man Empire and vanquishing their ancient foe, the Turk. On hearing the terms of the Mudros Armistice, signed by Turkey and Britain on 30 October 1918, the Sultan was heard to murmur: "This is not an armistice; it is an unconditional surrender." [^282] The day following its signature, the leading members of the CUP fled the country for Berlin. On 13 November a fleet of fifty-five ships belonging to the victors anchored off Istanbul, including four Greek warships, which was contrary to the agreement, and on 8 December, a military administration was set up. While there can have been nothing more galling for the Muslim Turks than to see the Allied forces enter Istanbul as conquerors, the Ottoman Greeks, Jews, and Armenians of the city greeted them rapturously. The French General, Franchet Despérey, even, rode through the streets of Istanbul to the French Embassy on a white horse, in the style of some conquering king or emperor. [^283]

[^282]:Y. Bahadıroğlu, Osmanlı Padişahları Ansiklopedisi, iii, 783.

[^283]:İbnü'l-Emin İnal, Son Sadrazamlar, iv, 1717-8.

A number of secret war-time agreements had been signed by the Entente Powers concerning the partition of the Ottoman Empire. [^284] When Russia renounced her claims following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, her place was taken by Italy. And when, in a timely move, the Greek Prime Minister, Venizelos, brought his country into the War the same year, it was or the promise of Izmir and a portion of Aegean Turkey. The same area had, incidentally, already been promised to the Italians.

[^284]:Shaw and Shaw, History, ii, 320.

Thus, on the signing of the Armistice, the French occupied parts of southern and south-eastern Turkey, while in February 1919, their troops entered Istanbul as mentioned above. On 29 April, Italian troops landed at Antalya. The British held the Dardanelles and other places of strategic importance. Plans had been made to set up a Kurdish state in eastern Anatolia. And the Armenians prepared to set up an Armenian state in the northeast of the country. While the Greeks of the Black Sea region aimed to resurrect the Greek state of Pontus. Indeed, the ultimate aim of Venizelos and many Greeks was to recreate a Greater Byzantine Empire based on Istanbul_the ancient capital of Constantinople. And when on 15 May 1919 the Greek Army landed at Izmir with the assistance of French, British, and American warships, it provided the spark that ignited the Muslim inhabitants of Anatolia to resist the invaders [^285] and finally after more than two years of struggle and war to rid their country of all aggressors.

[^285]:B. Lewis, Emergence, 241-2.

But there was no united front in the face of the occupation. While the