Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire — Ottoman Empire from 1908 to its end in 1922
The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire ended over six centuries of rule and led directly to the founding of the modern Turkish state in 1922.
Key Facts
- Period of dissolution
- 1908–1922
- Sultanate abolished
- 1 November 1922
- Dynasty's rule began
- 1299
- Abolishing body
- Grand National Assembly of Turkey
- Key treaty
- Treaty of Sèvres
- Triggering event
- Young Turk Revolution of 1908
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 restored the Ottoman constitution and introduced multi-party politics, but subsequent military disasters in the Italo-Turkish War and the Balkan Wars, combined with ethnic cleansing campaigns and Ottoman defeat in World War I, fatally weakened the empire and set the stage for its collapse.
Between 1908 and 1922 the Ottoman Empire underwent a period of accelerating disintegration marked by military defeats, coups, genocides against Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek populations, and the partition of its territories under the Treaty of Sèvres. The occupation of Constantinople and Smyrna mobilized a Turkish national movement that fought and won the Turkish War of Independence, culminating in the Grand National Assembly's formal abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate on 1 November 1922.
The abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate ended a dynasty that had governed since 1299 and cleared the way for the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The Sultan was declared persona non grata, the Ottoman Caliphate was briefly retained before also being abolished, and the modern political map of the Middle East and Anatolia was fundamentally redrawn.