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CHAPTER 2 – HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
51 
dismissed the representations of Damad Ferid Pasha on the terms of an eventual 
peace treaty
67
. The notion of an American mandate for Turkey, with which many 
(including Halide Edip) had dallied and which was even discussed at the Sivas 
conference of September 1919
68
, was finally laid to rest by American withdrawal 
from the Peace Conference in November 1919. But at the same time as legitimising 
the stance of the nationalists, the Allies declined to confront them militarily, 
withdrawing Anatolian garrisons in September 1919. Such official hold-outs against 
the nationalists as remained in Anatolia could be simply removed, as happened to the 
governors of Trabzon and Konya in late September 1919, or intimidated into 
acquiescence. By the autumn of 1919 the writ of the official Ottoman government 
had largely ceased to run in Anatolia and it came to terms with the nationalists on 
elections to the Ottoman parliament
69
, which resulted in a nationalist triumph. At the 
end of 1919 the Ottoman government even revoked the order of July 1919 cashiering 
Mustafa Kemal and returned his decorations
70
. Once convoked the parliament 
reaffirmed in February 1920 in even broader terms the national pact declared earlier 
at Erzurum and Sivas
71
. 
An enduring unity between the nationalists of Anatolia and the official government 
in Istanbul might conceivably have contained the ambitions of Mustafa Kemal, since 
there were nationalists who disapproved of a break with the official government (as 
67
Mango, 242 
68
Mango, 246-248 
69
Mango, 255-258 
70
Gawrych, 91-92; Mango, 264-265 
71
Mango, 269; Zürcher 2010, 228 

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CHAPTER 2 – HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
52 
did Kâzım Karabekir in September 1919)
72
or of domination by him (as was 
evidenced at Sivas and Adapazarı in October and November 1919)
73
. The allies put 
an end to the possibility of such unity by occupying Istanbul on the night of 15-16 
March 1920
74
. The provocations were a successful nationalist raid on a munitions 
dump at Gallipoli in January and a nationalist victory over the French at Maraş in 
Cilicia in mid-February in the course of which the local Armenians were incidentally 
massacred
75
. The intended consequence of the occupation was the installation of a 
pliant government which would stop any activity in support of nationalist resistance 
(something which the allies had suspected of the War Ministry), would accede to the 
intended peace settlement and through control of the official ministries would direct 
compliance with its terms. The unintended consequences were a largely powerless 
official government and, through the parliament’s adjournment of its proceedings, 
the exile to Malta of some prominent nationalists and the flight of others to Ankara, 
the creation of a sole focus of resistance which lay beyond allied control
76
. 
The candid reader of the most accessible histories need not feign bewilderment 
before the decisions taken by the allies at that time. He must assume either that even 
in those days people had had enough of experts or that deeper researches are still 
needed into the thinking of the various actors. Allied regret for the Greek landing in 
Smyrna, of which the allies were authors, began almost immediately; locally based 
officials reported that of itself it fanned the fires of Turkish nationalism
77
; an official 
72
Mango, 251 
73
Mango, 256 
74
Mango, 271 
75
Gawrych, 96-98; Llewellyn Smith, 120. 
76
Mango, 272-273. 
77
Llewellyn Smith, 106-108 

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