In the wake of the Moudros Armistice, the city of Constantinople was occupied by an Allied force of up to 100.000 men by February 1919. The French, British, Italian and Greek troops had to ensure the demilitarization of the Constantinople region, as stipulated by the Treaty of Sèvres. In the context of the Russian Civil War and allied support to the anti-Bolshevik forces, the Ottoman capital became both the rear base for all military reinforcements directed towards Ukraine, Russia and the Caucasus. Allied vessels maintained a link to Odessa, Sevastopol, Novorossiysk and Batumi as much for material as for communications in all the Black Sea region. This situation made Constantinople one of the most reliable decision-making and deliberation centers for allies intervening in the Russian Civil War.
Constantinople was also the place where the many ebbs and flows of the intervention converged. From the Allied re-embarkation in Odessa in 1918, to the evacuation of Novorossiysk in March 1920, large numbers of refugees were fleeing the Russian Civil War. This culminated with the final collapse of Wrangel's armies and the invasion of Crimea by the Red Army. 150.000 refugees were evacuated across the Black Sea by a Franco-Russian fleet. Once in Constantinople they were helped by several humanitarian organizations and by the French forces. In addition to these refugees, the Allied forces saw thousands of Russian prisoners of war converge on them, captured by the Ottomans and Bulgarians during the Great War.
The presence of the Allied authorities in Constantinople attracted a whole series of political and diplomatic actors involved in the territorial reconfiguration of the Russian and post-Ottoman peripheries. The young Ukrainian republic had already established a diplomatic mission in Constantinople, following its participation in the Brest-Litovsk negotiations in 1918. Led by Oleksander Lototsky, the Ukrainian diplomats were charged with defending the Ukrainian cause before the Allied High Commissioners in Constantinople. Without even going so far as to obtain recognition of the young State, these approaches focused on a series of very concrete issues: negotiating for POWs repatriations to Ukraine, assistance to refugees, purchase of medical equipment, etc. These discussions on humanitarian issues reflected a dual concern. Ukrainian diplomats believed that former POWs could provide valuable reinforcements for the young republic's forces. But on the other hand, taking a stand on humanitarian issues and interacting with allied diplomats on these various problems was a way of demonstrating sovereignty. The aim of this article is to describe the complex interactions between the Ukrainian diplomats and the Allies over these humanitarian challenges. We will show how this Ukrainian mission was part of a wider regional and European humanitarian crisis in the management of refugees and prisoners of war from the former Russian Empire.