Great Britain's policy aims after World War I towards the defeated Ottoman Empire markedly included that wherever Armenians, Kurds, Greeks and Arabs constituted a majority Turkish rule must cease, and that the Turkish Capital and the Straits must be taken from Turkish control to secure a free road to her far-flung dominions in Asia, India in particular*1. Combined with the British desire to end the continuance of Turkish power as an effective administration in any part of Europe, David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of the British coalition govemment, followed a policy for the expulsion of the Turks from Constantinople, even though there was a great degree of opposition within his own cabinet.

After the First World War, the victorious Allied powers were unable to dispose of the Turkish question despite months of deliberation. The rivalry of the Allİed powers, particularly of Great Britain and France, över the lands of the old Ottoman Empire, the Greek occupation of Smyma in May 1919 and the subsequent rise of the Nationalİst Movement in the interior under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal *1 which resisted the post-war Allied adjustments and defied the inability of the Ottoman govemment to save the country from foreign invasİon, ali combined to make such a treaty impossible for the Allies. When anti-Nationalist Damad Ferid Paşa, the Grand Vizier and the Sultan's son-in-law, was İn power on 5 April 1920 for the fourth time, the British were confident that the Ottoman government in Constantinople was önce again in their camp. In British eyes, Damad Ferid was perhaps more sincerely convinced than any other statesman of the first rank that Turkey's sole hope of salvatioıı lay in a good understanding with Great Britain. 2 Now, İt was time for the Allies to complete the Turkish treaty and force Damad Ferid to sign it. The Supreme council met at San Remo on 18 April with such a purpose in mind.