constantinople it raised hopes of a lenient peace. “To put an end to the shedding of blood”, the government also asked for the immediate conclusion of a general armistice on land, at sea and in the air.

The decision to approach Wilson was taken by the cabinet of Talat Pasha, which resigned soon afterwards. According to the Turkish encyclopaedia of Islam, the government had already made a first peace proposal through Spain on 5 October, and the note of 12 October was sent as a second attempt while a crisis was under way in the capital, ending with the appointment of Ahmed İzzet Pasha. At the beginning of October emissaries without government credentials also tried to make contact with the British. Among them were men sent by the governor of Smyrna, Rahmi Bey, who were taken from Mytilene to Athens. London replied that it would deal only with authorised representatives of the authorities in Constantinople.

The note did not bring Turkey what it had hoped for. The British, who had borne the greatest burden of the war on the Ottoman front, wanted to dictate the terms themselves, and the prime ministers of Britain, France and Italy had already agreed in Paris on 7 October that whichever of the three powers the Turks approached could conclude an armistice with Turkey. According to the British official history, the Allies acquainted Wilson with their terms and proposed that in his reply he refer the Turks to one of the Allied commanders at the front. Before the matter was settled, İzzet’s government chose a direct route: it released from captivity the British general Charles Townshend, the defender of Kut, who on 20 October brought to Lesbos an offer of a separate peace with Britain.

The American reply came only on 31 October, when the armistice with Turkey had already been signed. Secretary of State Robert Lansing informed the Spanish ambassador that, on the President’s instructions, the United States would pass the text of the note to the governments of the states at war with Turkey.