The Armistice of Mudros (Turkish: Mondros Mütarekesi) ended hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre between Ottoman Turkey and the Allies of World War I. It was signed on 30 October 1918 by the Ottoman Minister of Marine Affairs Rauf Bey and British Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe, Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet, on board HMS Agamemnon (1906) in Moudros harbor on the Greek island of Lemnos. It took effect at noon the next day. The table it was signed on is now on board HMS Belfast in London Bridge, though it is not accessible to the public.
Among its conditions, the Ottomans surrendered their remaining garrisons outside Anatolia, and granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus and any Ottoman territory "in case of disorder" threatening their security. The Ottoman Army (including the Ottoman Air Force) was demobilized; and all ports, railways and other strategic points were made available for use by the Allies. In the Caucasus, the Ottomans had to retreat to within the pre-war borders between the Ottoman and the Russian Empires.
The armistice was followed by the occupation of Istanbul and the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920), which was signed in the aftermath of World War I, imposed harsh terms on the Ottoman Empire, but it was never ratified by the Ottoman Parliament in Istanbul. The Ottoman Parliament was officially disbanded by the Allies on 11 April 1920 due to the overwhelming opposition of the Ottoman MPs to the provisions discussed in Sèvres. This was followed by the Turkish War of Independence which continued until 1923. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey, established in Ankara on 23 April 1920 by Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his followers (including former MPs of the closed Ottoman Parliament), became the new de facto government of Turkey. The Armistice of Mudros was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne, signed on 24 July 1923, following the Turkish victory in the War of Independence.
Background
took a chaotic turn in 1918 for the . With Yudenich's Russian Caucasus Army deserting after the collapse of the , the Ottomans regained ground in Armenia and even pushed into formerly Russian-controlled Caucasus with, at first, Vehip Pasha's Ottoman 3rd Army and, later beginning in June 1918, with Nuri Pasha's Army of Islam which excluded German officers and men. The Caucasus Campaign put the Ottomans at odds with their ally, Germany, which had been hoping to purchase Caucasus oil from the Bolshevik government in Moscow, while the Ottomans wanted to establish their eastern borders. The Ottoman armies advanced far into Caucasus, gathering supporters as far away as Tashkent, on the eastern side of the Caspian Sea. Additionally, with the Bolsheviks in power in Moscow, chaos spread in Persia, as the Russo-British favoring government of Ahmad Shah Qajar lost authority outside of the capital. In contrast, in Syria, the Ottomans were steadily pushed back by British forces, culminating in the fall of Damascus in October 1918. Hopes were initially high for the Ottomans that their losses in Syria might be compensated with successes in the Caucasus. Enver Pasha, one of the most influential members of the Ottoman government, maintained an optimistic stance, hid information that made the Ottoman position appear weak, and led most of the Ottoman elite to believe that the war was still winnable.
