CONSTANTINOPLE AGREEMENT

(March 18, 1915), secret World War I agreement between Russia, Britain, and France for the postwar partition of the Ottoman Empire. It promised to satisfy Russia's long-standing designs on the Turkish Straits by giving Russia Constantinople (Istanbul), together with a portion of the hinterland on either coast in Thrace and Asia Minor. Constantinople, however, was to be a free port. In return, Russia consented to British and French plans for territories or for spheres of influence in new Muslim states in the Middle Eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire. This first of a series of secret treaties on the Turkish question was never carried out because the Dardanelles campaign failed and because, when the British navy finally did reach Istanbul in 1918, Russia had become an enemy of the Allies.