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Fig. 9

The newspapers covering the conference did not report any The Turkish delegation faced the same reactions as the Turkey signed an additional agreement at the Lausanne Palace; Beau-Rivage Palace, while the Kurds held a protest demonstration
serious incidents initially. In fact, a major part of the security Soviets: ‘a systematic hostility towards everything Ottoman,’ as Maurice and on 6 August, in the rooms of the Beau-Rivage Palace, the outside the Palais de Rumine in the Place de la Riponne.
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operation was conducted outside Lausanne itself, with tightened Muret, the leader writer of the Gazette de Lausanne, commented Americans signed a trade agreement with Turkey. It was a strange backwards glance at history for the Beau-
border controls and the close screening of foreign nationals, some on the Turks’ arrival in Lausanne. Initially professing to know ‘The event only makes sense when remembered with hindsight,’ Rivage Palace, whose commemorative literature and publicity
of whom were turned away. Most of the threats were made against nothing about ‘Kemalism’, Muret later became fascinated with it, wrote Pierre Nora. In other words, the significance of the brochures have appropriated the event, yet offer only a weak,
the delegates of the two countries at war, Greece and Turkey, but even criticising his old attitude and praising ‘the iron resolve of the Conference of Lausanne should not just be measured in terms of completely depoliticised reading of it.
the police also kept the Soviet delegation under tight surveillance, men surrounding Atatürk who will fight to the death for the honour and what ‘actually happened’ in 1922-23 and its consequences, but also
together with the Swiss politicians who made repeated attempts freedom of an entire people.’ 22 in terms of the importance the event has acquired in posterity,
to contact them. when considered in its proper historical context. For the Allies,
Unfortunately, the security services were unable to prevent MOMENTOUS EVENTS, REMEMBRANCE, the conference was an abject failure, best forgotten. In contrast,
an attack against a group of Soviet diplomats as they were finishing AND GRAND HOTELS for Turkey, Lausanne was a vindication after the humiliation of
their meal at the restaurant of the Hôtel Cecil on the evening of The signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923 at the Sèvres, and a founding moment that is celebrated to this day. A
10 May 1923, which claimed two lives and injured several others. Palais de Rumine was feted in the city with a big public celebration: monument to commemorate the occasion was erected in Ankara,
The attack happened during the second session of the conference, church bells rang out in honour of the special occasion and the and the Turkish Ministry of Culture celebrated the seventieth
to which the Soviets had not officially been invited; they were whole city centre was decorated for the event, including the roof anniversary of the conference by publishing a lavishly illustrated
therefore not entitled to the same level of security given to the of the Lausanne Palace, where thousands of tiny lights beamed out book written by the director of the Ankara State Museum of
official delegates. The ‘Conradi affair’, as it became known (after the word ‘pax’ into the darkness. Fine Arts, who commented, ‘Lausanne is a milestone, not only for
the perpetrator Maurice Conradi, who wanted to ‘rid the world of In reality, reactions to the peace treaty were mixed. The the history of Turkey but for the history of humanity and diplomacy’.
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the Bolsheviks’), caused a huge diplomatic rift between Switzerland headline in the Gazette de Lausanne read: ‘The Lausanne Peace Treaty. However, the event is as significant for what it hushed up and
and the Soviet Union. None the less, the incident did not seriously End of the war in Europe.’ The message in Le Figaro was emphatic: denied as for what it created. The Treaty of Lausanne definitively
affect the conference proceedings, since the city had brought in ‘The Treaty of Lausanne is a momentous event in world history. For the crushed Armenia’s hopes for independence from Turkey. Having
a number of special measures to coincide with the arrival of the first time, Turkey is being treated as a Western power. A strange turnaround already suffered a genocide in 1915, the Armenians were now
Soviet delegation the previous November (who had come to of events! The war was supposed to have pushed the Turks definitively deprived of their official minority status within a new Turkey
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Lausanne to take part in the debate on the Straits), including a total out of Europe. And now, to the contrary, it has Europeanised them.’ which had been completely transformed demographically. On
ban from talking to the press. The newspapers, on the other hand, The Daily Telegraph of 28 July 1923 pessimistically announced 6 January 1923, demands for the creation of an Armenian state
could not resist dramatising the event: one headline in the Journal ‘the defeat of the civilised world’ and wrote of the ‘treachery’ of the were rejected and the resolutions ratified by a number of previous
de Genève of 30 November screamed, ‘The Bolsheviks have arrived’. Turkish nationalists. treaties (Versailles, Sèvres and London in 1921, and Paris in
The assassinations provoked passionate reactions from both The Conference of Lausanne marked a turning point in the 1922) were overturned. While the Conference of Lausanne was
sides of the political fence. The left, which had already been numerous ‘revisions’ of the Treaty of Versailles, because for the first a resounding victory for the Turks, it was a disaster for Armenians,
mobilised by the print strike, organised demonstrations in the major time, one of the nations which had been defeated in 1918 had Kurds and other minorities who, more than eighty years on, are
cities and strongly criticised the stance of the Swiss Federal Council; managed to reassert itself on the world stage. On 13 October 1923 still contesting its outcome.
the right were less forthcoming in their condemnation, citing Ankara was named capital of the new Republic of Turkey, which On 5 July 2005, in the very same room of the Palais de
‘extenuating circumstances’ and using the opportunity to strengthen was officially recognised on 29 October. Modern Turkey took its Rumine where the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923,
their campaign against the Swiss Communists. Conradi was put on place on the world stage: its new borders and independent status the canton of Vaud’s Great Council formally recognised the
trial on 5 November 1923 and acquitted shortly afterwards, on 16 were recognised and subsequently reconfirmed by a number of Armenian genocide. Shortly after, on 26 July, the Turks celebrated
November, notwithstanding the evidence against him. other treaties signed up until 1939. On 23 July 1923, Poland and the signing of the treaty with events in the Place du Port and at the

Security personnel on duty at the Palais de Rumine during the Lausanne Conference.
Photograph, 1923.

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