Why did the Italian army left weapons when they withdrew from Anatolia ?

by _-Imperator-_

After WW1 Italians withdrew from Anatolia because of internal reasons but why they left weapons which were later ceased from the revolutionaries ?

Klesk_vs_Xaero

If I am reading your question correctly; what you are asking is why weapons previously in possession of the Italian military during their occupation of the southern portion of the Turkish coast subsequently fell into the hands of the Kemalist forces.

There is a reason for that, and it's not accidental.

Italy needed to leave - for the most part due to considerations of internal order - or better, could not commit anywhere close to the necessary forces to maintain a substantial occupation, especially against hostile local movement (keep in mind that, at the time, Italy was having substantial problems holding onto the coastal region of Albania). At the same time the Italian Foreign Office didn't wish to abandon its Eastern Mediterranean policy entirely, especially given the fact that some of those pieces could be used to strengthen the Italian position in Her difficult relations with Greece and Yugoslavia - let alone those with France and Great Britain.

The first conceit of some form of informal agreement with the Turkish nationalists - within the Italian diplomacy - came probably with the arrival of the (fairly diminutive) Italian mission to Constantinople, led by Count Carlo Sforza. The young diplomat, appointed Italian plenipotentiary in Constantinople, reached the city, traveling from Corfu, along the same course of British plenipotentiary Admiral Calthorpe, on November 13^th 1918, from where he was soon able to report how "the relations between the British and French plenipotentiary [Admiral Leviet] are extremely cold".

From there, Sforza was also tasked with the fairly difficult job of compelling the Ottomans to respect the armistice terms in Tripolitania, where sporadic hostile acts against the Italian occupation had continued after the armistice.

As then Foreign Minister S. Sonnino seemed to realize, the Italian diplomacy needed to adjust to the mutated circumstances of Wilson's new principles, as well as to the American presence within the Mediterranean.

After the American intervention – he wrote to C. Sforza, in Constantinople, on January 26^th 1919 – a substantial alteration of the application of international interests to Asian Turkey by the Mediterranean powers has occurred. It is no longer a matter of annexation or administration zones, but of assistance, along the lines of a territorial subdivision […] in favor of the local populaces, who must be free to choose their national government.

To better harmonize their interests to Wilson's principles, it's foreseeable that France and Great Britain will provoke, at the most convenient time, addresses and petitions from notables, communities, tribes, city councils and other institutions in favor of their respective assistance in the regions to be awarded. […]

In account of this, a threat exists to the Italian aspirations, connected as they are to our vital need for balance within the Eastern Mediterranean. Italy's more or less overt competitors will be able to contrast our revendications, by artfully appealing to Wilson's principles, the fact that no population of Asian Turkey shows to any degree favorable to the Italian assistance, nor asks for it. Urgent action is needed.

Given that Sonnino provided Sforza with neither the funds nor practical means, nor with an actual suitable direction to make the populations of Turkey more amenable to the Italian presence, both increased Sforza's inclination for taking matters into his own hands. We indeed know that, at some point, he must have opened some indirect contact with the Kemalists, since his replacement there, Felice Maissa, informed the new Italian Foreign Minister, Tommaso Tittoni, of the recent developments in a rather matter of fact fashion (Maissa to Tittoni – September 3^rd 1919)

I believe I found a sure way for relations with the aforementioned person [Kemal]. In the meantime I sent him, verbally and on my personal account, Your Excellence's message.

The Italian policy in Asia Minor especially continued to be of special interest for Sforza (the former High Commissary appeared to pursue a different direction from the one set by the Foreign Office), who insisted from Rome (September 10^th 1919 – Sforza to gen. Elia, Commander of the Italian expedition corp in the Eastern Mediterranean) that “the observance of the agreements stipulated in Paris” (both the secret Tittoni-Venizelos protocols and the inter-Allied agreements which subordinated the Italian forces to the British command of gen. Milne)

must be reconciled with the immediate necessities of our policy in Anatolia, among which first and foremost there is the need to avoid any armed conflict between our troops and the Turks, outside of causes of public order within our military occupation regions. For this reason you may, where necessary, decide for a change in the deployment of our troops, and even for a diminution of the strength of Konia's battalion […] in the delicate matter of possible conflicts between our troops and the Turks […] Gen. Milne can't ask from our troops, even if they are under his command, an action which goes manifestly against our political goals.

And to further illustrate his point, while explaining the choice to establish a “political bureau” in Constantinople, under the supervision of Count Carlo Senni, remarked how he had personally “reassured the Turks that we can and intend to exert in Anatolia an influence in their favor, as well as our own, without the intervention of military force”.

Of course, by then, Italy had executed a series of landings - mostly during April 1919 - upon direct instruction from former Foreign Minister Sonnino, thus establishing a somewhat modest military presence within the region of Adalia.

This kind of "aspirational" imperialism didn't sit too well with new Prime Minister F.S. Nitti, who could see very clearly the immense weight of military expenditure on the Italian Treasury.