Sazonov–Paléologue Agreement

The Sazonov–Paléologue Agreement was a 26 April 1916 letter from Russian Foreign minister Sergey Sazonov to French ambassador to Russia Maurice Paléologue regarding Western Armenia and the Anglo-French Sykes–Picot Agreement. The agreement for Russian influence over Western Armenia was given in return for Russian assent to the Sykes-Picot arrangement.^[1][2] The agreement took place on the first anniversary of the Treaty of London.^[3]

Extract from a January 1919 British Foreign Office memorandum summarizing the wartime agreements regarding the Ottoman Empire - the Sazonov–Paléologue Agreement area ceded to Russia is in yellow.

The treaties as summarized in 1923 by Ray Stannard Baker, who was Woodrow Wilson’s press secretary during the Paris Peace Conference.

Western Armenia under Russian occupation in the summer of 1916

Russia was allocated the vilayets of Erzurum, Trebizond, Bitlis and Van;^[3] much of which was under Russian occupation at the time.^[3]

Bibliography

• The Allies and Armenia, 1915-18, Richard G. Hovannisian, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan., 1968), pp. 145-168

References

1. Spencer Tucker (2005). World War I: Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 1142–. ISBN 978-1-85109-420-2.
2. The Armenian Review. Hairenik Association. 1956. The Sazonov-Paleologue agreement of April 26, 1916 between Great Britain and France and the Sykes–Picot agreement of May 16, 1916 between Great Britain and France which together made up the Anglo-Franco-Russian accord of 1916...
3. Edward Mead Earle (1923). Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway: A Study in Imperialism. Macmillan. p. 292. Accordingly, on April 26, 1916 the first anniversary of the Treaty of London with Italy France and Russia signed the secret Sazonov-Paleologue Treaty concerning their respective territorial rights in Asiatic Turkey. Russia was awarded full sovereignty over the vilayets of Trebizond, Erzerum, Bitlis, and Van a vast area of 60,000 square miles (about one and one-fifth times the size of the State of New York), containing valuable mineral and petroleum resources. This handsome prize put Russia well on the road to Constantinople and in a fair way to turn the Black Sea into a Russian lake. And at the moment the treaty was signed the armies of the Grand Duke Nicholas were actually overrunning the territory which Russia had staked out for herself