During that time Anwar, who dominated the state, was attempting to rally the remaining troops which had emerged victorious from the many battles they had fought, and to give orders to these troops to return to the capital immediately to face the enemy. But people around him thought that the hour had already passed. Even those who had supported him in the past refused to go along with him and follow his policy. Hence, he was forced to surrender and call for a truce. Thus the Allies accepted and he signed the truce treaty. All that was left was for the negotiations over the terms of the truce. The Ottoman State capitulated and the Allies occupied her.

However, the surrender and this occupation of the State by the Allies did not mean a surrender to the Allies which entailed that the State had become a colony of theirs or one of their properties. Nor did it mean that their occupation was permanent, for this was a war between two states, one would vanquish the other, thus the victor would dictate the terms of peace upon the loser, and the defeated state would remain a state as an entity with domestic and foreign sovereignty. This is on the one hand, while on the other hand the surrender was not a surrender by the state of Turkey, but a surrender by the Khaleefah of the Muslims, or according to their own terms a surrender by the Ottoman Empire. Hence the defeated state was the Khilafah, and not the state of Turkey. Therefore, the international measures by the Allies, in their capacity as victors, and by the Ottoman State, in her capacity as the loser, were duly measures related to the Ottoman State, in other words related to everyone who lived under the banner of the Khilafah, or pledged their allegiance to her.

However, since the British aim was to dismember the Ottoman State in her quality as an Islamic State and to abolish the Khilafah, they trod the path that led to this and they proceeded in their dealings with the vanquished Ottoman State in a manner different to that proceeded with the vanquished Germany, despite the fact that the two states had fought alongside each other. Indeed the Allied victory over the Ottoman State was similar to their victory over Germany; thus the two states should have been treated equally. However, the British treated Germany as a vanquished state according to international law and what it stipulated in the event of a war coming to an end between two states, with one emerging as the victor and the other the loser. As for the Ottoman State, she was treated differently.

For as soon as the war ended she was dismembered into pieces, most of which the British occupied and divided into parts according to the plan that had been devised during the war. They also started to avoid their Allies in order to gain the lion’s share in the lands of the vanquished Ottoman State. Then they concentrated their efforts on the Khilafah’s centre in order to adopt the most appropriate styles to ensure its abolition.

As for the process of dismemberment, the seeds of nationalist tendencies and patriotic chauvinism implanted earlier by the British had by then come to fruition. Thus it was the right time for them to use them as a basis for the process of dismemberment, and they effectively began to do so.

Accordingly, they turned the lands inhabited by Turkish speaking Muslims into one single entity and started to use their direct rule and overwhelming influence to flare up Turkish nationalist tendencies. They tried to evoke the idea of Turkey’s independence, meaning her separation from the rest of the Islamic State, or according to them the Ottoman Empire, while defining the word independence with the meaning of getting rid of the Allied occupation. This was despite the fact that the practical reality they were actually pushing people towards was the independence from all the other parts of the State, namely a complete separation. They also broke the lands inhabited by Arabic speaking Muslims into several pieces.

Although the British had occupied most of them, they did not keep them as one entity. They rather turned those lands into several entities according to the maps they had drawn for them during the war.

Hence they physically carried out the dismemberment of the conquered State and turned her into several states before holding with her a peace treaty, and before even agreeing with her the terms of peace. For no sooner had they occupied the lands than they divided them into several countries and started ruling them as if they were several states which they had just occupied. This was in violation of international law and contradictory to international conventions, because the occupation by the victorious state in the war of the land of the vanquished state is not sufficient to determine the fate of the occupied state or the occupied territories; what determines this is rather the peace treaty, even if the terms of the treaty were dictated and imposed. The nearest example to this is the fact that although Berlin was occupied for over forty years, her fate was not determined by its occupation but by the peace treaty and the Allies’ agreement upon it.

Therefore, by dividing the Ottoman state soon after occupying her lands and soon after she was defeated in the war, Britain committed an invalid act which violated international law. For she undertook that action unilaterally before agreeing terms with the Allies and before signing the peace treaty or agreeing on the terms of peace and not even before the Allies could dictate the terms, assuming that this dictation would have been valid.

In fact, these countries were all part of the state, for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, East Jordan, Hijaz and Yemen were all under the banner of the Ottoman state and part of her Wilayas. They had no entity, be it one of self-rule or a state, and none of them had any independent sovereignty, be it domestic or foreign. Therefore, none of her inhabitants had a mandate to conduct any international negotiations. Any international act undertaken by any person from these Wilayas with any state would be invalid and could not be recognised and would have no consideration whatsoever. Even Egypt which was under British domination and a British mandate, was considered part of the Ottoman state. When her people, the Egyptian people, were calling for the exit of the British, they were calling for the return of their country under the banner of the Islamic state, the Ottoman state, so that they become once again under the rule of the Khaleefah of the Muslims. Mustafa Kamal called for the evacuation of the British and for the return of Egypt as part of the Khilafah in Istanbul.

As for the concentration of their efforts on the centre of the Khilafah in order to adopt the styles which would lead to its abolition, the British had, in addition to their manoeuvring against their Allies and in addition to their efforts in the lands they had occupied, focused all their attention on Turkey in particular, and more specifically on the centre of the Khilafah.

Therefore, soon after the declaration of the truce, British warships rushed to seize the Bosphorous and their troops occupied the capital and all the fortresses of the Dardanelles, as well as all the sensitive military areas throughout Turkey. Meanwhile, the French troops occupied Antep, while the Italian troops occupied Bira and the railway lines. The British commander, Harrington was appointed as the Allies General Commander in Turkey.

Therefore, it was the British troops who effectively occupied Turkey and assumed their hegemony over her. France and Italy’s occupation was merely nominal and merely to confirm their presence. Hence, contact between the vanquished state, pertaining to the domestic matters of Turkey, and the Allies meant in fact contact with the British. Thus the British managed to play their role in Turkey single-handedly and their Allies had no role and no effect on the Turkish domestic matters.

They also embarked upon a host of political manoeuvres in order to control the Khilafah State, or the Ottoman Empire according to them, since the truce was declared. They focused their political game on Turkey in particular in order to overthrow the government and destroy the Khilafah.

To this end, the British set about attempting to plunge the State into political crisis the moment the truce was declared. They accepted from the Ottoman State the truce and they signed its treaty with Tal’at and Anwar, but when they were asked to hold negotiations aimed at agreeing on the terms, they declared that they were not prepared to negotiate with Tal’at and Anwar because they were the ones who had been chiefly responsible for the Ottoman State’s entry into the war. Thus they demanded the forming of a new government.

The telegram that Mustafa Kemal had sent from Aleppo and in which he recommended that Marshal Izzet Pasha should assume the Prime Minister’s post arrived at that time. Hence, Izzet Pasha formed the government and he sent his special telegram to Mustafa Kemal in which he wrote : “I hope that we could meet as friends once the terms of the truce have been concluded.” It is worth noting that for this to happen from Mustafa Kemal and from the Allies simultaneously and on the same subject, could be interpreted as sheer coincidence. However, the events which followed proved that the possibility of coincidence was very remote.

Nevertheless, Izzet Pasha started the negotiations in order to conclude the peace terms. The prevalent opinion was that if a speedy unilateral peace treaty was signed, the country could avoid the stalemate in which she found herself without suffering heavy losses. Some people thought well of the British and believed that they would help them and be satisfied with the Ottoman State’s exit from the war and her remaining a neutral State. Thus they attempted to halt the advance of the Allies and prevent them from occupying the Dardanelles. They sought the mediation of Townsend, the British General who had been imprisoned in Kut-Al- Imara, in order to persuade Colthorpe, the Admiral of the British fleet who had just entered the harbour of Modres at the entrance of the Dardanelles, to halt his advance until they had conducted their negotiations with the Allies. He rejected their plea and they were forced to surrender after they had lost all hope with the British.