DBWI: WI Larger Turkey

So there's trouble again - border clashes in Anatolia between Greater Greece and Turkey, with Kurdistan siding with the Greeks. It makes me wonder: is there any way that Turkey could have avoided the territorial losses that ended WWI? And if so, how do we think the region would look?
 
So there's trouble again - border clashes in Anatolia between Greater Greece and Turkey, with Kurdistan siding with the Greeks. It makes me wonder: is there any way that Turkey could have avoided the territorial losses that ended WWI? And if so, how do we think the region would look?

Well, Turkey was going to lose territory post-Ottoman Empire no matter what. You could avoid Greece from conquering Constantinople/Istanbul pretty easily - it was a pretty close thing after all, of course. The same goes for Thrace, a place that also remains Turkish-majority despite the population exchanges and all attempts to settle Greeks in the area since then. Such a thing would certainly avoid the Turkish terrorism in modern Greece - it's even worse than the Pashtun terrorism in India was in the eighties.

In addition to a more peaceful Anatolia-Balkan region, such a thing may result in Mustafa Kemal retaining power. Apparently, he had several bizarre reform ideas to de-Islamist-ize and westernize Turkey. He even planned to create alcohol factories! Obviously, that would fail, but one radical thing that I think he could do is introduce the Roman alphabet for use in the Turkish language. Even IOTL, Turkish needed to use a special form of the Arabic script that had mandatory vowel marks after more vulgar varieties became the official dialect. Kemal's plan would be a bit of a radical departure for sure, but it would be better suited for Vulgar Turkish than the standard Arabic script, and so it would have been adopted.
 
This would be interesting - a larger Turkey would mean a weaker Greece, if the Turks managed to hang on to Constantinople/Istanbul and maybe even Adrianople/Edirne/whatever the Bulgarians are calling it now. That, in turn, might mean that there's no Third Balkan War in 1928, or a very different one - OTL, the reason for the war was Greek designs on Macedonia, causing Yugoslavia and Bulgaria to ally. Would a weaker Greece not be so opportunistic, perhaps, or were they always going to try and grab Macedonia the minute Yugoslavia started collapsing?
 
Putting aside the Greek/Byzantine designs on Thrace and Western Anatolia, there is still the fact that Turkey was a member of the Central Powers - the Western Powers wouldn't stand for revanchism from Germany, Austria, or Bulgaria, and post-World War I at least, would never have tolerated moves to restore the former empire from them. Why would they allow the Turks? Especially given how loyal the Byzantines and Kurds have been in the century since.
 
I agree that the Allies wouldn't have wanted to let Turkey off too
lightly (as we saw with OTL Treaty of Salonika). How about if there weren't really any successful Allied military campaigns against Turkey - instead of the slow advance from Salonika, leading to the Battle of Tekirdag, Britain throws everything into one massed assault on the Dardanelles?
Interesting thought about Kemal retaining power. I'd have thought he'd be far too radical in his Westernisation to hold on no matter how much of the old Empire he owned, but if he managed it, he'd be acclaimed as a father of the new nation or something. (Perhaps we'd talk of "pulling a Kemal" rather than pulling a Meiji...)
As for Kurdistan, though, I don't think that the Turks can avoid its creation. Without Kurdish allies, Britain and France would never have held on to the Otto!an lands in the Levant that they took. Whatever happens in the west, self-determination will ensure a Kurdish state.
 
Putting aside the Greek/Byzantine designs on Thrace and Western Anatolia, there is still the fact that Turkey was a member of the Central Powers - the Western Powers wouldn't stand for revanchism from Germany, Austria, or Bulgaria, and post-World War I at least, would never have tolerated moves to restore the former empire from them. Why would they allow the Turks? Especially given how loyal the Byzantines and Kurds have been in the century since.

I agree about the Kurds, but I think it's more than possible that Turkish-majority Thrace, Constantinople, and western Anatolia remain Turkish territory, mainly because of the difficulties of a nationalistic nation having too many people of the wrong nationality.
 
I agree about the Kurds, but I think it's more than possible that Turkish-majority Thrace, Constantinople, and western Anatolia remain Turkish territory, mainly because of the difficulties of a nationalistic nation having too many people of the wrong nationality.

Surely continued Turkish rule over Constantinople and Thrace would just lead to conflict with Greece a few years down the line anyway? I know the Imperial Loyalist Party hadn't been founded by that point, but there must have been quite a bit of popular pressure in Greece to take Thrace and the Turkish Aegean coast at the very least - or would a Turkey that hadn't had their armies obliterated at Tekirdag look like less of an inviting target?
 
Surely continued Turkish rule over Constantinople and Thrace would just lead to conflict with Greece a few years down the line anyway? I know the Imperial Loyalist Party hadn't been founded by that point, but there must have been quite a bit of popular pressure in Greece to take Thrace and the Turkish Aegean coast at the very least - or would a Turkey that hadn't had their armies obliterated at Tekirdag look like less of an inviting target?

Well, of course they'd be conflict down the line, but I think after that conflict, Turkish-ruled Thrace and Constantinople would probably achieve peace. Another method a stable and accepted Turkish Thrace and Constantinople could emerge is if the Greek minority packed their bags and left the two areas, which would erase the whole "liberate the Hellenes" factor from the Greek invasion of Thrace - a very big demographic change only matched by the Japanese-ization of Taiwan, but it's on the table, and is certainly more plausible than the Turkish majority leaving Thrace and Constantinople.
 
Well, of course they'd be conflict down the line, but I think after that conflict, Turkish-ruled Thrace and Constantinople would probably achieve peace. Another method a stable and accepted Turkish Thrace and Constantinople could emerge is if the Greek minority packed their bags and left the two areas, which would erase the whole "liberate the Hellenes" factor from the Greek invasion of Thrace - a very big demographic change only matched by the Japanese-ization of Taiwan, but it's on the table, and is certainly more plausible than the Turkish majority leaving Thrace and Constantinople.

Good point...and an interesting model. Though could the Turks have effectively managed something like that? The Japanese managed and continue to manage Taiwan because, well, small island, easy to contain etc., but Thrace?
 
Well, of course they'd be conflict down the line, but I think after that conflict, Turkish-ruled Thrace and Constantinople would probably achieve peace. Another method a stable and accepted Turkish Thrace and Constantinople could emerge is if the Greek minority packed their bags and left the two areas, which would erase the whole "liberate the Hellenes" factor from the Greek invasion of Thrace - a very big demographic change only matched by the Japanese-ization of Taiwan, but it's on the table, and is certainly more plausible than the Turkish majority leaving Thrace and Constantinople.

It's technically possible for all of the Greeks to leave Thrace and Constantinople, but would they realistically do so? There's been Greek populations in that area for over two thousand years; whatever Turkish regime we ended up with would have to be extremely oppressive in order to force an exodus like that. On the other hand, if Turkey does end up with Kemal in charge, his reforms would almost certainly spark civil war, which might be a plausible reason for lots of Greeks to flee to a more stable Greece (assuming it is more stable, which is a big ask for Greece without the Imperial Loyalist Party's rule to hold it together).
 
Good point...and an interesting model. Though could the Turks have effectively managed something like that? The Japanese managed and continue to manage Taiwan because, well, small island, easy to contain etc., but Thrace?

Thrace is right on the border with Greece, so it's not like those Greeks would have to go very far to reach the Hellenic state, anyways. It's a pretty large Greek minority that would have to pack their bags and leave, but then again, in the Balkans alone, there have been worse population exchanges. There would, of course, still be notable Greek minorities in Thrace and "Konstantiniyye", but much smaller than OTL, which would probably be manageable.

It's technically possible for all of the Greeks to leave Thrace and Constantinople, but would they realistically do so? There's been Greek populations in that area for over two thousand years; whatever Turkish regime we ended up with would have to be extremely oppressive in order to force an exodus like that.

I'm of the view that a strong Turkish republic, strong enough to defeat the Greek invasion, would have to be quite authoritarian, at least in the early years. Something like the Imperial Loyalist Party's rule in Greece, if you will.

On the other hand, if Turkey does end up with Kemal in charge, his reforms would almost certainly spark civil war, which might be a plausible reason for lots of Greeks to flee to a more stable Greece

Assuming he's idiotic enough to push his more stupid reforms like creating alcohol factories, which I don't think he is. More likely than not, rather than the pan-Turanism of the OTL Turkish republic, he'd push a more western outlook, and I think he'd do so somewhat effectively.
 
Thrace is right on the border with Greece, so it's not like those Greeks would have to go very far to reach the Hellenic state, anyways. It's a pretty large Greek minority that would have to pack their bags and leave, but then again, in the Balkans alone, there have been worse population exchanges. There would, of course, still be notable Greek minorities in Thrace and "Konstantiniyye", but much smaller than OTL, which would probably be manageable.

Whereabouts would the border actually be? Presumably, a Turkish Salonika is very unlikely...Could we see Turks (and maybe Albanians; did Greece control Epirus at this point?) driven out of Greek lands in retaliation?

I'm of the view that a strong Turkish republic, strong enough to defeat the Greek invasion, would have to be quite authoritarian, at least in the early years. Something like the Imperial Loyalist Party's rule in Greece, if you will.

I think you're probably right - Turkey would need their own authoritarian leadership, not only to stop the Greek invasion, but to stop civil war from breaking out. The end of the Ottoman Empire would have the potential to cause a major crisis of legitimacy in the government, and there might be several rival claimants (as well as secessionist movements in Kurdistan and potentially even the Armenian border areas). A Turkish ILP-equivalent would be a fascinating thing to see - although I'm no great religious scholar, so I'm not sure whether Sunni Islam would sit with that quite as comfortably as Greek Orthodoxy did for the Nicolaides regime.

Assuming he's idiotic enough to push his more stupid reforms like creating alcohol factories, which I don't think he is. More likely than not, rather than the pan-Turanism of the OTL Turkish republic, he'd push a more western outlook, and I think he'd do so somewhat effectively.

Western-focused Turkey, rather than our one with such an unholy obsession with the Caucasus would be interesting - attempted reintegration of Albania, or at least much closer ties, perhaps? Also, presumably Constantinople would stay as the capital, instead of the move to Ankara?
 
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Well, Turkey was going to lose territory post-Ottoman Empire no matter what. You could avoid Greece from conquering Constantinople/Istanbul pretty easily - it was a pretty close thing after all, of course. The same goes for Thrace, a place that also remains Turkish-majority despite the population exchanges and all attempts to settle Greeks in the area since then. Such a thing would certainly avoid the Turkish terrorism in modern Greece - it's even worse than the Pashtun terrorism in India was in the eighties.
OOC: Turkish Thrace was only about 60% Muslim in 1914 and there is some evidence that the Greek population was significantly under-counted. If there had been a population exchange and Greek settlement in the region, it would most likely not be Muslim majority by now.
 
OOC: Turkish Thrace was only about 60% Muslim in 1914 and there is some evidence that the Greek population was significantly under-counted. If there had been a population exchange and Greek settlement in the region, it would most likely not be Muslim majority by now.

OOC: Not necessarily - perhaps if Thrace was entirely in Greece, then many of the ethnic Greeks there might emigrate to other parts of the country. It hasn't been specified how successful the attempts to settle Greeks in the region since was, either, so there's a chance that it could be majority-Turkish.
 
OOC: Not necessarily - perhaps if Thrace was entirely in Greece, then many of the ethnic Greeks there might emigrate to other parts of the country. It hasn't been specified how successful the attempts to settle Greeks in the region since was, either, so there's a chance that it could be majority-Turkish.
OOC: If the region is so poor that Greeks are leaving it (which doesn't really make sense, it has always been a well developed and prosperous region in OTL), this would be just as true of the Turks. Of which many left during the population exchange as well.
 
OOC: If the region is so poor that Greeks are leaving it (which doesn't really make sense, it has always been a well developed and prosperous region in OTL), this would be just as true of the Turks. Of which many left during the population exchange as well.

OOC: They might be leaving for non-economic reasons - or, alternatively, many of the Turks may be unable or unwilling to leave, due to authoritarian government in Greece or in Turkey.
 
Well...I could see all sorts of unhappiness since with a larger Turkey...I'd have to put up with four to five days of turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey salad, cubes of turkey over noodles...that's why I only allow turkey in the house once a year. Four continuous days of it means that I'll make sure I buy a smaller one next November.

Joho :p.
 
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