THE AMERICAN BOARD MISSIONARIES AND THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE PROCESSES

Abstract

This study aims to deal with and analyse how the American Board missionaries viewed both the process leading to the Lausanne Conference and the Treaty of Lausanne through the Missionary Herald, the journal of the American Board and to cast a light upon the views of America and the missionaries towards the new Ankara government within the framework of the Treaty of Lausanne. Thus, it is intended to show on which basis America built its relations with the newly established Turkish state after the collapse of the Ottoman State, and on which principles of this relationship are founded. In line with this purpose, the process leading to the Treaty of Lausanne and the Lausanne Treaty has been chosen as an example. In other words, case study analysis, one of the qualitative research patterns, was used to understand and evaluate the relations between the United States and the newly established Turkish state, and the study was mainly based on the information given by the American Board missionaries regarding the Lausanne Treaty. The data obtained were analysed through the descriptive analysis method, which allows the data to be summarised and interpreted within the framework of predetermined themes and to examine the cause-effect relationship in the quotations. As a result of the Treaty of Lausanne, missionary organisations were now completely subjected to Turkish law and lost their foreignness and privileges. For the American Board missionaries in Turkey, the behaviour of the American government officials that led to all these developments were considered "tragic mistakes that could not be corrected". Despite this view, the treaty made it possible to make more precise plans for the continuation of missionary initiatives in Turkey. The rights and privileges expected in the work to be carried out were finalised with this treaty.