Bulgaria joins Italy in the invasion of Greece, Turkey intervenes

I don't see anyone asking the obvious question.

Turkey joins a world war in which it has to fight either the biggest bully in town (Germany) or the oldest and most feared bully in their neighborhood (USSR), or possibly both (remember they're friends in 1940) - in order to help the Greeks?

Yabbut... Though it seems incredible, approaching ASB, the OP has a scholarly cite that Turkey actually threatened to do this. (Or at least to fight Bulgaria, and by extension Italy; Germany only came into it later, and there's no reason to think the USSR would Do Something.)

So that obvious question was answered already.
 
One interesting side question: does Turkey fight Italy in the Dodecanese Islands? Some of those islands are within sight of the mainland. Even if Turkey can't do it on their own, Britain may come in to help. with naval support and air power. There a lot of troops there, but they are in very poor shape. (Vladimier "Popski" Peniakoff passed through in 1939; he saw Italian soldiers in ragged uniforms with canvas rags on their feet instead of shoes.)

It would be much easier for Britain to invade the Dodecanese from Turkey than entirely by sea.

If the Allies take Rhodes, can they hold it even if the Germans overrun Greece and Turkey? Maybe Rhodes, Crete, and Scarpanto (the island between), effectively a beachhead in the Aegean islands?
 
Yabbut... Though it seems incredible, approaching ASB, the OP has a scholarly cite that Turkey actually threatened to do this. (Or at least to fight Bulgaria, and by extension Italy; Germany only came into it later, and there's no reason to think the USSR would Do Something.)

So that obvious question was answered already.

There was a roughly 30 year period after 1922 until 1952 when Greece and Turkey actually had something approaching cordial relations. Having each other's interests in mind would make sense given that they are neighbors.
 

BooNZ

Banned
I don't see anyone asking the obvious question.

Turkey joins a world war in which it has to fight either the biggest bully in town (Germany) or the oldest and most feared bully in their neighborhood (USSR), or possibly both (remember they're friends in 1940) - in order to help the Greeks?
Do you mean something like...
From a Turkish perspective it seems counterintuitive for Turkey to proactively draw attention to itself from its two biggest threats (Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union) in defense of a traditional rival/enemy (Greece). This intuition is reinforced by strenuous Turkish diplomatic efforts to remain unaligned throughout the second world war.


There was a roughly 30 year period after 1922 until 1952 when Greece and Turkey actually had something approaching cordial relations. Having each other's interests in mind would make sense given that they are neighbors.
So throwing themselves under Nazi/Soviet buses would essentially be team building exercise?
 
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