AHC: Make Bosphorus to national border

Sure that was true at ww1, ww2 would be a different issue,if turkey is axis it will be invaded and occupied at the end.Ussr will want constantinple but its likely a compromise will be reached where greece will take it instead of the soviets. Also look at the border,it will be likely be very easy to take the city and fortify the coast...

The word you are looking for is I believe "Berlin". With joint Western/Soviet occupation post say 1944. No way the Soviets are going to accept Constantinople being annexed to the local extension of British foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean... and Greece will be very obviously that in Moscow's eyes in a TL that Venizelos won in Asia Minor.

Demetrios
 
The word you are looking for is I believe "Berlin". With joint Western/Soviet occupation post say 1944. No way the Soviets are going to accept Constantinople being annexed to the local extension of British foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean... and Greece will be very obviously that in Moscow's eyes in a TL that Venizelos won in Asia Minor.

Demetrios

Venizelos doesn't need to win, for my scenario to work is enough that thrace is retained , as long as Greece does not lose it , Greece will be very close to the city in ITTL ww2 , it is probable that special provison will be setup for trading reasons but USSR wont be let to annex it......
 
Venizelos doesn't need to win, for my scenario to work is enough that thrace is retained , as long as Greece does not lose it , Greece will be very close to the city in ITTL ww2 , it is probable that special provison will be setup for trading reasons but USSR wont be let to annex it......

I agree that the Soviets would not be let to annex Constantinople, and that Greece keeping Eastern Thrace does not require a Greek victory in Asia Minor, arguably holding their nerve at the time of the Mudanya armistice suffices. (why? Greece has a navy, Turkey does not and the straits fortifications are gone. A bit hard to mount an amphibious assault with an enemy fleet controlling the Bosporus)

But in such a scenario unless Greece either was given Constantinople outright as Toynbee and Nicholson were proposing in 1919, or took it in in 1923 it is still Turkish. I'm skeptical to Ismet Inonu jumping into WW2 in a TL where Kemalist Turkey is in control of Anatolia and Constantinople itself.

I am also not convinced that in a scenario where the fate of Constantinople is up to be decided by 1944 the likely fate isn't some short of condominium like Berlin (or for that matter Vienna and Trieste) Of course this could still lead to Constantinople voting for union with Greece, or splitting between Greece and Turkey in the early 1990s (European side to Greece, Asian to Turkey)

Demetrios
 
Alternate idea: Andronikos III does not die in 1340, thus averting the civil war. The Byzantine Empire is able to reassert its control over all of Greece (minus Venetian bits) towards which Andronikos III and John Kantakuzenos had made much progress, conquering Epirus and Thessaly. Furthermore at the time the Achaeans were willing to submit to Roman rule but the offer ended up going nowhere because the Empire fell into civil war (see Nicolas Cheetham, Medieval Greece, pg. 158-59, and Peter Topping, "The Morea, 1311 to 1364," in The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, vol. 3 A History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth Setton, pg. 128).

The Byzantine Empire therefore is able to remain a regional power, strong enough to see Stefan Dushan off and keep the Turks on the Asian side of the Bosporus. The border remains stable to the present day.
 
Of course if turkey does not join the axis and thus ww2, it cant happen but i am thinking that they would try for eastern thrace because instanbul is very vunerable if they only hold the sevres ground...
 
Why Adrianople?Sure it was a fairly ancient city,but it's neither got any symbolic importance(apart from the short period of time that it became capital to the Ottomans,which wouldn't be important to the Greeks),nor is it an economic center and neither was it geographically strategic.

There were Roman emperors, claimants, and junior emperors who operated from there historically, if I'm not mistaken. If the Empire is confined to Europe, moreover, Adrianople is on the side of the empire in which expansion remains possible. It's an inland city at the confluence of two rivers,and not terrible far from Constantinople. Further, it's a city rebuilt by, and renamed for, an emperor, much like Constantinople itself.
 
Adrianople is on the side of the empire in which expansion remains possible. It's an inland city at the confluence of two rivers,and not terrible far from Constantinople.
But isn't the "inland"aspect actually a disadvantage, in terms of ease of access, for the Greeks?
 
What about if Greece becomes a Communist country, provokes Turkey into war and then gets Constantinople with Soviet help in the 1940s?

Any time after the second world war wouldn't work, the turks had a lot of contacts in the diplomatic and intelligence communities due to their status as a neutral point of contact during world war two and were in negotiations to join NATO almost as soon as it came about. They also had and continue to have one of the biggest armies around. Turkey was founded by the army and it shows...
 
Any time after the second world war wouldn't work, the turks had a lot of contacts in the diplomatic and intelligence communities due to their status as a neutral point of contact during world war two and were in negotiations to join NATO almost as soon as it came about. They also had and continue to have one of the biggest armies around. Turkey was founded by the army and it shows...

Yeah barring something ridicilous happening like Turkey totally and utterly imploding,ww2 is the last chance for Turkey to lose Constantinple.....
 
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