Greece wins in turkey

[Danth]

What if the Greek king wasnt killed by monkeys (oh the comedy) and as a result the pro german monarch wasn't instated resulting in the loss of Anglo-French support in the Greek conflict of Turkey
Assuming that Greece won the war how would turkey look afterwards.
Would it be split up by the entente or become a puppet of Greece?

I would help more but I'm not that enknowledge of greeces aims for turkey at the time.

[Tongera]

Originally Posted by Danth

What if the Greek king wasnt killed by monkeys (oh the comedy) and as a result the pro german monarch wasn't instated resulting in the loss of Anglo-French support in the Greek conflict of Turkey
Assuming that Greece won the war how would turkey look afterwards.
Would it be split up by the entente or become a puppet of Greece?

I would help more but I'm not that enknowledge of greeces aims for turkey at the time.

If the Greeks can defeat the Turks in Asia Minor (just a note, i don't think the Greeks can get land in Asia Minor), then they will get Smyrna (as they call it) and parts of Eastern Thrace. Greece won't be able to influence Turkey, but France and Britain will be able to. Turkey will probably become a puppet.

[Snake Featherston]

OK, how does the Greek King surviving alter logistical reality where Greece's power-projection abilities are concerned?

[Tongera]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

OK, how does the Greek King surviving alter logistical reality where Greece's power-projection abilities are concerned?

I think the OP means that when King Constantine (i think it's him) came back to the Greek throne, the Italians and French used that as a excuse to start helping the Turks openly and stop helping the Greeks. Anyhow, the Greeks can't gain land in Asia Minor (they can gain land in Eastern Thrace though, a different story though), they might be able to stalemate with the Turks, if a lot of pod's and butterflies happen.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

OK, how does the Greek King surviving alter logistical reality where Greece's power-projection abilities are concerned?

The Enterte withdrew support from the greeks after their king died and was replaced by ( a previous? ) pro german king

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Danth

The Enterte withdrew support from the greeks after their king died and was replaced by ( a previous? ) pro german king

And the odds of the Entente going through a major war to completely dismember and destroy any kind of independent Turkey to replace it with a Balkanized Anatolia alters with a different Greek king how, exactly? Where does one event cause the others?

[Tongera]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

And the odds of the Entente going through a major war to completely dismember and destroy any kind of independent Turkey to replace it with a Balkanized Anatolia alters with a different Greek king how, exactly? Where does one event cause the others?

With the previous Greek King, Constantine, he delayed the Greeks getting involved in WW1, even though they joined eventually. Also becuase of the King, he helped destabilise the country and nearly started a civil war with Venizilos, who wanted to get involved and he helped split the country in two, Venizilos eventually won out. The Entente held enough of a grudge because of that. Also, the destability in the country helped contribute to the Greek loss in Asia Minor, in other ways than the Entente helping the Turks.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Tongera

With the previous Greek King, Constantine, he delayed the Greeks getting involved in WW1, even though they joined eventually. Also becuase of the King, he helped destabilise the country and nearly started a civil war with Venizilos, who wanted to get involved and he helped split the country in two, Venizilos eventually won out. The Entente held enough of a grudge because of that. Also, the destability in the country helped contribute to the Greek loss in Asia Minor, in other ways than the Entente helping the Turks.

And when he was doing that, didn't the majority of Greeks actually *want* to be involved on the side of the CP?

[Tongera]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

And when he was doing that, didn't the majority of Greeks actually *want* to be involved on the side of the CP?

I'm not quite sure it was as simple as that. The schism affected Greek politics for decades afterwards and likely contributed to Greek turning into a republic. Also the King lost a lot of popularity after the war was over (whether it was due to the loss in Asia Minor or his intereference in politics, i'm not quite sure). We need someone more knowledgable on the subject to give a more satisfactory answer.

[Danth]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa...eece#section_3

This is the guy who was killed by the monkeys
The enterte supported him.

Upon his death his pro german father took over and as a result for his favouring of the CP during the war Greece lost in antolia

If alekander had stayed on the throne the western powers would have continued to back Greece against turkey

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Guys I think everyone is misreading what Snake is trying to say.

He is questioning the very tenable will that the British (historically the biggest proponents of the Greeks here) had, and basically is saying who gives a damn who the king is, who is going to really want to make the commitment to helping Greece stay in Turkey.

Smyrna alone is nearly impossible, along with any of the other things the Greeks wanted on the Anatolian coast.

These places hold 45-50% of all of Turkey's population, the Turks wouldn't stand for Greek rule and if the Greeks did the only thing that would enable them to keep it without endless Turkish revolts (genocide) it would enrage the Turks even more.

[Tongera]

I wouldn't say Smyrna is impossible. Just very unlikely (but still possible, but very difficult).

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Originally Posted by Tongera

I wouldn't say Smyrna is impossible. Just very unlikely (but still possible, but very difficult).

In the short-term? Yeah they can do a lot (they nearly got Ankara before Ataturk kicked them back).

As time passes? Holding possessions in mainland Anatolia will be impossible, unlike Thrace, it won't be protected from one's enemies by ominous, easily-defended mountain ranges (most of Anatolia is that way but you get what I'm talking about).

I should have changed that to say that they cannot hold Smyrna.

[Tongera]

Originally Posted by HeavyWeaponsGuy

In the short-term? Yeah they can do a lot (they nearly got Ankara before Ataturk kicked them back).

As time passes? Holding possessions in mainland Anatolia will be impossible, unlike Thrace, it won't be protected from one's enemies by ominous, easily-defended mountain ranges (most of Anatolia is that way but you get what I'm talking about).

I should have changed that to say that they cannot hold Smyrna.

Actually they could. But they will need a powerful protector that is willing to help them or have enough luck that the Turks will be busy with other matters all the time. I think they can get Ankara, but they somehow got to defeat and crush Ataturk and his army decisively, somehow.

[Grimm Reaper]

Tongera, they can't get Ankara and getting Ankara would mean a 'Greece' with a Turkish majority, whose long term prospects for survival would be pretty much nil.

[Tongera]

Originally Posted by Grimm Reaper

Tongera, they can't get Ankara and getting Ankara would mean a 'Greece' with a Turkish majority, whose long term prospects for survival would be pretty much nil.

I meant take it until a peace treaty can be signed, or they are thrown out. I should have been clearer with what i said.

Edit: But other than that, they might (very difficult though) be able to take and hold Smyrna though. But only with the scenario i put above.

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Originally Posted by Tongera

Actually they could. But they will need a powerful protector that is willing to help them or have enough luck that the Turks will be busy with other matters all the time. I think they can get Ankara, but they somehow got to defeat and crush Ataturk and his army decisively, somehow.

There are ways to resolve what we know as the Turkish War of Independence in Greece's favor.

In the long-term there is no way Greece can come out on top and keep Smryna forever as some sort of neo-Byzantine trophy.

Britain cannot forever go to the aid of Greece when the Turks come knocking, Bolshevik Russia has no inclination nor reason to support them, and the Americans aren't going to get involved.

It is not possible, Greece will not get the divine intervention it needs to hold an unsustainable and unwanted possession (from the Turkish perspective) forever, the people will eventually tire of fighting to keep it, the Turks will eventually succeed.

It cannot be done, not without time-traveling Golden Dawn extremists to give the Greeks assault rifles.

[Tongera]

When can Turkey successfully grab Smyrna then? They can't really do it in the 20s and 30s, as they have other priorities. during the 40s they can't, as Greece is part of the Allies and an attack on Greece could lead to the Allies attacking Turkey. The early 50s they could. Later than that and Greece is a part of NATO (and NATO will want to keep the peace) and is very unlikely.

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Originally Posted by Tongera

When can Turkey successfully grab Smyrna then? They can't really do it in the 20s and 30s, as they have other priorities. during the 40s they can't, as Greece is part of the Allies and an attack on Greece could lead to the Allies attacking Turkey. The early 50s they could. Later than that and Greece is a part of NATO (and NATO will want to keep the peace) and is very unlikely.

...

Hold up there Jack.

You're assuming that something this huge would have absolutely no effects on Turkey's foreign policies? Or on Turkey's NATO membership for that matter.

This kind of thing would make Turkey seek out someone who can help them retake their land, and if they get stonewalled by the West, you can bet on a pretty short list between the Soviets, the Italians, and possibly the Germans as to who they will go to first.

I mean no offense, but you are coming at this from a very limited perspective. Something like this would likely not have all that many aftershocks outside of the Aegean/Balkans. The British and French have their own postwar issues to deal with, new colonies, threats of a resurgent Germany, etc. to deal with.

Turkey on the other hand, will have its entire history redefined by revanchism like this. This is a nation that has been kicked and trodden upon by the powers-that-be in the West, this is a nation that despite massive struggle has still lost what it sees as a crucial part of the Turkish nation.

There won't be a rapprochement between Turkey and the West unless someone in Paris or London decides that enough is enough and tells Greece to get gone. You know a big part of why Turkey played ball with NATO IOTL? Because the Turks were neutral in WWII to the point of allowing German shipping to come through the Bosporus, a major supply route for the Germans during Operation Barbarossa. The Soviets were pretty understandably furious at that and after the war was over and Soviet troops occupied a span of land from Berlin to Bucharest, the Soviets repudiated the earlier Soviet-Turkish Treaty of Friendship and started demanding the return of lands that previous Soviet policymakers had signed away to the Turks. They also "requested" a military base in Constantinople. Given Soviet behavior in the lead-up to the seizure of the Baltic States, this was a dead giveaway that the Soviets were planning a move on Istanbul. The Turks then decided that the West rather obviously offered the best alternative to the tender mercies of Stalinist Russia.

People forget that Soviet-Turkish relations were, up until the point of Turkey letting the Germans through the Dardanelles, actually quite friendly. The Turkish War of Independence as we know it would not have been as written by the Turkish victors as it turned out to have been without the Soviets backing up the Kemalists. Lenin was openly supportive of them.

Something like this is an insult, an insult too great for Turkey to live down as a nation, so in the immediate postwar era, Turkey doesn't have a lot of options:

-Neutrality: The historical policy, doesn't offer a foreign supporter against the Greeks, leaves the Turks to isolation while the Greeks sit around smoking cigarettes and laughing at them.

-Pro-Western Alignment: Unless the Turks have a friend in a Turkophilic PM, Turkey has no chance and just got screwed over by these people.

The Germans and anyone else who isn't inclined to play nice with the Greeks or their allies is in too bad of shape to do anything. The Soviets aren't in great shape themselves having just gotten out of the Russian Civil War, but they have an abundance of surplus arms captured from the Allies and their expeditionary forces and a good amount of spare Red Army officers to send around to help Turkey get their own house in order.

It really isn't too much of a stretch to think that the Turks would move closer into the Soviet sphere over this, and that the Soviets would let them in: allowing one's ally to liberate a territory of no real importance to Soviet interests in exchange for the undying loyalty of the Turkish regime is a very nice bargain for the Soviet foreign ministry to make.

[Tongera]

I love it when people write such detailed and excellent answers.