WWI & the Kurdish Question

The early 20th century saw Kurdish political activism briefly flourish before World War I brought devastation. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 opened space for Kurdish organizing, and Emin Ali Bedirxan co-founded the "Society for the Rise and Progress of Kurdistan," which opened Kurdish-language schools in Constantinople. However, rising Turkish nationalism soon shut these efforts down. During WWI, Kurdish lands became a battleground between Ottoman and Russian forces. The Hamidiye cavalry and some Kurdish irregular forces were tragically implicated in the Armenian Genocide of 1915 -- though many Kurds also sheltered Armenians at great personal risk. The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement secretly divided the region between Britain and France. After the Ottoman collapse, the Treaty of Sevres (August 10, 1920) promised an autonomous Kurdistan with a path to independence under Articles 62-64 -- the closest the Kurds have ever come to international recognition of statehood.