The cynic in me would say "what explicit instructions" but lets leave it aside. We are not talking about the Normandy landings here. We are talking about a force of about 3,000 men that landed unopposed, failed to land its tanks and then based on Turkish accounts (general Demirel's memoirs for example) got pinned down on an extremely limited beachhead (a couple hundrend meters IMS) that made it very vulnerable to air attack for the next few days till the second wave of the landing force could be organized and landed on the 22nd and had trouble with the very weak Cypriot National guard counterattack in the night of 20 to 21st which thanks to Georgitsis was done effectively by elements of a weak battalion (Kouroupis 251st btn) when properly it should be getting hit by about two regiments worth of troops and all the rather limited armour in the island.
1974 Greco-Turkish war
- Thread starter ThecrownPrince
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- greece turkey war of cyprus
The cynic in me would say "what explicit instructions" but lets leave it aside. We are not talking about the Normandy landings here. We are talking about a force of about 3,000 men that landed unopposed, failed to land its tanks and then based on Turkish accounts (general Demirel's memoirs for example) got pinned down on an extremely limited beachhead (a couple hundrend meters IMS) that made it very vulnerable to air attack for the next few days till the second wave of the landing force could be organized and landed on the 22nd and had trouble with the very weak Cypriot National guard counterattack in the night of 20 to 21st which thanks to Georgitsis was done effectively by elements of a weak battalion (Kouroupis 251st btn) when properly it should be getting hit by about two regiments worth of troops and all the rather limited armour in the island.
I’m honestly just surprised one of my threads made it to three pages. A big thanks to all of you because I’ve been wanting to write this tl for a while but didn’t have enough info to go about it.
I’m also interested in what the aftermath of this conflict would be. My speculations are that the un recognizes the pro Greek Cyprus government, the junta last another decade and eventually liberalize , turkey would delve into nationalistic Islamism earlier than otl leading to heavier persecution of Kurds, Turks in Cyprus would face heavy persecution and flee basically making Cyprus completely Greek, in the 80’s Cyprus would probably join Greece, it also wouldn’t surprise me if the instability caused by the loss of the war led to the Turks having there own regime of colonels and also questioning farther NATO cooperation.
Thank you, that's very helpful. I can partly understand not hitting the beachhead with everything, if you're either unsure it's not a distraction or are awaiting support, but 'sort of' attacking it but not really just seems wasteful. I hadn't realised how tenuous the initial landing was, but I still think there's a hell of a lot of ifs and buts between the Cypriots and victory.
At this point it would not be Islamism that they would embrace but regular Nationalism, you can bet that Türkeş (founder of the MHP, the ultranationalists) is going to use this to bolster his fascist rhetoric. But I doubt that the Turks will lose to the extent in which you seem to believe they will. Any PKK-like entity is going to be dealt with a much more heavier hand as soon as they decide to rear their head, though they are not likely to receive any support since the Cold War was still going on at this point and America is not going to tolerate any Communist State spawning out of such a vital strategic position. Though it is also likely they are likely to be butterflied away since the PoD is ten years prior to their emergence and a fascist regime would have a lot of time to crack down upon any dissidents in that time, this also has the side effect of spawning a greater insurgency since fascists are irrational people when it comes to another people occupying what it considers its 'rightful soil'.
Though I sincerely doubt it is going to escalate, America is not going to tolerate a war between two members of NATO and will simply be giving the Turks what they when they threaten to leave NATO because it was preventing them from carrying out a lawful operation (utter bogus with the benefit of hindsight of course, but the failure of the operation and the fact that they didn't show their true intentions by continuing their occupation like IOTL means they can claim this without looking like hypocrites) and save their own people from ethnic cleansing.
Turkey is simply too valuable of an ally at this point in time for NATO to even consider angering them, not with the Cold War still going on and not looking to end any time soon considering that it ended almost two decades after this PoD.
I wholly agree. I find it unlikely the Greeks WOULD intervene without us support, COULD intervene as successfully and decisively as this thread requires, and basically impossible that the us would alienate turkey. As you say, they used a plausible facade for action. Putting yourself in the international community's shoes if they're repelled: do you back the country trying to prevent ethnic violence, or the one trying to annexe an independent country? We know it was utter lies, but they won't.
The logical scenario is a limited intervention as I described in previous posts that likely does not escalate to all out war. And which under most circumstances and governments in Athens would be happening, when everything else is said and done the first target the Turkish air force was hitting in the morning of July 20th was the base of the Greek Forces Cyprus. Which was part of the Greek army proper, there by international agreement, so no excuses existed normally for Athens to pretend it was not being directly attacked.
Afterwards... the moment the junta had to declare general mobilization its grip on the army is gone and the same applied to Ioannidis grip on the government, by all accounts he got almost immediately sidelined and didn't much react himself. Which means that by the 25th you most likely have a civilian government running the show in Athens, local victory in Cyprus or not and with that also a civilian government back in Cyprus. On the ground the Famagusta salient was on the brink of surrender in OTL, so is likely captured TTL. The Agyrta salient though probably still stands even if reduced by the time a ceasefire comes in place. But TTL it has no access to the sea as OTL to be readily reinforced. So you have a civilian government negotiating with Turkey with a much stronger hand than OTL but who still want to avoid a war with Ankara and the latter still has a, much reduced, military presence in Cyprus, Perceptions and psychology within Cyprus are the ones radically different I suspect. This time round Greece DID come to the rescue when Turkey invaded and the invasion failed on top of that. I expect unionist sentiments will be both openly legitimate and even stronger than OTL.
How this plays out? One possibility is the Geneva peace talks lead to "compensated union" as Greece and Turkey were discussing prior to April 1967. Kissinger will be certainly pressing for something along these lines... after all the sole difference from what he was proposing in OTL will be that the Turks get less territory and the Greeks more. Which likely leaves you with Makarios as the first president of the 3rd Greek republic in 1975. The other possibility is that you end with a frozen conflict for the time being albeit with the republic of Cyprus even closer to Greece, Cyprus football champions keep playing in the Greek premier league for example (which means there are two Cypriot teams in the 1974-75 season as APOEL had done well enough to remain in the league in the previous season), the trend for Greek movies to be cast in Cyprus goes on and so on. How stable this proves is... questionable to put it mildly with a likely worse and earlier Turkish military junta on one side and Papandreou winning a landslide by 1981 on the other. How does the Turkish junta react to a free legit referendum for enosis supervised by EEC observers around 1983 for example?
So I think a good consensus can be formed and feel free to throw in some more ideas.
. The Turkish landing fails
. The USA intervenes immediately following causing a uneasy peace with both sides backing down and Cyprus remains undivided
. The Greek junta and Cyprus governments transfer to civilian administration with in the year
. In Cyprus many Turks suffer from persecution due growing turkophobia caused by the threat of Turkish invasion, probably a Turkish diaspora from the island occurs
. Turkey disenfranchised by the whole fiasco turns to more nationalist conservative factions
. We may probably see turkey fall to its own junta if they can’t recover from the political turmoil and the more emboldened conservative factions see a need to safe guard the nation from socialist elements of society
. Eventually say some time in 80’s a referendum on enosis is held and if the Greek economy is still growing will succeed although it may cause some friction from turkey
another thought I had is that during the 80’s and relations between Greece and turkey flavored up over agean disputes over oil, will Greece feel more emboldened to not back down since last time they stood up against the Turks they technically won?
. The Turkish landing fails
. The USA intervenes immediately following causing a uneasy peace with both sides backing down and Cyprus remains undivided
. The Greek junta and Cyprus governments transfer to civilian administration with in the year
. In Cyprus many Turks suffer from persecution due growing turkophobia caused by the threat of Turkish invasion, probably a Turkish diaspora from the island occurs
. Turkey disenfranchised by the whole fiasco turns to more nationalist conservative factions
. We may probably see turkey fall to its own junta if they can’t recover from the political turmoil and the more emboldened conservative factions see a need to safe guard the nation from socialist elements of society
. Eventually say some time in 80’s a referendum on enosis is held and if the Greek economy is still growing will succeed although it may cause some friction from turkey
another thought I had is that during the 80’s and relations between Greece and turkey flavored up over agean disputes over oil, will Greece feel more emboldened to not back down since last time they stood up against the Turks they technically won?
OTL, there were two major crises in 1976 and 1987. Greece did not back down in either, particularly in 1987. So no much change there. As for Turkey it did have here own junta following the 1980 coup in OTL. Quite possibly it happens even earlier in TTL. On the other hand the years between 1975-80 saw a massive degree of political violence with over 5,000 dead and TTL the narrative of the invincibility of the army has at a minimum got a black eye. So perhaps yet another coup doesn't go down that well with the public?
Political violence in Turkey (1976–1980) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I do know that there was attempted coup in 1975 to reinstate the junta. Do u think in ttl it would be successful?OTL, there were two major crises in 1976 and 1987. Greece did not back down in either, particularly in 1987. So no much change there. As for Turkey it did have here own junta following the 1980 coup in OTL. Quite possibly it happens even earlier in TTL. On the other hand the years between 1975-80 saw a massive degree of political violence with over 5,000 dead and TTL the narrative of the invincibility of the army has at a minimum got a black eye. So perhaps yet another coup doesn't go down that well with the public?
Political violence in Turkey (1976–1980) - Wikipedia
Edit: personally I don’t think it would but I do see a long term effect of people as time goes on looking upon the junta more favorably especially in the 2000’s if the Greek economy still tanks. Maybe the golden dawn has a broader base of support.
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Would Turkey be at risk of a coup? Defeats tend to discredit armies rather than embolden them.
Doing some more reading it seems turkey at the time was already under a quasi fundamentalist military dictatorship so this loss could actually disenfranchise Turks with the government and emboldened the communist. So if a coup is needed to keep out the communist then yes a coup probably supported by the USA is likely.
Edit: it would be very unpopular though.
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The so called pajamas coup? The Greek security services got the conspirators before they could even move and by all accounts support within the army was nothing to write home about in the first place. On the other hand I do wonder how Greek politics do develop after 1974. In OTL the centre came apart at the seams between 1974-1980 with its members and voters getting absorbed by New Democracy and PASOK. This doesn't necessarily happen in the same fashion TTL though. Less anti-americanism with the US not perceived to have betrayed Greece in Cyprus, by extension leftism is way less fashionable making the more extreme rhetoric of PASOK in the 1970s problematic, then for good measure Alexandros Panagoulis death in 1976 being butterflied away giving the Centre Union a very energetic politician and genuine hero... who is also bringing out dirt for certain right wing politicians talking with the junta making defections to the right problematic. Put together the Centre Union has a fair chance of staying in one piece turning Greek politics into a three way struggle very much like the Greek Cypriot model. This means a relatively more conservative Greece into the 1980s which at least for the economy is a good thing.
Golden Dawn... at its peak it got as much as the extreme right got in 1977 which was comparable to what LAOS had got in 2009 and not much different to what Metaxas was getting in the 1930s. I suspect there is a pattern here, with the extreme right amounting to roughly 5-7% and the only question being whether its vote gets absorbed by the main right wing party or not depending on circumstances.
Would the Greeks have a more positive opinion of the junta especially in Cyprus or would the general opinion that it was a repressive regime and nothing more still stand.