Communist Greece versus NATO Turkey

I wonder if, following a communist victory in the Greek civil war of the 1940's, Graeco-Turkish clashes over Cyprus would have created a potential NATO-WarPac flashpoint.

Any thoughts on the likelihood of this leading to a hot war? Or happening at all for that matter.
 
It would be pretty hard for the Greeks Communists to actually win in this scenario. For one thing the USSR is busy solidifying their rule over Eastern Europe at this point and with the British involved in the civil war they're not going to rush in. They just can't extend themselves that far at this point in time
 
A communist Greece since the 1940s (which IMHO is highly unlikely) leads to a whole different course of the Cyprus question.
Since Greece would have been Red it is highly unlikely the British would easily allow Cyprus to become sovereign under a Greek-Cypriot government, fearing that Cyprus might itself turn Red as well. Furthermore a Red Greece might itself try to provoke a Communist uprising in Cyprus, possibly leading to civil war.

I see Turkey a lot more isolated in this case, perhaps they even decide to go Finland's way, being surrounded by Red states.

The major butterfly here is, that the Soviet Union get's a secure gateway to Med, without having to cross the Straits. This also bears a lot of butterflies for the Middle East matters.
 

Tovarich

Banned
Also, when does the hypothetical clash happen?
Effects may be very different in 1962 during the Cuban crisis or 1983 during AbleArcher, than in a detente '70s or very late '80s.
 
Due to the Percentage Agreements between Churchill and Stalin, Greece was the only partisan liberated nation in the Balkans with (Western) Allied troops in it before the War was over. British and Indian troops fought Communist partisans as early as December 1944, while Free Greek forces were politically purged before being allowed to return home. Simply put, Greece was invested in by the West so a Red Revolution is near impossible due to Athens being a British fort, while a Red victory in the Greek Civil War is unlikely without escalation, while the Tito/Stalin split between the Greek Reds makes it quite unstable.

Only real hope to push Greece in the right direction is electorally. The broad Popular Front led by the KKE during the war was very popular and had organised Greece's first universal suffrage elections during the war, for the Mountain Government. Meanwhile the Right is tainted in various ways. A Popular Front government could order Allied troops out but I dare say a coup by pro-Western officers is very likely.

Really I think its quite easy to make Cold War Greece more uncertain in alignment and messy but out and out Red Athens is unlikely due to Western interests in a Balkan outpost, control of the Aegean islands and Britain's interest in Cyprus and Suez.
 
Due to the Percentage Agreements between Churchill and Stalin, Greece was the only partisan liberated nation in the Balkans with (Western) Allied troops in it before the War was over. British and Indian troops fought Communist partisans as early as December 1944, while Free Greek forces were politically purged before being allowed to return home. Simply put, Greece was invested in by the West so a Red Revolution is near impossible due to Athens being a British fort, while a Red victory in the Greek Civil War is unlikely without escalation, while the Tito/Stalin split between the Greek Reds makes it quite unstable.

Only real hope to push Greece in the right direction is electorally. The broad Popular Front led by the KKE during the war was very popular and had organised Greece's first universal suffrage elections during the war, for the Mountain Government. Meanwhile the Right is tainted in various ways. A Popular Front government could order Allied troops out but I dare say a coup by pro-Western officers is very likely.

Really I think its quite easy to make Cold War Greece more uncertain in alignment and messy but out and out Red Athens is unlikely due to Western interests in a Balkan outpost, control of the Aegean islands and Britain's interest in Cyprus and Suez.
You're thinking too small. In any ATL, anything resembling the OTL percentage agreements aren't inevitable.
 
Good post though Jape. Very informative reply to a casual question. still assuming that a red Greece, maybe even a Warsaw Pact member was possible I was thinking along the lines of the our times clashes in the early 1970s. Does it remain localised and how dangerous a situation would it be?
Certainly wasn't thinking about 1962. :eek:
 

Cook

Banned
The Percentage agreement isn’t of any great significance in this situation; the Greek Communists had all the resources they needed to win control of the country with the withdrawal of the Germans, courtesy of the British who had been supplying them for most of two years.

The SHAEF and Washington were both bitterly opposed to any interference in the internal affairs of liberated nations and equally opposed to any diversion of forces away from the task of winning the war and towards what they (in some ways rightly) saw as British imperialistic meddling. The Americans refused to provide amphibious landing craft to transport British troops to Greece and protested loudly the diversion of British troops that were meant to be boosting Alexander’s forces in Italy; the British had to use other means. Had Eisenhower and Washington been more insistent and Churchill been more conscious that he risked alienating Roosevelt before the Yalta conference, where the stakes were far greater, literally the fate of all of Europe, he may have been more reluctant to authorise force against the KKE.

If the Communists been slightly faster seizing control as the Germans drove north, or the British been a little slower a scraping together what little forces they could spare, the Partisan flag would have been flying over the Acropolis and the world would have been presented with a fait accompli.

Had the Communists come to power in 1944 the Balkans would have had two (and later three) Communist, but not Warsaw Pact Member, nations. Siantos’ self-liberated Greek Communists would have been no happier to welcome the Red Army and Moscow’s domination than Tito was.

This would have affected the independence movement in Cyprus; the last thing the Greek’s there would have wanted was union with a Communist mainland.
 
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