What was Greece’s best chance to reclaim Constantinople?
- Thread starter Chungus Maximus
- Start date
AFAIK, the realistic part of that plan was to create a buffer "Dacia" kingdom out of Bessarabia, Moldavia and Wallachhia to serve as a buffer between the 3 empires. The "Greek" part was in a category "wishful thinking" which may happen as a byproduct of an extremely successful war resulting in a complete ejection of Ottoman Empire from Europe.
One of the main obstacles to the plan's implementation (leaving aside trifles like British and French opposition) was not the Persian War because it involved the tiny numbers (successful expedition under Valerian Zubov involved 13,000 and it happened only in 1796, years after Potemkin's death) or even a lukewarm support of Georgia (even fewer numbers) but a person called Georgy Potemkin.
He was great in making the plans and even implementing some of them (there was a criticism related to the badly chosen site of Kherson, wasteful practices in building up Novorossia, etc. but a lot had been done) but in the military issues he was absolutely pathetic above the level of a subordinated commander.
Worse than that, he was extremely jealous of a competition to his military glory. His main and only qualification as an army commander and then c-in-c during the 2nd Ottoman war was his wish to get the only order which he did not have and could not get any other way, St-George of the 1st Class reserved exclusively for the army commanders for the impressive victories (*). Not only did he pretty much screw up siege of Ochakov making it into a prolonged and extremely costly affair but he handicapped Rumiantsev's successful operations in Moldavia by depriving his army of the resources. When he was finally done with Ochakov (and got his St-George), instead of removing himself from the picture he removed Rumiantsev and the rest of campaign was a series of more or less pointless battles and bloody storming of Ismail, which had nothing to do with the "Greek Project".
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(*) By that time Rumiantsev got it for victory at Lagra/Kagul, Alexey Orlov for Chesma, Dolgorukov for conquest of the Crimea, Panin for capturing Benderi; Potemkin was jealous.
Catherine, just as her predecessors, had been suffering from a delusional point of view that Austrians can be an useful ally. Forget about the 7YW (when the Austrians could not even provide an adequate supply for the ally fighting on their behalf), in the campaigns of 1735 - 39 (no French Revolution on a horizon) and 1787 - 92 they proved to be more of a liability than gain (to be fair, under Suvorov's command Prince Coburg performed quite well and should get credit for not making a fuss about him outranking Suvorov). Call it a bad fate or whatever you want.
Yes. If you are Catherine, don't let Potemkin anywhere close to the army command, pick among the available capable generals even if you (or Potemkin) do not like them personally, arrange for a proper supply of your troops (again, don't let Potemkin anywhere close because he was wasteful and sloppy), do not confuse your strategic and "operational" goals, make a maximum usage of the already built Black Sea fleet (for which a lot of credit goes to Potemkin) putting Ushakov in charge from the very start, somehow persuade the Austrian allies to limit their activities to the Balkans and you have a chance to get to Istanbul before the French and Brits became excessively unhappy (or to wait until the French Revolution starts putting all of them and the Austrians out of your way).
The Austrians managed to capture Belgrade on their own (after Laudon un-bungled Joseph II's war). Were it not for the Prussian ultimatum they likely would have contributed to a swell victory.1787 - 92 they proved to be more of a liability than gain (to be fair, under Suvorov's command Prince Coburg performed quite well and should get credit for not making a fuss about him outranking Suvorov). Call it a bad fate or whatever you want.
I wonder if Constantinople could go to Greece as some sort of compromise between the great powers. Russia doesn't want a potentially hostile power controlling the straits, and Britain doesn't want Russia controlling them. Perhaps as a compromise control could be split, with the European side all going to Greece and the Asiatic side remaining in Turkish hands, so that nobody really controls them.
Alternatively, have the land around the Dardanelles hived off from Turkey to create a new state. Then later, when the Great Powers are all distracted by some crisis or other, Greece invades and annexes Constantinople for itself. By the time the crisis is over and the Great Powers are in a position to intervene against the Greeks, the annexation is already a fait accompli, so they decide not to do anything about it.
Alternatively, have the land around the Dardanelles hived off from Turkey to create a new state. Then later, when the Great Powers are all distracted by some crisis or other, Greece invades and annexes Constantinople for itself. By the time the crisis is over and the Great Powers are in a position to intervene against the Greeks, the annexation is already a fait accompli, so they decide not to do anything about it.
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
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The problem is that there are waaaaaayyyy too many Turks not let the annexation happen. If the Great Powers don't intervene then it is going to turn into a conflict, possibly with Anatolian Turkey as well.
I still don't get this argument, why is the number of Turks "too big"? IOTL the reverse was true, with more Anatolian and Thracian Greeks going into Greece than Greek Turks going into Anatolia, but it didn't stop the current border from existing.
Today, 80 million people live in Turkey. In contrast, today only 10 million people live in Greece. It's pretty obvious in the population disparities why Greece couldn't hold Constantinople because as soon as a Turkish state emerges, they are done.
The population difference was not always that great. In the 1920s it was only about a 2-1 ratio. Turkey's population boomed after WWII while Greece's has stagnated over the past generation.
What's hard to understand? The population exchanges ended up with more people going into Greece than out and yet no one would argue that the demographics should have stopped the settlement from happening, why is it that the demographics would play a role now and not IOTL in the Balkans or Eastern Anatolia?
Using your logic the entire Kashmir controversy wouldn't exist given that India would roll over Pakistan(heck the population ratio there is even more skewed). In any case like funnyhat said, this kind of population ratio is mostly recent.
India and Pakistan are both armed with nuclear weapons. If India invaded Pakistan and tried to roll it over it would possibly end in nuclear apocalypse. Hence the reason the Indo-Pakistani wars have halted and have not seen major action disregarding Kargil since 1971.
I think he means the greeks are not a a majority in anatolia regions while thrace (turkish part) turks are the majority. The reason they don't play a role in eastern anatolia was that greeks aren't majority. They are minorities. Turkish europe is turkish. Edirne and Istanbul are Turkish. Sinope, kars are turkish. The cities of anatolia were not greek majority. They are spread out across anatolia which is kinda big compared to thrace (turkish part) and greece.
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I remain amazed when people talk about how Turkish Istanbul was in the 1919-1923 period, as if there was this super-majority that existed which the Greeks could not possibly replace. The reality is that the Turkish population before the population exchanges registered a bare majority of the population, the rest being made up of Greeks, Armenians and other minorities, and the most equivalent exchange between Turkey and Greece would have in fact included Constantinople. That isn't to say it would be easy, many of the Greeks, Armenians, Pontics etc. living in Istanbul at the time were refugees from conflict zones, but the same could be said for a sizable number of the Turks driven out by the Greek advance in Anatolia. It can be done, and I'd argue should have been done but for Greek ambition and incompetence.
That being said, gifting Constantinople to the Greeks would have come with major protections for the Turks living within, though I'm sure any number of loopholes would have been taken advantage of to add to the Christian demographic advantage; Turks that left the city fearing reprisals against the Greek or Armenian genocides would not be allowed to return for example, nor would Turkish refugees be allowed to settle, and "reclaimed" property would be distributed amongst the displaced Greek and Armenian refugees.
That being said, gifting Constantinople to the Greeks would have come with major protections for the Turks living within, though I'm sure any number of loopholes would have been taken advantage of to add to the Christian demographic advantage; Turks that left the city fearing reprisals against the Greek or Armenian genocides would not be allowed to return for example, nor would Turkish refugees be allowed to settle, and "reclaimed" property would be distributed amongst the displaced Greek and Armenian refugees.
I remain appalled when people talk about how Turkish Istanbul should have been given to the Greeks for reasons that seem to amount to 'it spoke Greek 500 years before'. The city had a population almost 20% of the whole of Greece, and was emphatically not a 'Greek' city any more than London is an 'Indian' city for having Indian people living in it. The population exchanges were horrific for all involved, why anyone wants them to be expanded massively is beyond me.
This is AlternateHistory.com. We enjoy exploring the dark side of revanchism while tacitly acknowledging the grave and gratuitously bloody implications it entails. Really, no one here truly desires ethnic cleansing against the Turks of Istanbul (or any ethnic cleansing in general), but humanity as a whole has shown a frightening capacity to treat wholesale extermination of ethnic groups as Tuesdays, and it's a scenario that can crop up if the Greeks were in the position to (re)claim the city for themselves.
Uh, no, there is a huge cohort on this website that genuinely believes that Istanbul should have been given to Greece. I would have no objections to a discussion/TL about a Greek-led ethnic cleansing of Istanbul, that would be a fascinating topic. I have every objection to what I would generously describe as misplaced Byzanto-philia.
Wasn't the disparity not so significant until relatively recently? I think I read somewhere that before the First World War, Greeks and Armenians together were about as numerous as Turks.
At the time the Turks still outnumbered the Greeks about 2:1. This disparity has gotten much more severe as Turkey has seen pretty massive population growth ever since its independence, whereas the Greek population has been much more stagnant (and is currently in decline)