Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles

[Lascaris]

Nice update! I always look forward to this timeline. Avoiding a bloody conflict and the Metaxas regime will only do Greece good.

The TTL trial and execution of the three (Metaxas, Papoulas, Stratigos) also has another very salutary effect IMO. These are people who tried a coup against the elected government and got executed for their troubles. It signals loud and clear that trying coups will have severe consequences on the plotters. Something that the OTL interwar Greece clearly lacked. This should have salutary effects on both sides of the political spectrum if frex someone on the Venizelist side decided to challenge election results he didn't like by force of arms for example.

If the election and referendum take place at the end of the year, that leaves time for Aspasia to give birth. If she has a son, Royalist opposition can rally around a new figure and there would be opportunity for Venizelos to officially support the monarchy, even though with the whole event rhyming like OTL, I'd suspect we'd end up with a daughter and a republic.

Also, a very minor discrepancy at the beginning of the update. Venizelos is mentioned as having taken shelter in the barracks of the 1st regiment while in the previous update, that was the 2nd.

This was fixed, 2nd Infantry was not based on Athens. If Aspasia had a son yes it provides a viable candidate for the throne but one with severe drawbacks, it would need a regency for the next 18 years and given the political impasse before the coup probably a second referendum between candidates. This is something that the republicans will be pointing out for all its worth of course. Of the candidates one is unacceptable (to them but has also lost points with the more fanatic royalists for not openly supporting their "revolution"), three are refusing the throne outright and one is a minor that could possibly accept the throne when he came of age... if his father did not change his mind in the meantime. Effectively you'd be in for a Hungarian style regency it seems to me...

What if the baby is a girl, would it be possible to choose her as the Queen?

Technically no without referendum or act of parliament. Hell technically even if she has a son, since the marriage was morganetic, he's out of the line of succession unless the law is altered. Royals marrying commoners and no one batting an eye is still some decades in the future and not just in Greece.

Perhaps this would make the government change the recruitment policy of the army instead of locals forming the various units of the army it would make sense to place people of different backgrounds in various units thus lessening the risk of coup's in the future

At this point there are very clear military advantages for recruiting locally both in terms of unit cohesion, you go to war with people you mostly know and junior officers and noncoms again you mostly know, the schoolteacher from your village, or the next village is as likely as not a reserve officer in your regiment in wartime, and in terms of speed of mobilisation. As Newfoundland found out in WW1 there are also severe potential drawbacks as well of course, if a regiment suffered catastrophic casualties these would be also largely localised.

 

[galileo-034]

Technically no without referendum or act of parliament. Hell technically even if she has a son, since the marriage was morganetic, he's out of the line of succession unless the law is altered. Royals marrying commoners and no one batting an eye is still some decades in the future and not just in Greece.

It's not like Venizelos is shy about altering the succession to pick a convenient candidate. If he has been willing so far to pass over several candidates, he may as well change agains succession law to ignore the morganatic argument.

If Aspasia had a son yes it provides a viable candidate for the throne but one with severe drawbacks, it would need a regency for the next 18 years and given the political impasse before the coup probably a second referendum between candidates. This is something that the republicans will be pointing out for all its worth of course. Of the candidates one is unacceptable (to them but has also lost points with the more fanatic royalists for not openly supporting their "revolution"), three are refusing the throne outright and one is a minor that could possibly accept the throne when he came of age... if his father did not change his mind in the meantime. Effectively you'd be in for a Hungarian style regency it seems to me...

Kountouriotis is already in place. And to speak of, if the regent is effectively elected, a regency in this context de facto becomes a republic in all but the name. Of course, the downside being that this could remain a poisonous issue as long as it lasts.

 

[goumaister]

Well that ended quite quickly fortunately. Now onward to reform and industrialization !! Here I would like to know the populations and economic power of Greece and Turkey. Greece OTL after the 1921 disaster had about 7 million men ,ITTL they have saved many more Greeks from death in Asia Minor and also acquired the rest of Epirus which could add maybe even a million more Greeks , at the very least half a million more. If you add there the extra Armenians and Pontic Greeks saved that number could go higher.

On the other hand Turkey OTL had almost 13 million after the war. Their main loss here is the more men dead in the war and the Greek pillaging that surely happened aw well as the population of Constantinople and Antioch. That would amount to 1 million Turks less inside their borders at least . So the ration between the two is now from almost 2-1 for Turkey to closer to 50% more people in favor of Turkey, still an advantage but not at the same extent.

About their economic power I am at a loss really. I think it was mentioned that Turkey is at 70% OTL GDP but what about Greece? Also formion has mentioned that the Turkish exports have plummeted while the Greeks have gained a lot of assets. I would like to know more on this front really.

 

[formion]

I would like to make a post regarding greek interwar military spending.

A couple of years ago, our author had posted the "Katheniotis Report" - a report of a former Chief of General Staff who criticized the conduct of the greco-italian war. I had downloaded it, yet I forgot about it, until I read it recently. In any case, thank you @Lascaris!

In OTL the venizelist general Katheniotis was Chief of Staff in 1933-1935. According to him, he was against an expensive fortification of the greco-bulgarian border. Instead he proposed to build only reinforced machine gun nests in strategic points, so as to just slow down a bulgarian attack, not stop it. The light defensive works would cost only 200 mil drachmas instead of 1,5 bil of the OTL forts. With the same logic, if the light works covered Eastern Thrace as well, there would be 1 billion drachmas left for more arms purchases. But what could 1 billion drachmas buy?

In OTL 1 billion drachmas was used to buy the following:
- 1,752 Hotchkiss machine guns 7,92mm
- 6,000 Hotchkiss light machine guns 6,5mm
- 32 Hotchkiss anti-aircraft machine guns 13,2mm
- 125,000 rifles
- 192 mountain guns 75mm
-120 mountain guns 105mm

There are several other differences compared to the OTL: Not having lost the equipment of 2 corps in Asia Minor, having many more officers due to less civil strife, bigger economy, less refugee economic burden, Bodosakis kickstarting an arms industry much earlier.

Katheniotis prefered to arm a bigger percentage of the available population instead of forts. In OTL 150,000 men were not called due to a lack of weapons and officers. In TTL Greece will be able to field more than 600,000 men.

 

[goumaister]

In OTL the venizelist general Katheniotis was Chief of Staff in 1933-1935. According to him, he was against an expensive fortification of the greco-bulgarian border. Instead he proposed to build only reinforced machine gun nests in strategic points, so as to just slow down a bulgarian attack, not stop it.

I find that whole idea of defending against the Bulgarians , especially when in the interwar they had a small military , quite weird. Why build up a defense when you have the power to attack and win? Turkey and Yugoslavia were allies so what's the holdup there? When I say attack I don't mean in starting a war but in having a military that is able to attack and not just defend behind fortifications. If the Greeks could mobilize 10% of their population in 1940 they could have an army of 700k and even more ITTL which is not a small one by all means.

 

[formion]

I find that whole idea of defending against the Bulgarians , especially when in the interwar they had a small military , quite weird. Why build up a defense when you have the power to attack and win? Turkey and Yugoslavia were allies so what's the holdup there? When I say attack I don't mean in starting a war but in having a military that is able to attack and not just defend behind fortifications. If the Greeks could mobilize 10% of their population in 1940 they could have an army of 700k and even more ITTL which is not a small one by all means.

Thoughts on fortification began only after Bulgaria started re-armament. The logic behind it was that Bulgaria could concetrate major forces across the border 6 or 7 days before Greece was able to. So, the light works envisioned by Katheniotis would slow down the bulgarian advance across the mountains in 2 or 3 successive lines just for a few days, until Greece could bring enough forces to counter attack.

 

[Lascaris]

Well that ended quite quickly fortunately. Now onward to reform and industrialization !! Here I would like to know the populations and economic power of Greece and Turkey. Greece OTL after the 1921 disaster had about 7 million men ,ITTL they have saved many more Greeks from death in Asia Minor and also acquired the rest of Epirus which could add maybe even a million more Greeks , at the very least half a million more. If you add there the extra Armenians and Pontic Greeks saved that number could go higher.

On the other hand Turkey OTL had almost 13 million after the war. Their main loss here is the more men dead in the war and the Greek pillaging that surely happened aw well as the population of Constantinople and Antioch. That would amount to 1 million Turks less inside their borders at least . So the ration between the two is now from almost 2-1 for Turkey to closer to 50% more people in favor of Turkey, still an advantage but not at the same extent.

About their economic power I am at a loss really. I think it was mentioned that Turkey is at 70% OTL GDP but what about Greece? Also formion has mentioned that the Turkish exports have plummeted while the Greeks have gained a lot of assets. I would like to know more on this front really.

Turkey in OTL had 13,648,945 people in 1927. Projecting backwards that means about 12.6 million in 1923. TTL Turkey in 1922 amounts to about 10.95 million. About 211,000 more in French Syria in excess of OTL including Kurds and Arabs, 238,000 in the Italian zone, 610,000 in Constantinople (Dardanelles included) plus perhaps 269,000 in Kars (294,000 in the 1927 census). 12.1 million by 1927.

Greek GDP... it depends. In constant 1914 drachmas by 1924 it is about 55% higher than OTL between higher economic growth in 1922-23 (no war, earlier demobilization and no refugee crisis) and the inclusion of Ionia and East Thrace. The nominal GDP in British pounds? Way higher as the exchange rate of the pound has gone down to a much lesser extend than OTL, it would inevitably go down if for no other reason due to the increase of the value of the British pound independent of anything the Greeks do. But the forced loan of 1922 when Greece removed half the gold cover of the drachma to finance the war. Another forced loan took place for a quarter of the cover in 1926 which likely will never happen TTL. So an exchange rate of 50-70% that of OTL depending on year is a reasonable estimate, you could easily argue for 50% at a minimum. Which means a nominal GDP in pounds between 2.1 and 3 times that of OTL...

 

[Lascaris]

I would like to make a post regarding greek interwar military spending.

A couple of years ago, our author had posted the "Katheniotis Report" - a report of a former Chief of General Staff who criticized the conduct of the greco-italian war. I had downloaded it, yet I forgot about it, until I read it recently. In any case, thank you @Lascaris!

In OTL the venizelist general Katheniotis was Chief of Staff in 1933-1935. According to him, he was against an expensive fortification of the greco-bulgarian border. Instead he proposed to build only reinforced machine gun nests in strategic points, so as to just slow down a bulgarian attack, not stop it. The light defensive works would cost only 200 mil drachmas instead of 1,5 bil of the OTL forts. With the same logic, if the light works covered Eastern Thrace as well, there would be 1 billion drachmas left for more arms purchases. But what could 1 billion drachmas buy?

I don't agree with everything Katheniotis wrote, but there is considerable truth in Papagos being fixated with Bulgaria and that the 600,000 men army proposed by Katheniotis made quite a bit of sense. Papagos counter-arguments were that there wouldn't be enough small arms to equip the army and also that the army would be lacking about 2900 junior officers. For the second of course Papagos had cashiered 1500 republican officers... and you could quite easily train 1400 more reserve officers between 1935 and 1940.

The other matter was of course needing about 60,000 more rifles to equip the additional units, but as Tsakalotos argued in his own memoirs this would had taken about 200 million, by comparison 1,458 billion was given for fortifications after 1935.

In OTL 1 billion drachmas was used to buy the following:
- 1,752 Hotchkiss machine guns 7,92mm
- 6,000 Hotchkiss light machine guns 6,5mm
- 32 Hotchkiss anti-aircraft machine guns 13,2mm
- 125,000 rifles
- 192 mountain guns 75mm
-120 mountain guns 105mm

1 billion is just the two Pangalos years roughly, the first artillery orders for 240 guns had already been placed prior to this by Michalakopoulos which is usually ignored. Well actually I think the exact numbers can be found in page 387 of the Greek statistical service yearbook for 1930 under the table costs of the wars 1912-1923, which give the following numbers in millions of drachmas for 1924-26 as extraordinary budget of the Greek war ministry (extraordinary budget was the one for arms purchases):

1924: 477.4
1925: 537.7
1926: 532.9

Now we can expand on this a fair bit. We know that for the whole period up to 1935 the amounts spent on the army amounted to 3.19 billion, that the amount spent in 1929-32 was 501.5 million, including 110 million from earlier orders and that of this 216.4 was in the 1930 budget (from the Greek report to the league of nations here https://wayback.archive-it.org/6321....library.northwestern.edu/league/le000505.pdf ). Further that Kafandaris had stated in February 1930 that up to that point 2555 million had been given for equipping the army (following public trouble when then chief of staff Mazarakis pressed publicly for an increase of the extaordinary budget by 100 million to 300 million. If you put it all together, you get a picture like this:

1924: 477.4
1925: 537.7
1926: 532.9
1927: ~403.5
1928: ~403.5
1929: ~200
1930: 216.4
1931: ~42.6
1932: ~42.5
1933: ~66.75
1934: ~66.75
1935: 340
1936: 2052.2 +49.4 (second number is for fortification)
1937: 1016.4 +270,9
1938: 379.9 +286.6
1939: 1028.6 +424.1
1940: 598.5 +427

Now for one obvious difference, if the Greeks give the exact same amounts, without counting the larger economy, given the better exchange rate of the drachma the 8.76 million pounds of 1924-34 in OTL become 13.47 million TTL. And the ~10 million post 1935 become ~18.8...

There are several other differences compared to the OTL: Not having lost the equipment of 2 corps in Asia Minor, having many more officers due to less civil strife, bigger economy, less refugee economic burden, Bodosakis kickstarting an arms industry much earlier.

Katheniotis prefered to arm a bigger percentage of the available population instead of forts. In OTL 150,000 men were not called due to a lack of weapons and officers. In TTL Greece will be able to field more than 600,000 men.

We are of course 15 years from OTL WW2 yet. That said all other things being equal there are a few things to consider.

1. The Greeks will have a much better balance of payments aside from a larger economy. How much of Turkish tobacco went to Britain in OTL, that now is instead Greek exports? How much Greek tobacco that went to Germany goes to Britain and France instead, with Turkish tobacco replacing it in the German market, thanks to clearing agreements?
2. The British in late 1938 - early 1939 finally decided much to the treasury's horror to provide about 10 million pounds in loans for friendly governments to rearm. In OTL 6 million went to Turkey and 2 million to Greece. No guarantees what amounts go to each country TTL. I note of course that when Bulgaria tried to take advantage the British had finally wised up enough to refuse.
3. France would not give loans for arms up to 1939 as Greece was a dictatorship...

 

[Lascaris]

I find that whole idea of defending against the Bulgarians , especially when in the interwar they had a small military , quite weird. Why build up a defense when you have the power to attack and win? Turkey and Yugoslavia were allies so what's the holdup there? When I say attack I don't mean in starting a war but in having a military that is able to attack and not just defend behind fortifications. If the Greeks could mobilize 10% of their population in 1940 they could have an army of 700k and even more ITTL which is not a small one by all means.

In 1934 IMS the estimated that the trained manpower available for mobilization was 660,000. The 1934 mobilization plan proposed to call up 600,000 out of these in 210 infantry battalions, that would form 6 corps, with 18 infantry divisions and 5 brigades plus 1 cavalry division and 2 brigades. As for the Bulgarians, sure the Greek general staff in general and Papagos in particular were obsessed with the Bulgarian threat. That said Bulgaria was supposedly disarmed with her army limited to 20,000 men and only 38,000 rifles, 219 guns and 355 machine guns in hand in 1922. Now oddly enough at the time Bulgaria openly denounced the treaty they had about 800 guns and slightly over 362,000 rifles available.

 

[formion]

1. The Greeks will have a much better balance of payments aside from a larger economy. How much of Turkish tobacco went to Britain in OTL, that now is instead Greek exports? How much Greek tobacco that went to Germany goes to Britain and France instead, with Turkish tobacco replacing it in the German market, thanks to clearing agreements?

It seems Britain didn't buy much oriental tobacco. Also, my headcanon is that with the new borders, Greece got 45-60% of the OTL turkish tobacco production (Smyrna 40-45%, Balikeshir and Thrace 5-15%).

Instead, most of the exports went to Central Europe, USA and Germany. Check this Petmezas paper: http://www.ruralhistory2013.org/papers/5.8.3._Petmezas.pdf

So, did you want to buy czechoslovakian equipment? Tobacco is the way!

There is another butterfly though. From the paper above we can see that OTL turkish exports were 25-35% of all Oriental tobacco exports. The greeks exports were 35-55% of the total. Considering that at least half the turkish tobacco regions are now greek, it seems that the Greeks will control a much more substantial part of the Oriental variety. This may lead to market dominance, with Bulgaria and Turkey struggling to dislodge greek tobacco from their exporting markets. Food for thought.

Lastly, for more butterflies here is a paper on the role of tobacco trade on turkish-american relations.

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1524&context=masters-theses

 

[MUC]

I would very much like to see a neutral Greece in WWII. This is feasible,

 

[pjmidd]

I would very much like to see a neutral Greece in WWII. This is feasible,

Very unlikely without very big butterflies. To be blunt Greece is in the wrong place with all sides in WW2 having reasons to "secure" it. Allies to attack Romanian oil , Italy for the "new empire" and Germany to protect its flank and control the Eastern Med.

 

[Xenophonte]

Very unlikely without very big butterflies. To be blunt Greece is in the wrong place with all sides in WW2 having reasons to "secure" it. Allies to attack Romanian oil , Italy for the "new empire" and Germany to protect its flank and control the Eastern Med.

Without mention that 'd is very possible that Turkey 'd become in a part of an eventual Roma-Berlin AXIS, whether as a formal ally or as a circumstantial opportunistic cobelligerent, on an eventual Balkan war involving to Greece.

 

[cmakk1012]

Without mention that 'd is very possible that Turkey 'd become in a part of an eventual Roma-Berlin AXIS, whether as a formal ally or as a circumstantial opportunistic cobelligerent, on an eventual Balkan war involving to Greece.

Yeah, I see this as nearly inevitable. Turkey has far too much to theoretically gain in a second round against Greece to stay out of the war.

 

[DracoLazarus]

Yeah, I see this as nearly inevitable. Turkey has far too much to theoretically gain in a second round against Greece to stay out of the war.

The Caucasus front in Barbarossa will be... interesting.

 

[goumaister]

@Lascaris You didn't mention the Greek population. Also would the greek army would mechanize a bit or no? Mainly some small tanks plus aircrafts I had in mind not anything crazy.

 

[formion]

The Caucasus front in Barbarossa will be... interesting.

Interesting yes, but I dout it will have a great overall impact. I suspect it will be a major resource drain for Germany.

A Caucasus Front can have two options:a) the Turks pulling most of the weight with minimal german participation, or b) major german participation with secondary turkish one.

Turkey in TTL is saddled with much debt, while having lost a great part of the pre-war GDP and most of the export-producing regions. In OTL, Turkey with a much larger economy didn't have enough rifles and light equipment for all the reserves, despite the heavy focus on re-armament. Moreover, in TTL Turkey starts with less military equipment as they have lost dozens of artillery pieces to Greeks during the last war while they haven't captured the equipment of 2 greek corps as in OTL. They have also received less equipment from Italy, France and the USSR as the war ended earlier, France never gave any equipment and Italian distanced themselves during the last few months. To quote our author on previous mentions of turkish supplies:

- 48,000 Mauser rifles and 20 Skoda 75mm guns that in OTL the French returned to the Turks, were in TTL sold to Greece

Moreover, Turkey will lack at least a significant part of the OTL Soviet assistance:
- 39,000 rifles
- 327 machine guns
- 54 artillery pieces

I am also under the impression that France provided Kemal with 1,500 light machine guns. We have also discussed the riddle of the OTL italian assistance that was surely more than 20,000 rifles.

Suffice to say that TTL Turkey cannot afford to equip its army. Therefore, if Turkey was to undertake a Caucasus Front and secondary ones in Syria and Iraq, Germany needs to provide equipment for ~42 infantry divisions.

The other problem that applies to both turkish and german participation in the Caucasus Front, is what else? Logistics.

I believe that the Turks will build the otl line towards Erzurum and Kars. Therefore, the whole front will need to be supplied by just one single-tracked rail line. How many divisions can someone supply with this single line? 10? 12? 15? All the supplies need to be sent via the greek and bulgarian networks to Constantinople, then move them via barges to the asiatic side and load them in trains. In TTL Turkey has much less capital to invest in the railways during the Interwar and I suspect that the Greeks have kept the locomotives and cars they captured in the war (that were the vast majority of the existing rolling stock). So, the turkish railways will receive even less investment compared to OTL. If the Germans want their front, then they will have to dedicate a lot of resources just to make the sparse turkish rail network semi-decent and operational.

Overall, it seems to me that a Caucasus Front will be a huge drain of resources. But what about the results? There won't be armored corps dashing through the steppes. There will be infantry divisions fighting through >2,000m high mountains just to pass through Kars. In that terrain, a single soviet corps can stop a turko-german field army. The local Armenians, 21 years after the Genocide, will fight tooth and nail in Kars Oblast.

And then ... here comes SOE dropped in kurdish regions armed with gold sovereigns and promises (as the author have stated in a couple other occasions).

My guess is that this will be the result of an Axis Turkey: Sevres Kurdistan and a Soviet "Wilsonian" Armenia, with an enlarged Soviet Georgia getting Lazistan.

https://www.edmaps.com/assets/images/02_kurdistan_sevres_1920.png

 

[DracoLazarus]

Hmmm, this is a good point, there's more likely going to be a German intervention on a Syrian front than on a Caucasus front.

 

[formion]

Hmmm, this is a good point, there's more likely going to be a German intervention on a Syrian front than on a Caucasus front.

Frankly, I think the allure of Baku oil will be too strong to resist.

A Syria Front faces the same problems. Even if the Germans drive down to Palestine, it doesn't matter: as long as Suez remains secure, the rest of the Levant is just a buffer zone. If they drive down to Iraq it still doesn't matter. The logistics there are worse than Syria and they will need to capture Basra and and persian oil fields to make an impact. By the time they will reach the lower Mesopotamia, logistics will bite them in the ass. In either cases, they would need significant amounts of trucks. Just to keep a motorized corps in Palestine or close to Basra they would need give almost as many trucks as the OTL Afrika Korps. I also think that Naples to Tripoli and then the front is easier for logistics than (enter Danube hub)-Bulgaria-Constantinople-turkish single-track railway- syrian single-track railway-Palestine/ Mesopotamia.

 

[MUC]

Very unlikely without very big butterflies. To be blunt Greece is in the wrong place with all sides in WW2 having reasons to "secure" it. Allies to attack Romanian oil , Italy for the "new empire" and Germany to protect its flank and control the Eastern Med.

I do not believe so.
Greece was attacked by Germany in WWII only after the Italians got into trouble there and the British sent forces to Greece. Only at that point did the Germans see a necessity to secure Greece. If Greece can become strong enough to discourage the Italians from attacking it, I can image the Axis wanting to ignore Greece, provided the British do not send forces to Greece. What Turkey will do is another issue, however we have no idea yet, how strong Turkey will be by then and if not another war will erupt in the mean time between Greece and Turkey, it's still 15 years until WWII.