The Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne was an agreement between France, Italy and Great Britain, which emanated from a conference in a railway car at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne on 19 April 1917 and signed by the allies between 18 August and 26 September 1917. The 19 April meeting was attended by British and French Prime Ministers,

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...

Alexandre Ribot Alexandre-Félix-Joseph Ribot (; 7 February 184213 January 1923) was a French politician, four times Prime Minister. Early career Ribot was born in Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais. After a brilliant academic career at the University of Paris, where h ...

, and the Italian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister,

Paolo Boselli Paolo Boselli (8 June 1838 – 10 March 1932) was an Italian politician who served as the 34th prime minister of Italy during World War I. Biography Boselli was born in Savona, Liguria. Boselli was the first professor of science at the Univ ...

and

Sidney Sonnino Sidney Costantino, Baron Sonnino (11 March 1847 – 24 November 1922) was an Italian statesman, 19th prime minister of Italy and twice served briefly as one, in 1906 and again from 1909 to 1910. In 1901, he founded a new major newspaper, '' Il Gio ...

. It was intended as a tentative agreement to settle the Italian

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

ern interest - specifically article 9 of the

Treaty of London (1915) The Treaty of London ( it, Trattato di Londra) or the Pact of London () was a secret agreement concluded on 26 April 1915 by the United Kingdom, France, and Russia on the one part, and Italy on the other, in order to entice the latter to enter ...

. The agreement was needed by the allies to secure the position of Italian forces in the Middle East. The goal was to balance the military power drops at the

Middle Eastern theatre of World War I The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I saw action between 29 October 1914 and 30 October 1918. The combatants were, on one side, the Ottoman Empire (including the majority of Kurdish tribes, a relative majority of Arabs, and Caucasian ''T ...

as Russian (Tsarist) forces were pulling out of the

Caucasus Campaign The Caucasus campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, later including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, the German Empire, the Central Caspian Dict ...

, even though they were replaced with what would be named as

Democratic Republic of Armenia The First Republic of Armenia, officially known at the time of its existence as the Republic of Armenia ( hy, Հայաստանի Հանրապետութիւն), was the first modern Armenian state since the loss of Armenian statehood in the Middle ...

n forces.

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

was not represented in this agreement as the

Tsarist regime The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The ...

was in a state of collapse (''see''

Russian Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

). However, the lack of Russian consent to the Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne agreement was used by the British at the 1919 Paris Peace conference to invalidate it, a position that greatly incensed the Italian government.

Background

The representatives of Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy met in London in 1915 to sign an agreement providing for Italy’s entrance to the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Italy’s part in the Middle East was left unsettled; the agreement stated that if the Ottoman Empire was partitioned, Italy should receive a "just share" in the Antalya district. The borders of this occupation were to be decided at a later time.

19 April meeting

British War Cabinet note regarding the Agreement of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne

The 19 April meeting discussed the concept of Italian influence after the war. It was clear to the Italians that the area allotted to them may not be easily given up by the Turkish Empire, such that the British Prime Minister proposed a vague formula for post-war adjustment should the actual post-war allocation not appear to be balanced. The minutes of the meeting are below:

M. Ribot made objections regarding assignment of Mersina and Adana to Italy, but admitted facilities should be granted to commerce of the Interior in the direction of Mersina as in the case of Alexandretta and Haifa. The Italian zone will commence at a point to be determined west of Mersina. Baron Sonnino asked for the inclusion in Italian zone of occupation of everything which so figures on Mr. Balfour's map. He asked, besides, that the northern part of the vilayet of Smyrna be also included. Mr. Lloyd George and M. Ribot undertake to submit this claim to their Governments. It was agreed that the interests of the other Powers already established in the different zones shall he scrupulously respected, but that the Powers concerned in these interests shall not make use of them as a means of political action. An exchange of views took place as to the situation which might result for the Allied Powers at the moment of peace with respect to the Ottoman Empire. After the discussion. Mr Lloyd George made the following proposal. which was accepted: — :It is agreed that if, at the time when peace is made, the total or partial possession of territories contemplated in the agreements concluded between France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia as regards attribution to them of a part of the Ottoman Empire, could not be granted entirely to one or several of the Powers in question, then the interests of those Powers would he taken afresh into equitable consideration In a general way. the Ministers undertook to recommend the above decisions to their Governments.

Subsequent discussions

The British and French governments added a number of conditions to the proposed Italian sphere of influence which had not been discussed between the prime ministers at the 19 April conference. The Italian Foreign Minister Sonnino protested that the Sykes Picot agreement did not include such conditions. These discussions continued until a series of discussions in early August and a final meeting of the prime ministers on 7 August. The full chronology of events in the summer of 1917 is not clear to historians.Helmreich, p.130

Application

Under its terms France would be allotted the

Adana Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million. Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, wh ...

region, while Italy would receive the remainder of southwestern Anatolia, including

İzmir İzmir ( , ; ), also spelled Izmir, is a metropolitan city in the western extremity of Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name. It is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara and the second largest urban aggl ...

(Smyrna). In 1919, the Greek prime minister, Eleuthérios Venizélos, by obtaining the permission of the Paris Peace Conference for Greece to occupy İzmir, overrode the provisions of the agreement despite Italian opposition.

Background

19 April meeting

Subsequent discussions

Application

Notes

Further reading