Jay Winter: The Day the Great War ended, 24 July 1923

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Historians have now agreed that 11 November 1918 was not the end of the Great War. War continued to rage for four more years throughout Eastern Europe and Asia Minor. The day the Great War finally came to an end was 24 July 1923. On the shores of Lake Geneva, Turkey and her former enemies signed the Treaty of Lausanne, ending the state of hostilities that had continued since 1914.

This lecture frames that story in terms of a new and disturbing phenomenon – the civilianization of war. During the Great War and in its aftermath, war mutated. The distinction between military and civilian targets was erased progressively, and non-combatants became the chief victims of war. Until then, wars ended with an exchange of prisoners of war. Lausanne was the first peace treaty which required a compulsory exchange of civilian populations. Over one million Greek-Orthodox men and women lost their right to live in Turkey, and half that number of Muslims were deported forcibly from Greece. In the Treaty of Lausanne, the right to citizenship was defined by religion, and religion alone. There, on the shores of Lake Geneva, ethnic cleansing entered into international law.