The Constantinople Agreement (also known as the Straits Agreement) was a secret exchange of diplomatic correspondence between members of the Triple Entente from 4 March to 10 April 1915 during World War I. France and Great Britain promised to give Constantinople and the Dardanelles, at the time part of the Ottoman Empire, to the Russian Empire in the event of victory.[1] Britain and France put forward their own claims, to an increased sphere of influence in Persia (now named Iran) for Britain, and to the annexation of Syria (including Palestine) and Cilicia for France, all sides also agreeing that the governance of the Holy Places and Arabia would be under independent Muslim rule.[2] The Greek government was neutral, but in 1915 it negotiated with the Allies, offering soldiers and especially a geographical launching point for attacks on the Turkish Straits. Greece itself wanted control of Constantinople. Russia vetoed the Greek proposal, because its own main war goal was to control the Straits, and take control of Constantinople.[3]
Though the Allied attempt to seize the area in the Gallipoli Campaign failed, Constantinople was nevertheless occupied by the victorious Allies at the end of the war in 1918. By that time, however, the Russian Revolution had brought about Russian withdrawal from the war, and as it was no longer one of the Allied Powers the agreement was not implemented. Its existence had been revealed by the Bolshevik government in 1917.
- ^ Cathal J. Nolan, ed. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations: A-E, (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), 350.
- ^ J. C. Hurewitz (1979). The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record. British-French supremacy, 1914-1945. 2. Yale University Press. pp. 16–21. ISBN 978-0-300-02203-2.
- ^ Hugh Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire, 1801-1917 (1967) pp 706-7.