Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles

[Lascaris]

Let's just rewind back from all your assumptions here, regardless if they have a valid basis or not, and consider the bigger picture here, that is the bare minimum Greece could gain from Turkey in this war, that being the Biga/Troy region, which would otherwise remain an enclave territory of Turkey, completely cut off by land, because there's no way in hell Greece is going to ever concede any of its prewar sovereignty to Turkey, or that any of the winning powers would ever suggest something along those lines, apart from the USSR and even they would not dare to press the issue, and given that the only reason that the Biga/Troy area remained as part of Turkey after '22 was Venizelos unwillingness to pressure the British to withdraw from the Channel Zone, if anything it suited him to leave this area aside for later, to remain as a useless enclave, to be annexed in a future war later down the line and instead demand the biggest area possible from Turkey instead, after winning in 1922.

The wargamer in me would had liked the Greek border not to extend north to Propontis and go further east to make it more defensible instead but I expect Venizelos would had based his final claims in 1922 upon his claims in the 1919 peace conference. Which from an economic and population point of view would make sense. That said I would not assume Greece gets the region by default. If it does it controls both ends of the straits. Britain may like this. The Soviet Union will definitely not.

That and Constantinople, as half of its population remains Christian, Greeks and Armenians alike.

The Greeks would likely have a fair chance to win a plebiscite on the European side. Of course again great power politics make things interesting...

Those two areas aside, Lascaris had disclosed way earlier in the TL that a contested part of Caria would became Greek post WWII, so there's that.

The area was often considered together with Dodecanese and the Greeks are getting Dodecanese. They likely have a good propaganda claim on at least part of Caria what with Miletus and Halicarnassus being there and only Turkey would be caring... unless someone points the Soviets to Marmaris and the former Italian naval base there, modern Aksaz?

On top of those three, add Rhodes from Italy, thats currently occupied and its populated in its vast majority by Greek people

Rhodes is the one thing the Greeks are getting for certain "blessed the holding the land" and all that.

and you can see that the only thing actually contested with Turkey post war in the negotiations would be the Opsimakon theme. Not remotely enough to bring the Turks to the USSR sphere of influence on it's own, even if the Turks get to preserve it. So, it might be safe to assume that the Soviets, aware that they don't have much that they could realistically offer to defeated Turkey to bring them onto their sphere of influence, just go for maximum gains from Turkey instead, which the Allies would not oppose, and keep those areas under their direct control to incentivize the Turkish people to side with the communist faction during a future Turkish civil war.

One problem is... what communist faction? The Turkish communist party was pretty much on the fringes of society...

 

[Serpent]

The wargamer in me would had liked the Greek border not to extend north to Propontis and go further east to make it more defensible instead but I expect Venizelos would had based his final claims in 1922 upon his claims in the 1919 peace conference. Which from an economic and population point of view would make sense. That said I would not assume Greece gets the region by default. If it does it controls both ends of the straits. Britain may like this. The Soviet Union will definitely not.

I mean, compared to the rest of the claims on Anatolia, easily the least hard fought to pressure Turkey to acquiesce, due to their lack of territorial continuity with it, but not the easiest for Greece to acquire admittedly. Then again, even a neutral rump state like the e.g. Free City of Danzig would propably be closer to the Soviet interests to ensure free and unrestricted access to the Bosporus channel at the very least, than agreeing leave it to Turkey, because if a civil war takes place in the future, which is a very likely scenario, especially if the Soviets want to cement their influence over Turkey, then not only it would be a lost cause, they could never hope to occupy it, being completely cut off from Turkey as it is, and on top of that it would serve as a impregnable permanent base for the enemy western aligned Turkish side, which even though it would be dwarfed if the Turkish soviet aligned side wins the civil war, it would sorta be like an ATL ROC/Taiwan like state, denying the legitimacy of the Turkish state, acting as a constant thorn to the Soviet efforts there.

The Greeks would likely have a fair chance to win a plebiscite on the European side. Of course again great power politics make things interesting...

The area was often considered together with Dodecanese and the Greeks are getting Dodecanese. They likely have a good propaganda claim on at least part of Caria what with Miletus and Halicarnassus being there and only Turkey would be caring... unless someone points the Soviets to Marmaris and the former Italian naval base there, modern Aksaz?


Rhodes is the one thing the Greeks are getting for certain "blessed the holding the land" and all that.

One problem is... what communist faction? The Turkish communist party was pretty much on the fringes of society...

As for the communist faction, propably shouldn't had call it that, more likely it is a Kemalist/leftist/secularist faction that is aligned with the Soviets, fighting out against a Islamist-Conservative faction, maybe with a sizable wing that favors the restoration of the Ottoman Sultan, after all the Kemalists have brought about x5 the territorial losses that the old Sultan was deposed for, in '23 and '45 again they could claim. That's more alike to the Turkish political landscape.

That being said, if the Kemalist side survives at the very least a future civil war, whether Turkey is divided or united post civil war, I could see the ruling ITTL Kemalist party being severely influenced by the Soviet Union, after being brought in its sphere of influence, (the ITTL version of the Warsaw Pact), just like their IRL counterparts in the GDR. Given time, some decades to be precise, that would swift the ITTL Kemalist party's ideology to be more akin to the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy (as in dogmatically speaking, not religious wise).

 

[Quinkana]

I mean, compared to the rest of the claims on Anatolia, easily the least hard fought to pressure Turkey to acquiesce, due to their lack of territorial continuity with it, but not the easiest for Greece to acquire admittedly. Then again, even a neutral rump state like the e.g. Free City of Danzig would propably be closer to the Soviet interests to ensure free and unrestricted access to the Bosporus channel at the very least, than agreeing leave it to Turkey, because if a civil war takes place in the future, which is a very likely scenario, especially if the Soviets want to cement their influence over Turkey, then not only it would be a lost cause, they could never hope to occupy it, being completely cut off from Turkey as it is, and on top of that it would serve as a impregnable permanent base for the enemy western aligned Turkish side, which even though it would be dwarfed if the Turkish soviet aligned side wins the civil war, it would sorta be like an ATL ROC/Taiwan like state, denying the legitimacy of the Turkish state, acting as a constant thorn to the Soviet efforts there.

I think Constantinople and bithnyia would become Greek really but the Soviets would exact some consessions out of Greece so the USSR's navy can get out of the black sea.

That being said, if the Kemalist side survives at the very least a future civil war, whether Turkey is divided or united post civil war, I could see the ruling ITTL Kemalist party being severely influenced by the Soviet Union, after being brought in its sphere of influence, (the ITTL version of the Warsaw Pact), just like their IRL counterparts in the GDR. Given time, some decades to be precise, that would swift the ITTL Kemalist party's ideology to be more akin to the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy (as in dogmatically speaking, not religious wise).

Id think even if the original kemalists get banned they'd rebrand themselves as neo kemalists and become more socialist/communist. And probably cause famines/droughts and kill an enormous amount of Turks then blame it on the Greeks.

 

[Whiteshore]

That being said, if the Kemalist side survives at the very least a future civil war, whether Turkey is divided or united post civil war, I could see the ruling ITTL Kemalist party being severely influenced by the Soviet Union, after being brought in its sphere of influence, (the ITTL version of the Warsaw Pact), just like their IRL counterparts in the GDR. Given time, some decades to be precise, that would swift the ITTL Kemalist party's ideology to be more akin to the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy (as in dogmatically speaking, not religious wise).

On that note, what do you see West/"Free" Turkey looking like in a scenario where Turkey is divided in two during the Cold War?

 

[Quinkana]

On that note, what do you see West/"Free" Turkey looking like in a scenario where Turkey is divided in two during the Cold War?

An authoritarian regime where everyone hates the leader as colluding with the Greeks who robbed rightful Turkish land from the Turks.

 

[Duke of Orlando]

On that note, what do you see West/"Free" Turkey looking like in a scenario where Turkey is divided in two during the Cold War?

I think that really depends on how much the Allies want to invest into West Turkey. If it’s given a minimal help to get on its feet and largely left to recover on its own while they prop up a strong man I imagine it would be very bitter and violently anti west underneath the veneer of being an ally. I expect that would eventually boil over similar to OTL Iran, and would eventually have a war with Greece if it isn’t part of something like NATO ITTL.

Alternatively if the west invests heavily into West Turkey and improves the standard of living post war, I could see them becoming a steady ally. If life is better it’s a lot easier to swallow losing that much land. Young people don’t care about “the good old days” if things are good now. I’m sure there would be a right wing nationalist movement that would likely never fully fade away, but I expect it would be on the fringes. This investment would have to be more than whatever they get from ITTL Marshal plan most likely. I’m not well versed in economics enough to tell you if there’s enough base economic strength in Turkey to achieve something like “The Miracle on the Rhine”, but the hope is to get something similar to that. Maybe Italy would be a better example, I’m not sure.

 

[Serpent]

On that note, what do you see West/"Free" Turkey looking like in a scenario where Turkey is divided in two during the Cold War?

I believe that the House of Osman would attempt an ultimately unsuccessful comeback, even if a referendum happens they'd still lose it, but remain powerful enough within western aligned/"free" turkey to run for politics as a private individual, (much like the Bulgarian and Romanian deposed Kings did in IRL in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR), become a powerbroker, why not even a prime minister in a time of crisis, in coalition with (secular) Conservatives & nationalist Pan-Turkists ( But ultimately the Sultan's premiership will end abruptly, the Islamist element would be too dominant within Turkish political scene for even the unstable monarchists-conservative-nationalist coalition, that is inevitably going to be marred by defections (e.g. Alparslan Türkeş) to hold down for long. There would be a neo Kemalist/leftist party, which would be a third contender for power but by far the weaker of the three, severely weakened by their association with the two lost wars, forcing them to soften their rhetoric and reinvent themselves as a western type socialist party, akin to the European green pacifist ones, yet distancing themselves from the fringe communist remnant party within "free" Turkey, out of fear of getting persecuted and/or losing public support. They would appeal primarily to the coastal middle class and educated folks, much like the party base of the modern Kemalist party. And they would definitely soften up on nationalism, their evolution would be likened to Germany's eradication of the nazi party and the assertion of the SDP as the socialist party, while rejecting nationalist rhetoric altogether. The Islamists would be lead by the likes of early Necmettin Erbakan islamist leaders, while there would also propably be a minor liberal party, gaining traction as time goes and "free" Turkey somewhat Westernizes, or at least gets influenced by the West to such extend that the Turkish political landscape is forced to reorient itself, spelling the end of the complete domination of the Islamist parties after several decades, and the proggression towards a more competitive political landscape within "free" Turkey.

 

[Serpent]

An authoritarian regime where everyone hates the leader as colluding with the Greeks who robbed rightful Turkish land from the Turks.

The Turkish people would swallow that bitter pill eventually, after 1-2 decades and just bide their time to strike back, as they always did and will do.
After all they've been for at least 4 decades at this, losing conflict after conflict, so just like the IRL Palestinians, their fervor will eventually die down, giving way to despair before reluctant acceptance of the new reality, and they'll just focus towards work within the existing post war framework to embetter themselves.

So the first post war Turkish leaders would face the worse from the nationalists, for their alleged collusion with the Greeks and other allies, but things will improve for the Turkish leaders as time passes by, that is if the entire "free" Turkish state doesn't entirely collapse to the soviet aligned People's Republic of Turkey altogether before that normalization can take place.

 

[Quinkana]

So the first post war Turkish leaders would face the worse from the nationalists, for their alleged collusion with the Greeks and other allies, but things will improve for the Turkish leaders as time passes by, that is if the entire "free" Turkish state doesn't entirely collapse to the soviet aligned People's Republic of Turkey altogether before that normalization can take place.

I think the nationalists will be bolstered by the USSR if anything so it'd be the state ideology of the USSR aligned Turkey with Soviet/leftist characteristics while funding nationalist movements in Western aligned Turkey. I'd also think the Islamists would be a big thing in western aligned Turkey but at the end they'd collude with the Arabs and USSR Turks to unify.

 

[Aristomenes]

If they feel it's in their interest almost certainly. If it is not costing them anything not. To put it somewhat differently I'd suspect that gaining Cyprus would be much more difficult than getting some land in Anatolia.

The Colonial Office will not be accomodating, that is certain. However, if the Greeks are smart, they could offer the British a deal where Cyprus would be united with Greece but the British would keep large bases on the island (like they did IOTL). You don't need the whole island to project power in Suez and the Middle East. Besides someone should point to the British that their colony in Cyprus is not profitable (usually).
The US with its anti-colonialism attitude would certainly help persuade the British, more than IOTL, due to the success of Greece's war effort ITTL.

 

[Serpent]

The Colonial Office will not be accomodating, that is certain. However, if the Greeks are smart, they could offer the British a deal where Cyprus would be united with Greece but the British would keep large bases on the island (like they did IOTL). You don't need the whole island to project power in Suez and the Middle East. Besides someone should point to the British that their colony in Cyprus is not profitable (usually).
The US with its anti-colonialism attitude would certainly help persuade the British, more than IOTL, due to the success of Greece's war effort ITTL.

I don't expect the British to be accommodating in the slightest in regards to Cyprus, not even Churchill, unless there was a pre-war agreement regarding Cyprus between Greece and Britain, akin to the one for Monastir/Bitola between Yugoslavia and Greece, otherwise I wouldn't expect the British to concede Cyprus no matter what post war. What could realistically happen is for Greece to make the same offer as you suggested, but during the Suez Crisis, offering its support against Nasser's Egypt to the Franco-Brits in exchange for Cyprus, with the British getting to retain their military bases on the island indefinitely.

 

[Serpent]

I think the nationalists will be bolstered by the USSR if anything so it'd be the state ideology of the USSR aligned Turkey with Soviet/leftist characteristics while funding nationalist movements in Western aligned Turkey. I'd also think the Islamists would be a big thing in western aligned Turkey but at the end they'd collude with the Arabs and USSR Turks to unify.

Well the Soviets actually tried that in post war Germany IRL with Strasserites and it didn't really work that well...
Still though, they were much more prominent throughout the 50s than the post war West German fringe communist party, even though they never managed to go above 4% in nationwide elections.

 

[Khan Doomy]

That poor British ambassador that complained that Kemal and co where pulling all the time all nighters with heavy drinking and he feared he would need a new liver in His Majesty's service should had been more

Mustafa Kemal himself is famous (some may say infamous) for drinking.
Kazım Karabekir was famously religious/conservative and therefore probably did not drink.
İnönü and Çakmak I am not personally sure about.
But İnönü tends to be disliked by conservatives.
As for the Marshal, looking at his political career and the ideology of the party he founded it seems to me that he was a conservative one alongside his nationalism.

Oh yeah, btw sorry about not responding to you @'ing me about artillery/equipment but I didn't have anything to say (still don't really). Not being a professional historian I don't have many resources with me I am afraid. I could try looking into it, but unsure of I can find stuff just googling.

in his reporting about who was and who was not drinking among the Turkish leadership so we avoid such infractions.

According to Mango, Inonu avoided the late night Cankaya bouts (he used his wife as an excuse). Cakmak was not a drinker 90%, i) he usually was not present at the Cankaya bouts due to work, and ii) he was conservative on these matters.

 

[Lascaris]

• Aircraft carriers: 1
  • Bearn class: 1 (Bearn)
• Battleships: 3
  • Richelieu class: 2 (Richelieu, Jean Bart)
  • Bretagne class: 1 (Lorraine)
• Heavy Cruisers: 6
  • Algerie class: 1 (Algerie)
  • Duquesne class: 2 (Duquesne, Tourville)
  • Suffren class: 3 (Suffren, Colbert, Foch)
• Light Cruisers: 7
  • Duguay Trouin class: 2 (Duguay Trouin, Primauguet)
  • Emile Bertin class: 1 (Emile Bertin)
  • La Galisonierre class: 3 (Georges Leygues, Montcalm, Gloire)
  • Jeanne d'Arc class: 1 (Jeanne d'Arc)
• Destroyers: 32
  • Mogador class: 2 (Mogador, Volta)
  • Fantasque class: 4 (Le Fantasque, Le Terrible, Le Triomphant, Le Malin)
  • Vauquelin class: 2 (Kersaint, Cassard)
  • Aigle class: 4 (Albatros, Milan, Vautur, Gerfaut)
  • Guepard class: 1 (Verdun)
  • Chakal class: 3 (Lynx, Tigre, Leopard)
  • L' Adroit class: 9 (Basque, Forbin, Le Fortune, L' Alcyon, Bulonnais, Brestois, Fougoueux, Frondeur, L' Adroit)
  • Bourrasque class: 4 (Simoun, Tempete, Tornade, Tramontane)
  • Le Hardi class: 3 (Le Hardi, Mameluk, Casque)
• Torpedo boats: 2
  • La Melpomene class: 2 (La Pomone, L' Iphigenie)
• Submarines: 26
  • Surcouf class: 1 (Surcouf)
  • Redoutable class: 10 (Protee, Acheron, Acteon, Beveziers, Archimede, Argo, Glorieux, Centaure, Casablanca, Redoutable)
  • Requin class: 5 (Espadon, Phoque, Dauphin, Narval, Marsouin)
  • Saphir class: 1 (Rubis)
  • Minerve class: 3 (Minerve, Junon, Iris)
  • Argonaute class: 4
  • Minerve class: 2
• Escorts: 10
  • Bougainville class: 4
  • Flower class: 6

 

[Lascaris]

According to Mango, Inonu avoided the late night Cankaya bouts (he used his wife as an excuse). Cakmak was not a drinker 90%, i) he usually was not present at the Cankaya bouts due to work, and ii) he was conservative on these matters.

My copy lies around half finished, my rate of book accumulation is at the moment higher than the rate of book completion...

 

[Lascaris]

I don't expect the British to be accommodating in the slightest in regards to Cyprus, not even Churchill, unless there was a pre-war agreement regarding Cyprus between Greece and Britain, akin to the one for Monastir/Bitola between Yugoslavia and Greece, otherwise I wouldn't expect the British to concede Cyprus no matter what post war. What could realistically happen is for Greece to make the same offer as you suggested, but during the Suez Crisis, offering its support against Nasser's Egypt to the Franco-Brits in exchange for Cyprus, with the British getting to retain their military bases on the island indefinitely.

The were actually SOME proposals within the British establishment to cede Cyprus to Greece in OTL coming from the Foreign Office both sir Oliver Harvey the Deputy Under-Secretary of State and the Permanent Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Sir Orme Sargent proposing to do so in 1945. To quote Harvey in September 1947 with Greece in civil war:

“Our proposed evacuation policy in Palestine and the possibility that we may propose independence for Cyrenaica, when coupled with what we have done in India and Burma, makes our continued presence in Cyprus indefensible […] We have in fact never made use of the island for military purposes and we have spent next to nothing on its material and social betterment. We have nothing to be proud of there […] It can hardly be questioned that Greece, who has long governed Crete effectively, and has now been given the Dodecanese, can equally well govern Cyprus. (There is a small Turkish minority whose rights would be secured) […] For these different reasons I would strongly advocate that consideration be given to the very early cession of Cyprus to Greece, before the Cypriot campaign is embittered by violence and before cession can be represented as yielding to force"

Source from here

Now unlike the foreign office the colonial office was adamantly opposed. TTL things will be inconveniently more complicated from the point of view of the Colonial Office what with Cyprus still having an elected legislative assembly and all the propaganda he Greeks will have in their favour but still...

 

[Khan Doomy]

on the issue of a post-war Turkey. Do not forget that in this timeline the Ottoman dynasty has not been overthrown. They still hold the Chalifate. Turkey is technically a monarchy (in the modern Swedish sense)

 

[Serpent]

on the issue of a post-war Turkey. Do not forget that in this timeline the Ottoman dynasty has not been overthrown. They still hold the Chalifate. Turkey is technically a monarchy (in the modern Swedish sense)

Sorry, forgot that, then the Caliph's position would be weakened instead, by how much depends on how much complicit he was, depending on how much power did he yielded as Sultan/Caliph (was the Caliph a figurehead or powerful on his own right) throughout the conflict and the public perception of it all, to see whether in post war time, defeat can be attributed to the Ottoman dynasty partially. And so the main political aspiration for the monarchist/loyalist faction would be whether to increase the powers of the Ottoman dynasty, restoring them like they like to be in the past, which the entire opposition would no doubt be against.

 

[mapuche lautarino]

How are things in Yugoslavia?

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

And for the irony they will be likely claiming that the Pomak Muslim minority there prefers them to the Bulgarians... which it actually does.

Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson helped produce the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Hanks remarked later after reading the script "That's my life!" Wilson's family is Greek... more or less. Her father was a Pomak, though born in Greece; he changed his last name after converting to marry her Greek mother.