The Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros, ending its participation in World War I and granting the Allies broad rights of occupation and control over strategic points and the Straits—conditions that set the stage for occupation and the nationalist resistance.
Allied forces began occupying Istanbul in the wake of Mudros, establishing a long occupation that undermined the Ottoman government’s authority and intensified the sovereignty crisis later resolved by Ankara’s institutions.
Allied authorities tightened control over Istanbul and dissolved the Ottoman parliament (Ottoman Chamber of Deputies), accelerating the shift of political legitimacy to the nationalist movement centered in Anatolia.
The Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) convened in Ankara, providing an alternative sovereign authority to the Ottoman government in occupied Istanbul and becoming the core institution driving the dismantling of Ottoman-era governance.
Ottoman government representatives signed the unratified Treaty of Sèvres, proposing sweeping territorial losses and international controls; nationalist rejection of Sèvres made institutional rupture with the Istanbul government more urgent.
The Armistice of Mudanya ended fighting between the Ankara government and the Allied powers’ Greek-backed front, paving the way for peace negotiations at Lausanne and strengthening the Assembly’s claim to exclusive representation.
The TBMM voted to abolish the Ottoman Sultanate, ending the monarchy as a governing institution and severing the legal basis of the Istanbul government—an essential step toward negotiating as a new sovereign state.
After the Sultanate’s abolition, Mehmed VI (Vahdettin), the last Ottoman sultan, departed Istanbul aboard a British warship, removing the deposed monarch from Turkey and symbolically closing the imperial chapter.
To manage religious legitimacy while stripping monarchical power, the TBMM elected Abdülmecid II as caliph, formally separating caliphal symbolism from the abolished sultanate and placing the office under the new regime’s control.
Turkey and the Allied powers signed the Treaty of Lausanne, establishing international recognition of the modern Turkish state’s borders and sovereignty and replacing the framework of Sèvres.
Allied troops evacuated Istanbul, ending the postwar military occupation and enabling full practical control of the former imperial capital by the new Turkish state.
The TBMM proclaimed the Republic of Turkey, formalizing the new regime’s constitutional form and completing the political transition away from imperial sovereignty.
The TBMM abolished the Caliphate and ordered the removal of the Ottoman dynasty from Turkey, eliminating the last Ottoman-era apex institution that could rival the republic’s authority.
By Law No. 429, the Ministry of Sharia and the Foundations (Şer’iye ve Evkaf Vekâleti) was abolished, and its functions were reorganized—an institutional break that reduced formal religious authority within cabinet government.
The Directorate/Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) was established to administer religious services under state supervision, replacing Ottoman religious governance mechanisms with a republican bureaucratic structure.
The Law on the Unification of Education (Tevhid-i Tedrisat) centralized schooling under the Ministry of National Education, curtailing independent religious schooling structures and advancing a unified state education system.
The TBMM created the “150 personae non gratae” list, targeting prominent Ottoman-era elites for exclusion from the republic—an administrative mechanism reinforcing the political break with imperial networks.
Abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate and Caliphate and institutional dismantling in Turkey (1918–1924)
