Britain, October 1931
Since its creation in August the national government had been under intense pressure by the Conservatives to have new elections. MacDonald had consented but the Liberals had been far less happy about it, particularly since the Conservatives wanted to introduce tariffs, something opposed by the majority of Liberals. For a time it looked as if the Liberal party was on the verge of splitting up over the decision of Lloyd George to take the Liberals out of the National Government. But the Welsh wizard's influence within the party had been significantly increased after the 1929 election that had doubled the number of Liberal MPs and his success in introducing electoral reform. Hence the party despite the misgivings of many of its members had followed him out of government.
The elections, the first using alternate voting, had been won in a landslide by the national government gaining 57% of the vote and 471 MPs, 454 of them Conservatives. Independent Labour had managed to retain 29.6% of the vote and 52 MPs. The Liberals had bled worse retaining only 11.7% of the vote but had retained 87 seats as many of their candidates had received the alternate vote of both Conservatives and Labour.
Athens, December 1931
Since 1916 Ethiopia was under an arms embargo at the insistence of Italy and with British support despite French efforts to overturn it. But with Ethiopia finally joining the League of Nations a treaty between Britain, France, Italy and Ethiopia lifting the embargo had been signed in August 1930, despite efforts by the Italian and British negotiators up to the last moment to reduce the annual arms imports of Ethiopia to a miniscule 15,000 pounds per year. Next December Ras Tafari had been crowned emperor Haile Selassie and had set himself to even more vigorously modernizing his country.
Relations between Greece and its fellow orthodox country in Africa, had been traditionally good going all the way back to the times of Axum and Byzantium, while Greek expatriates were playing a notable role in Ethiopian commerce. Back when Ras Tafari had visited Athens in 1924 he had been subject to an enthusiastic welcome by the whole Greek political spectrum, but had gained little tangible material gains from it. The future emperor had sounded the Greeks, like everyone else in his European visit, about military equipment but the Greeks did not want to violate the ars embargo of the time, nor had much in the way of spare arms. But now the arms embargo was lifted and the Greeks did not need every single gun captured in 1912-21 any more. Besides both Dragoumis and Stratos held the Italians responsible for the arms race with Turkey and saw no reason to avoid a dig at the Italians. Thus Greece agreed to sell 42 artillery pieces and their ammunition for slightly over 200,000 pounds. Dragoumis would take things a step further by proposing that Ethiopian students should join both Greek universities and the military academy.
Vickers-Armstrong shipyards, Newcastle upon Tyne, February 1932
Unlike earlier years, the laying down of the new battleship ordered by Greece, had been a relatively subdued affair particularly since feeling in British government circles had been quite mixed about it. Prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, a steadfast proponent of disarmament would had preferred it did not exist at all and no battleship construction took place. But he had recognized this as a futile endeavour, there was no reason for British industry to lose a lucrative contract and the Greeks had readily agreed to keep their ships size within the reduced limits the British Foreign Office still hoped would apply when battleship construction resumed in a few years. Where behind the scenes pressure had failed was on the ships armament. The Greeks had been vacillating between 14 and 16in guns... till they had realized that the only turret design readily available in Britain was actually the 16in triples used in the Nelson class, thus if they accepted 14 or 12in guns, it would had taken an additional 16 months to develop the turrets [1] which was entirely unacceptable with Fatih already launched. The admiralty viewed the project in a much better light. Skills in the British shipyards and industry were being maintained at someone else's penny, and given the close relationship with Greece it meant that they could count upon the ship being present in the Eastern Mediterranean, should British battleships be needed elsewhere.
Sivas, March 1932
Since the end of the war eleven years earlier, Kemal had kept out of the forefront of politics. Back in the 1928 Constantinople had returned him to the assembly in a landslide but he had not taken his place in the grand national assembly continuing to influence policy indirectly with his
Halk partisi, the People's party, led in the grand national assembly and participating in government under Kazim Karabelir and Rauf Orbay in an uneasy coalition with conservatives. The latter the so called "Third Group" in the assembly in 1921 had by now formalized into the Liberal party under Bekir Sami's leadership, with CUP supporters, led by Ismail Canbulat having formed again the
Renewal party acting as semi formal opposition. But now more direct action was needed. On one hand Turkey had to deal with the continuing Kurdish war. On the other it had to deal with the world economic crisis. Turkish export trade, not particularly strong in the first place in the aftermath of the war had plummeted in the previous years.
It was time to be back in control and the elections, even though as usual managed offered the obvious opportunity. Back in December he had caused a party congress where had harshly criticized the policies of Kazim Karabekir and Rauf Orbay and in a vote members had returned him nearly unanimously back to the leadership of the party. His two ostensible lieutenants had been hardly amused by the criticism and the ease with which Kemal had wrested back control of the party but could do little about it. The electoral campaign that followed was largely run by Kemal on the same platform along with a hefty dose of accusations against the Liberals that they had done nothing to overturn or at least ease the terms of the treaty of Chattilon. The People's party had won in a landslide, Bekir Sami's government had immediately resigned, any thoughts of not doing so had quickly died when marshal Fevzi Cakmak, the head of the army had declared his support for Kemal in no uncertain terms. And thus Mustafa Kemal would become the 275th Turkish grand vizier. And the last one...
Greece, May 1932
Up to the end of 1931, it looked as if the world economic crisis had left Greece untouched. The country's budgets had actually showing surpluses since 1927 and the exchange rate between the drachma and the pound had kept improving to well below the 250 drachmas per pound where it had been stabilized by the Liberals in 1926 to as low as 215 drachmas per pound and Stratos government had faced little trouble in obtaining loans for a total of 5.6 million in 1930 and 1931 to further development projects. But this was hiding both a drop to the value of Greek exports till the start of the crisis and increased pressure on the drachma followed after the British pound left the gold standard in September 1931. While Stratos insisted that the drachma would not be devalued, it was widely expected that it was widely expected that this was not going to be the case leading to both gold and foreign exchange leaving the country putting pressure on the drachma, after all both would become far more valuable relative to the drachma following her devaluation.
Things had been further exacerbated when the National Bank of Greece had joined in the attempt at profiteering despite pressure from the government, which retained the right to appoint members to the bank's board of directors, not to do so. Since her creation in 1841 the National Bank was combining the roles of a commercial bank with that of the reserve bank of the Greek state. Through the 1920s her dominant position in Greek state finances had been somewhat reduced by the creation of the Agricultural Bank of Greece and the Landholding bank of Greece, the latter a subsidiary of it, but it had retained her banknote issuing rights all the way to 1928 when Venizelos had heeded League of Nations advice and established the Bank of Greece as a separate central bank. Thus when National bank start moving capital away from Greece under the pretext of buying Greek foreign debt things had almost gone our of control, with the Bank of Greece losing 20% of her gold reserves till the end of April. [2] Stratos had turned to the League of Nations asking for a 10 million pound loan but the League's financial commission led by
Otto Niemeyer had refused.
With no foreign loans forthcoming Stratos had no other option but heed to Pesmazoglou's advice and leave the gold standard. Free convertibility of the drachma to either gold or foreign currency was frozen. Inevitably the exchange rate of the drachma suffered jumping up to a high of 300 drachmas to the pound before finally stabilizing the next year at 280. Inevitably this also increased the cost of serving Greek foreign debt, $467 million in early 1932 [3]. Freezing convertibility meant that the $167 million in foreign debt that belonged to residents of Greece [4], had turned overnight to internal debt leaving some $300 million in external debt. This was considered manageable and despite thought to the contrary Greece did not freeze debt payments thus avoiding bankruptcy. Abandonment of the gold standard would be quickly following by a slew of protectionist measures to minimize imports to the absolute minimum necessary over the next few months.
Belgrade, June 1932
A new Yugoslav constitution was proclaimed officially bringing the Royal Dictatorship to an end. In practical terms the dictatorship very much continued despite the constitutional veneer. Elections were to be held but, when it became known that voting would not be secret the only party that agreed to participate was the
Yugoslav National party which had been created by the very general king Alexander had installed as prime minister of his dictatorial government. And yet despite protests against Alexander, reactions among Yugoslavia's friends and allies were relatively subdued...
Athens, July 1932
The economic measures taken by Stratos had been absolutely necessary and quickly effective. This did not make them any less hated or stopped not just the opposition but even his coalition partners harshly criticizing them, after all elections were due by the end of the year. With ever mounting criticism Stratos had been forced to resign. A new government under Ion Dragumis took his place, tolerated by both Stratos Reformists and Venizelos liberals. After all November and elections were coming.
Paris, October 1932
The French parliament finalized the order of the battleship Dunkerque, much to the consternation of the Italian government. Of course French intentions to build a pair of new battleships and perhaps even a third were well known for the past three years. But Mussolini had not counted on the Greek reaction to the Italian pocket battleship even if he arguably should. Negotiations with France for limiting each country to a pair of 26,500t battleships did not appear to go elsewhere at worse yet even if they succeeded they would leave Italy in a position of inferiority in the all too likely case of Italy having to fight France and the little Entente combined. As a stopgap measure the radical modernization of two of the Cavour class battleships was decided but more had to be done...
Greece, November 1932
Four years under the royalists, in many ways had proved much better than the more radical Venizelists had feared. Stratos and after him Dragoumis had proved moderate and at no point had they threatened the republican order, after all Dragoumis had been himself thoroughly disgusted by monarchism apparently. But they had been unlucky enough for the world economic crisis to blow up in their face and the electorate did not prove particularly understanding. The Liberals had gained 58.88% of the vote and a staggering 203 out of 250 seats in parliament. Even the communists with 4.97% had managed to gain a single seat in Kavala. The United Opposition, not very united and not the opposition pundits noted, had retained 36,02% of the vote and a mere 46 seats in parliament most of them in Old Greece, on particular Peloponnesus and the Cyclades. Greece was yet again under Venizelos...
Appendix: Artillery obtained by Ethiopia
Krupp sFHB98 150mm howitzers: 13
Krupp 120mm guns: 3
Krupp 120mm howitzers: 6
Krupp 105mm guns: 3
Erhard 77mm howitzers: 8
Schneider 70mm mountain guns: 9
[1] Source Norman Friedman in the British battleship around 1936...
[2] As opposed to a third in OTL
[3] $515 million in OTL but Greece TTL has taken ~$186 million in foreign loans in 1918-31 as opposed to ~$234 million in OTL.
[4] $108 million in OTL.
