Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was killed in fighting on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915.
The corrupt and incompetent Ottoman Empire falls to a People’s Soviet with financial help from Moscow in 1921. In 1922 the Turkish Soviet Socialist Republic is declared.
The Turkish S.S.R. is attacked by German forces out of Bulgaria and Greece on June 22, 1941. Istanbul falls to Axis forces only after stiff resistance and heavy bombing. The beautiful Haga Sofia was destroyed in what many regard as the first of many war crimes carried out by the Germans in Turkey.
Because of the German focus on attacking Russia they do not devote enough forces to their southern most front and this, combined with fierce Turkish Army resistance and extraordinary willingness to sacrifice to defend the homeland results in the Germans barely making it to Ankara and never being able to secure it.
Turkish forces, aided with equipment and supplies from both Russia and Britain are able to liberate their own country and drive into Bulgaria, linking up there with the Red Army in 1944.
Because they liberated themselves no Red Army Forces are stationed in Turkish territory after the war. While Turkey joins the Warsaw Pact it leaves it shortly afterwards to pursue a more independent foreign policy.
Economic difficulties in the 1980’s resulted in calls for greater liberalisation. The first democratic election was held in 1989. While peaceful in most of the country it saw widespread violence in the South East of the country where the Kurdish Nationalist Party was banned from the election but had widespread support.
Turkey has applied for membership to the European Union but economic problems, along with the ongoing suppression of Kurdish Nationalism is hindering their approval.