Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles
- Thread starter Lascaris
- Start date
formion
Banned
I would argue that Greece will try to get the northern bank of the Menderes/Meander river. The Meander valley was simply one of the richest and most productive regions of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1924, dried figs comprised a 6,3% of the total value of turkish exports. The vast majority of these figs were produced in the Meander valley, especially in the north bank. Likewise, the low Meander valley was exceptional rich in cotton and tobacco. It is plausible that this valley was responsible for a 5-10% of all the turkish interwar exports.
Lastly, getting Kusadasi from the Italians would be easy if a Meander border is established: Kusadasi without its interior and railroad to Aidin would have negligible economic value.
Additionally, a protectorate over a Circassian statelet around Balikesher-Bandirma would be of immense strategic value to Greece, as Turkey would be cut off of its nominal Dardanelles Asiatic Zone. It goes without saying the a Circassian statelet would also deprive Turkey of valuable (and hostile to Kemalists) human capital, while the region was important for silk, tobacco and grain production.
However, it is not just about land, but also about economics and exportable products.
In general, when we are talking about cash crops that were the vast majority of interwar turkish exports, this is a rough rule of thumb:
- Tobacco: Smyrna 40-50%, Samsun 35-45%, East Thrace and South Marmara 10-15%
- Cotton: Cilicia 60-75%, Smyrna 20-30%
- Raisins: Smyrna (Memenen to Philadelphia) 90-95%
- Dried figs: Smyrna (mostly Meander valley) 90-95%
- Olive oil: Smyrna >50%, possibly higher
If we also take into account Thracian grain and silk, Smyrniot industrial products (wine, soap, carpets, textiles), Phocaean salt (the majority of the OTL turkish production), Turkey may end up with 25-35% less exports than its OTL interwar counterpart and with the loss of a significant part of its OTL GDP.
Certainly quite less than what they occupy at the moment, or may be occupying at the end of the current offensive. But assuming an actual Greek victory the primary concerns would be getting a defensible border and minimizing the Turkish populations you get within the Greek zone, even while taking into account likely population exchanges, I don't see the Turks being willing to accept any Greek or Armenian population on their side of the border and I expect the Greeks would be quite willing to take in Armenians, after all they took in something like 50,000 in OTL under much more adverse conditions. How many is reasonable is a different question. The US state department was apparently estimating the number of Armenians still in Anatolia to about 131,000 with another 79,000 refugees in Greece and Cyprus and something in the order of 150,000 had also to leave Cilicia after the Ankara agreement in 1921.
For the Circassians @formion mentions it's somewhat problematic to find hard numbers. The numbers below for Circassians, Pomaks and Turkocretans come from a 1921 publication and may well be inaccurate but are the closest I could find.
| Area | Circassian | Pomak | Muslim Cretan |
| Biga | 5000 | 2494 | 0 |
| Smyrna | 5550 | 3229 | 20506 |
| Magnesia | 4500 | 2900 | 3500 |
| Aidin | 3750 | 4500 | 2200 |
| Balikesir | 41000 | 13000 | 2000 |
| Mugla | 5000 | 1500 | 2120 |
| Denizli | 6200 | 8200 | 4000 |
| Bursa | 27000 | 10350 | 3600 |
formion
Banned
@Lascaris, it is indeed fustrating not finding a source for the Circassian demographics. I couldn't find a decent source either.
That being said, it seems their numbers in your source are rather too low. We know that after 1923, Kemal exiled 10,000 Circassians to the eastern provinces. Also, even after suppression of their languages, in 1927 there were 95,900 people in Turkey with circassian as their mother tongue.
This books claims that in Izmit, Adapazari and Bolu, 75,000 Caucasians were settled in the 1870s.
According to Hatip (2018) the 1916 population of Bolu was 60,200 , the majority of whom were Caucasians.
According to "Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912-1923" by 1879, the following Caucasian population were settled in Western Anatolia:
- Ankara: 60,000
- Bolu: 23,000
- Afion: 5,000
- Eski Sehir: 14,000
- Adapazari: 35,000
- Kutahya: 3,000
- Izmit: 15,000
- Denizli: 1,500
- Balikesir: 35,000
- Manisa: 2,000
- Aydin: 9,000
- Canakkale: 10,000
- Smyrna: 10,000
Regarding the Armenians, according to the "30 year old Genocide",
So, by late 1921 (before the French giving back Cilicia) the Armenian population in Anatolia may have been close to 350,000, as the refugees to Bulgaria and Romania would have reached these countries after 1919. We know for a fact that the 30,000 refugees to Constantinople were Cilician Armenians, as well as all the 100,000 refugees in Syria.
By the way, if we add the 180,000 Armenians in Constantinople to the Greeks, Jews, Levantines of the city, by 1922 the muslim population would have formed a plurality but not a majority.
I hope these sources help!
That being said, it seems their numbers in your source are rather too low. We know that after 1923, Kemal exiled 10,000 Circassians to the eastern provinces. Also, even after suppression of their languages, in 1927 there were 95,900 people in Turkey with circassian as their mother tongue.
This books claims that in Izmit, Adapazari and Bolu, 75,000 Caucasians were settled in the 1870s.
The Circassian
Esref Kusçubasi remains controversial in Turkey over fifty years after his death. Elsewhere the man sometimes called the "Turkish Lawrence of Arabia" is far less known but his life offers fascinating insights into the traumatic, increasingly violent struggles that ended the Ottoman Empire and...
books.google.com
According to Hatip (2018) the 1916 population of Bolu was 60,200 , the majority of whom were Caucasians.
According to "Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912-1923" by 1879, the following Caucasian population were settled in Western Anatolia:
- Ankara: 60,000
- Bolu: 23,000
- Afion: 5,000
- Eski Sehir: 14,000
- Adapazari: 35,000
- Kutahya: 3,000
- Izmit: 15,000
- Denizli: 1,500
- Balikesir: 35,000
- Manisa: 2,000
- Aydin: 9,000
- Canakkale: 10,000
- Smyrna: 10,000
Regarding the Armenians, according to the "30 year old Genocide",
So, by late 1921 (before the French giving back Cilicia) the Armenian population in Anatolia may have been close to 350,000, as the refugees to Bulgaria and Romania would have reached these countries after 1919. We know for a fact that the 30,000 refugees to Constantinople were Cilician Armenians, as well as all the 100,000 refugees in Syria.
By the way, if we add the 180,000 Armenians in Constantinople to the Greeks, Jews, Levantines of the city, by 1922 the muslim population would have formed a plurality but not a majority.
I hope these sources help!
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@Lascaris, it is indeed fustrating not finding a source for the Circassian demographics. I couldn't find a decent source either.
That being said, it seems their numbers in your source are rather too low. We know that after 1923, Kemal exiled 10,000 Circassians to the eastern provinces. Also, even after suppression of their languages, in 1927 there were 95,900 people in Turkey with circassian as their mother tongue.
This books claims that in Izmit, Adapazari and Bolu, 75,000 Caucasians were settled in the 1870s.
The Circassian
Esref Kusçubasi remains controversial in Turkey over fifty years after his death. Elsewhere the man sometimes called the "Turkish Lawrence of Arabia" is far less known but his life offers fascinating insights into the traumatic, increasingly violent struggles that ended the Ottoman Empire and...books.google.com
According to Hatip (2018) the 1916 population of Bolu was 60,200 , the majority of whom were Caucasians.
According to "Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912-1923" by 1879, the following Caucasian population were settled in Western Anatolia:
- Ankara: 60,000
- Bolu: 23,000
- Afion: 5,000
- Eski Sehir: 14,000
- Adapazari: 35,000
- Kutahya: 3,000
- Izmit: 15,000
- Denizli: 1,500
- Balikesir: 35,000
- Manisa: 2,000
- Aydin: 9,000
- Canakkale: 10,000
- Smyrna: 10,000
Regarding the Armenians, according to the "30 year old Genocide",
So, by late 1921 (before the French giving back Cilicia) the Armenian population in Anatolia may have been close to 350,000, as the refugees to Bulgaria and Romania would have reached these countries after 1919. We know for a fact that the 30,000 refugees to Constantinople were Cilician Armenians, as well as all the 100,000 refugees in Syria.
By the way, if we add the 180,000 Armenians in Constantinople to the Greeks, Jews, Levantines of the city, by 1922 the muslim population would have formed a plurality but not a majority.
I hope these sources help!
Funnily I have both books but had not gone down to systematically reading them. The table in the previous post is from "Λαοί και φυλές της Μικράς Ασίας" written in 1922 by Skalieri. Which is a think to utilize "carefully" for lack of other words. The man had counted every single Muslim group he could find to count them as not really ethnically Turkish. Which for some was correct, for some correct but irrelevant, ok the Bosnians and Albanians were not Turkish sure they identified with the Turkish majority though, for the Pomaks still a point of contention with Greeks, Turks and Bulgarians claiming them for their own to this day, for others like trying to seperate Macedonian Greeks from Pontic Greeks and then claim some of them were not really Greek just looking like Greek. Then he also counts separately the followers of the Bektashi orders and Qizilbash (Shia) which... is either wishful thinking or being ahead of his time given the suppression of the Bektashi orders under Kemalism and the troubles Shia followers in Turkey still face to this day. Skalieris, a Constantinople Greek himself, was one of the supporters of Dragoumis lines of an "Eastern federation" of Turks and Greeks and to some extend expressed hopes at the fringes of Venizelist ideology for Muslim groups that could potentially be accommodated within Greece, after all this is the time of "Greece as an Islamic power similar to France".
The oddest of course, is his hopes of accommodating the Yuruks and I find it odd because you see similar writings in first hand accounts of Asia Minor refugees that the Yuruks in the mountains around Smyrna were very friendly with the local Greeks, and not the strictest Muslims (possible) and disliked other Turks and would prefer the Greeks (most certainly wishful thinking, take Yuruk Ali efe and his guerrillas as an obvious example to the contrary.)
formion
Banned
They were pipe dreams of a part of the upper class who had no idea what was going on in Anatolia.
The only separatism in Anatolia was the circassian one. The Circassian elite found themselves transforming from a privileged ottoman group to common citizens. Their loyalty was first and foremost to the caliph. Other than that, their aspirations were to either form a statelet of their own or act as a privileged group for Greece, as Anatolian Cossacks. In my opinion the best solution would have been a separate Circassian state than incorporating the Circassians Cossack-style. If the christians of the Bursa vilayet where to move to Greece, and the Circassians of Aydin, Manisa, Smyrna, Afyon, Kutahya, Eski Sehir move to Bursa vilayet, then they may form a majority in part of the vilayet.
If I remember correctly you had made a map with the Balikeshir sanjak as a separate entity. That was very plausible. Good agricultural land, decent port in Bandirma, railroad and paved roads make Balikesir an economically self-supporting region. Balikesir had a very good wheat yield per acre and decent tobacco and cotton production.
Could that Circassian state get the support of Britain and France? And could they defend themselves from the Turks down the line or from internal Turkish resistance? Bursa is one of majority Turkic population so I believe they would rise up unless they get their representation and rights under a Caliph so to speak Turkey. That idea is better to me ,have 2 states one under the lawful Sultan/Caliph and another under Kemal in the Interior. That way you split their power-base on ideological terms rather than ethnic.
On the topic of breaking up states, would the Kurds separate themselves from Kemal is promised a state under British Mandate or would they stay loyal? And could the Armenians rise from their defeat in the East? Both of those nations have no land connection to Greece though so I don't know how they could get support but having an ally on the other side of Turkey is gonna be a big strategic bonus.
On the topic of breaking up states, would the Kurds separate themselves from Kemal is promised a state under British Mandate or would they stay loyal? And could the Armenians rise from their defeat in the East? Both of those nations have no land connection to Greece though so I don't know how they could get support but having an ally on the other side of Turkey is gonna be a big strategic bonus.
To the north the Artaki/Erdek peninsula was overwhelmingly Greek and Panormos/Bandirma had a sizeable Greek minority. Assuming a Greek victory, if the Greece is to get the Balikesir sanjak or part of it as they had demanded in the Paris peace conference and if they reach an accommodation with the Circassians it would be along the lines of Circassian autonomy/ fully protected rights within Greece.
Bursa is the first Ottoman capital. It's going to stay part of Turkey no matter what, there is a reason Venizelos didn't bother with it or the whole sanjak even for negotiation. Two states... yes in theory maybe. But arguably that ship has already sailed in early 1921. The last Ottoman parliament, or at least most of its Turkish members have moved themselves to Ankara and people within the Ottoman government are actively aiding Kemal's government, hell arms and material are being bought from Italy at this point with funds of the Ottoman Red Crescent. Two states shortly become one unless you keep them separate by force of arms which defeats the very purpose of the two states in the first place. You might get the sultan remaining in power, after all several Nationalists, like Karabekir wanted to keep the monarchy/caliphate in OTL on the other hand...
The Armenians have risen up and are fighting the Soviets at the moment, but it is not any great spoiler to say that they are going to lose, to the Soviets, just like OTL. The Kurds, the Kurds mostly chose to support Kemal in OTL to start rising up... after he had won in the west. They are still paying for the bad timing/miscalculation to this day.
formion
Banned
What Britain cares about is the security of the Straits. A non-turkish Balikesir sanjak shields the Dardanelles, without the need to invest a single British soldier.
To calculate Circassian support, according to "Sorrowful Shores", in December 1922 and long after the defeat in Anatolia, there were 3,000 Circassian cavalrymen in northern Greece.
If we discount desertions after the cause became hopeless and battle casualties, there should have been somewhat more pro-greek Circassian soldiers in 1921. What does it mean? Is it fair to assume a pro-greek Circassian population of at least 90-100k ?
What were the initial demands of Venizelos?
End game borders will be interesting regardless, especially with France possibly getting Cicilia and possibly Soviet/British inference getting more gains. It Kemal loses badly to the Greeks it will make Italian pride/prestige more damaged then OTL.
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Close to 5,000 fighters I think. Also 10,000 were exiled to eastern Anatolia. Now multiply by at least 5 between men of military age and the poulation they cam from... There is also some mention of Pomak bands fighting with the Greeks (from Osprey's Armies of the Greek-Turkish war) . In terms of a population exchange I'd expect some to go east, some to come west... and many to suddenly decide that they were pro-Greek or pro-Turkish all along if it would mean excemption from an exchange.
This
The Italians still have troops in the Anatolian coast opposite Dodecanese. Roughly a division worth of them. In OTL they were pulled out in early 1922.
I believe those claims from Venizelos were for negotiating purposes only cause there lived more than 2 million Turks and I doubt the nationalistic Greece could assimilate them anytime soon.
The Circassians with those numbers could only be placed in the International Straits zone for security ,cause Britain and France would like to have them for free other than under Greek control. And in that zone the Turks would be a majority and if a republic is placed it would be Turk dominated, unless there is a purge. On the other hand those Turks could be placated maybe to not join the Turkish Republic if the Republic is in a really bad situation in the end of this war.
I'm sad with the Armenians although after the genocide they really didn't stand a chance alone in that area. Maybe they create a state under French Mandate in Cilicia and prosper there, if France doesn't give it up to the Turks as OTL.
To refer to my first comment on a Greek wank, I meant that the Greeks till now get all the right choices and they don't need to win at this point with the extra credits and bonds that they have. So try to balance that just to make things more exciting. Of course that is my opinion and I am not forcing you and maybe the others here don't agree so it's up to you.
The Circassians with those numbers could only be placed in the International Straits zone for security ,cause Britain and France would like to have them for free other than under Greek control. And in that zone the Turks would be a majority and if a republic is placed it would be Turk dominated, unless there is a purge. On the other hand those Turks could be placated maybe to not join the Turkish Republic if the Republic is in a really bad situation in the end of this war.
I'm sad with the Armenians although after the genocide they really didn't stand a chance alone in that area. Maybe they create a state under French Mandate in Cilicia and prosper there, if France doesn't give it up to the Turks as OTL.
To refer to my first comment on a Greek wank, I meant that the Greeks till now get all the right choices and they don't need to win at this point with the extra credits and bonds that they have. So try to balance that just to make things more exciting. Of course that is my opinion and I am not forcing you and maybe the others here don't agree so it's up to you.
If we take the published data of the 1914 Ottoman census at face value (an uhm questionable proposition) the whole area claimed by Greece in 1919, had a Muslim population of 1,354,472. How much of it was a diplomatic ploy and how much Venizelos actually hoped for is an interesting question. In his 1915 memorandums he was describing the very same area. On the other hand by 1919-20 at a minimum the Italians had occupied the area to the south of the Meander.
For the time being the Greeks are doing what we know they were planning to do in OTL before the November 1920 elections. I don't know if this is doing everything right but they are certainly not doing everything wrong as the royalists arguably did in OTL. That Venizelos is still running the show and the man was the best statesman modern Greece has produced to the modern day and one of the most capable diplomats of the era hardly hurts Greek prospects and decision making of course...
I've catched up with this well-researched timeline. A very good work.
If Greece wins, would Britain still retain Cyprus? Or could there be an agreement for the transfer of Cyprus to Greece and Britain retaining extensive basing rights?
According to this document, by the Ministry of Education in Cyprus, a Cypriot delegation in London received a flat-out "No" from British official regarding "Enosis" with Greece, just 5 days before the OTL Greek 1920 elections. http://archeia.moec.gov.cy/sm/253/ethnikoi_agones_kyprion.pdf
If Greece wins, would Britain still retain Cyprus? Or could there be an agreement for the transfer of Cyprus to Greece and Britain retaining extensive basing rights?
According to this document, by the Ministry of Education in Cyprus, a Cypriot delegation in London received a flat-out "No" from British official regarding "Enosis" with Greece, just 5 days before the OTL Greek 1920 elections. http://archeia.moec.gov.cy/sm/253/ethnikoi_agones_kyprion.pdf
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Thanks for the good words. As you say the British flat out refused BEFORE the election when they took mostly for granted that Venizelos would win. So even if Greece wins, Britain will still retain Cyprus, after all Venizelos won't be in a hurry over it concentrating on Asia Minor, first and foremost and North Epirus (her fate is supposed to be decided by the ambassadors convention later in the year) after that. In his view Cyprus, being controlled by a friendly power, could wait.
What is going to happen with Cyprus longer term... why stay tuned. 😇
Part 9 May interlude
Sakarya river April 27th, 1921 (old calendar)/May 10th, 1921 (new calendar)
A temporary lull had come to the fighting as the last Turkish units pulled behind the Sakarya and beat back any Greek units that tried to follow them over the river. The Greeks, themselves exhausted, having taken nearly 11,000 casualties in three weeks of fighting and with their supply columns trying to cope with the distances they had advanced and Turkish partisans had not pressed the attacks seriously. The Greek army had first to regroup, already its engineers were repairing the railway line as the divisions that had reduced the Kutahya pocket were marching east. When the attack came the Greeks would have available ten infantry and one cavalry division with over 150,000 men available.
Ankara, May 10th, 1921
Mustafa Kemal was not a happy man and for good reason. His timely order to retreat had saved the Turkish Western Front from complete disaster but between the fighting, the reduction of the Kutahya pocket and the Greeks picking up stragglers by the thousands his armyhad suffered massively. Three infantry and two cavalry divisions had been effectively destroyed as fighting units with overall casualties in excess of 35,000 men. Voices against him had risen within the grand national assembly both from supporters of some short of compromise with the Greeks and from followers of Enver pasha. Kemal had for the time quelled dissidents, by some accounts surrounding the building that housed the grand national assembly with troops, and given extraordinary powers to deal with the situation. A general mobilization had been proclaimed, supplies from food to leather had been requisitioned and drastic measures to return deserters to the colours and restore discipline taken had been taken, the “courts of independence” had proven anything but shy in passing sentences including death ones as necessary to do so. Fevzi pasha had replaced Ismet as chief of the general staff with Refet pasha made minister of war and Kemal himself taking personal command of the army. Forces had been redeployed from the eastern, central and Cilicia fronts in order to rebuild the army of the west front, some units like the 9th Caucasus infantry division from Kars were still on the match as they had to cross nearly 1200 km on foot to reach the frontlines. Arms and ammunition were brought from the Soviet Union and Italy despite losses from the Greek blockade. By the end of May the Turkish western front would be nearly as strong as it had been back in April with 14 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions and over 69,000 men. [1]
But this had come at a cost, as all other fronts had been stripped of units to feed the western front. A single division was left facing the French in Cilicia where in April there had been three and just a pair of divisions were still in the eastern border. But it could not be helped. If Ankara fell the Greeks would have effective control of Anatolia’s rail network and the supply route to Inebolu. It might not mean an end of the war, it would be impossible for the Greeks to advance east of Anatolia towards Sivas, but by the same token it would be making the nationalists task immensely more difficult. If the Greeks took Ankara, they had a railroad to keep them in supply there. The Turks would have to rely for supply on the port of Samsun, itself blockaded by the Greek navy or worse yet on supply columns coming all the way from Kars. Now it remained to be seen if Athena or Kyzaghan would be the one to prevail in the coming struggle.
Smyrna area, May 1921
Three thousand laborers continued at their work under the direction of army engineers no matter the fighting in the east. They were already at work for nearly a year already, fortifying the area around Smyrna on a line from the Hermus river estuary, the the Magnesia and Nymphaion passes to the east of the Erythrea peninsula and from there to the sea. The fortifications had been the brainchild of general Theodore Pangalos to secure a fallback position to the Greek army even in defeat. Fifty million gold drachmas, about 2 million pounds, had been allocated effort. The 274mm and 150mm guns of the retired Hydra class battleships of the Royal Hellenic navy would be installed in the Nymphaion and Magnesia pass forts when they were ready. [2] With the Greek army advancing to Ankara it was looking perhaps superficial, but Venizelos a fan of Thukydides which he hoped to translate to modern Greek one day [3] was in firm agreement with his army’s chief of staff. After all the concept was no different from the Athenian strategy of 25 centuries before with the fortified Ionian cities backed up by the Athenian navy. And the forts might not be needed today but could very well be needed a decade from now...
Riga, Latvia, May 1921
Greece and the Soviet Union did not have direct diplomatic relations. But the Greeks did have an ambassador in Riga and the Soviets did have diplomats in Estonia and Latvia as well. Already back in February Maxim Litvinov the deputy foreign commisar had requested from Greece twice through the Greek ambassador in Riga to take in Greek refugees gathered in the Caucasus. The same demand was made again in late March, from the Soviet representative in Estonia. The Greeks hadn't been in a hurry to answer, back in February Britain and France had no relations with the Soviet Union and Greece couldn't quite alienate her two allies. But in March 16th Britain had signed a trade agreement with the Soviets and Greece had no reason to maintain a harsher diplomatic stance than her ally and much to gain from accommodating the Soviets. Nikolaos Politis the Greek foreign minister and Nikos Kazantzakis [4] the general secretary of the Greek ministry of care, who was responsible for Pontic refugees, had been quietly sent to Riga to negotiate with the Soviets. Agreeing for Greece to send ships to take the Greek from south Russia and the Caucasus was the easy part, the Soviets wanted to get rid of them and the Greeks wanted to take them. But it was not the only item for negotiation. Greece wanted to stop the Soviet military aid to the Turkish nationalists. The Soviets might be willing to do so if Greece officially recognized them [5], which the Greeks were not willing to do, counter-proposing a trade agreement like the one just signed with the British, which in turn was not enough from the Soviet point of view. But if Turkey was losing, and it looked so at the moment, Moscow had no reason to give up Russian imperial territory in Kars and Ardahan to the Turks. Negotiations continued. So did Russian military aid to the Nationalists and Greek navy efforts to stop it. In the meantime, Greek merchant ships start transporting Caucasus Greeks back to Greece and the Soviets waited, just like the western great powers for the outcome of the coming battle for Ankara…
[1] Kemal for every practical purpose redeploys more units than in OTL to defend Ankara. But on the other hand he starts from a weaker overall position, couple with much heavier permanent casualties, his casualties at Kutahya may have been comparable to OTL but unlike OTL they remained lost instead of being able to pick up several thousand stragglers thanks to the Greeks not pursuing…
[2] This is historical, the description comes from the Pangalos archive. The fortification effort was cancelled by the royalist government after the November election as it was considered superficial and unneeded…
[3] In OTL he did so in the mid 1920s.
[4] Yes that Kazantzakis
[5] Or so Giannis Kordatos second general secretary of the Communist party of Greece to be, still Socialist Labour Party of Greece at this point, claimed to have brought that proposal from the Soviets to the Greek government in OTL, but his account is questionable.
A temporary lull had come to the fighting as the last Turkish units pulled behind the Sakarya and beat back any Greek units that tried to follow them over the river. The Greeks, themselves exhausted, having taken nearly 11,000 casualties in three weeks of fighting and with their supply columns trying to cope with the distances they had advanced and Turkish partisans had not pressed the attacks seriously. The Greek army had first to regroup, already its engineers were repairing the railway line as the divisions that had reduced the Kutahya pocket were marching east. When the attack came the Greeks would have available ten infantry and one cavalry division with over 150,000 men available.
Ankara, May 10th, 1921
Mustafa Kemal was not a happy man and for good reason. His timely order to retreat had saved the Turkish Western Front from complete disaster but between the fighting, the reduction of the Kutahya pocket and the Greeks picking up stragglers by the thousands his armyhad suffered massively. Three infantry and two cavalry divisions had been effectively destroyed as fighting units with overall casualties in excess of 35,000 men. Voices against him had risen within the grand national assembly both from supporters of some short of compromise with the Greeks and from followers of Enver pasha. Kemal had for the time quelled dissidents, by some accounts surrounding the building that housed the grand national assembly with troops, and given extraordinary powers to deal with the situation. A general mobilization had been proclaimed, supplies from food to leather had been requisitioned and drastic measures to return deserters to the colours and restore discipline taken had been taken, the “courts of independence” had proven anything but shy in passing sentences including death ones as necessary to do so. Fevzi pasha had replaced Ismet as chief of the general staff with Refet pasha made minister of war and Kemal himself taking personal command of the army. Forces had been redeployed from the eastern, central and Cilicia fronts in order to rebuild the army of the west front, some units like the 9th Caucasus infantry division from Kars were still on the match as they had to cross nearly 1200 km on foot to reach the frontlines. Arms and ammunition were brought from the Soviet Union and Italy despite losses from the Greek blockade. By the end of May the Turkish western front would be nearly as strong as it had been back in April with 14 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions and over 69,000 men. [1]
But this had come at a cost, as all other fronts had been stripped of units to feed the western front. A single division was left facing the French in Cilicia where in April there had been three and just a pair of divisions were still in the eastern border. But it could not be helped. If Ankara fell the Greeks would have effective control of Anatolia’s rail network and the supply route to Inebolu. It might not mean an end of the war, it would be impossible for the Greeks to advance east of Anatolia towards Sivas, but by the same token it would be making the nationalists task immensely more difficult. If the Greeks took Ankara, they had a railroad to keep them in supply there. The Turks would have to rely for supply on the port of Samsun, itself blockaded by the Greek navy or worse yet on supply columns coming all the way from Kars. Now it remained to be seen if Athena or Kyzaghan would be the one to prevail in the coming struggle.
Smyrna area, May 1921
Three thousand laborers continued at their work under the direction of army engineers no matter the fighting in the east. They were already at work for nearly a year already, fortifying the area around Smyrna on a line from the Hermus river estuary, the the Magnesia and Nymphaion passes to the east of the Erythrea peninsula and from there to the sea. The fortifications had been the brainchild of general Theodore Pangalos to secure a fallback position to the Greek army even in defeat. Fifty million gold drachmas, about 2 million pounds, had been allocated effort. The 274mm and 150mm guns of the retired Hydra class battleships of the Royal Hellenic navy would be installed in the Nymphaion and Magnesia pass forts when they were ready. [2] With the Greek army advancing to Ankara it was looking perhaps superficial, but Venizelos a fan of Thukydides which he hoped to translate to modern Greek one day [3] was in firm agreement with his army’s chief of staff. After all the concept was no different from the Athenian strategy of 25 centuries before with the fortified Ionian cities backed up by the Athenian navy. And the forts might not be needed today but could very well be needed a decade from now...
Riga, Latvia, May 1921
Greece and the Soviet Union did not have direct diplomatic relations. But the Greeks did have an ambassador in Riga and the Soviets did have diplomats in Estonia and Latvia as well. Already back in February Maxim Litvinov the deputy foreign commisar had requested from Greece twice through the Greek ambassador in Riga to take in Greek refugees gathered in the Caucasus. The same demand was made again in late March, from the Soviet representative in Estonia. The Greeks hadn't been in a hurry to answer, back in February Britain and France had no relations with the Soviet Union and Greece couldn't quite alienate her two allies. But in March 16th Britain had signed a trade agreement with the Soviets and Greece had no reason to maintain a harsher diplomatic stance than her ally and much to gain from accommodating the Soviets. Nikolaos Politis the Greek foreign minister and Nikos Kazantzakis [4] the general secretary of the Greek ministry of care, who was responsible for Pontic refugees, had been quietly sent to Riga to negotiate with the Soviets. Agreeing for Greece to send ships to take the Greek from south Russia and the Caucasus was the easy part, the Soviets wanted to get rid of them and the Greeks wanted to take them. But it was not the only item for negotiation. Greece wanted to stop the Soviet military aid to the Turkish nationalists. The Soviets might be willing to do so if Greece officially recognized them [5], which the Greeks were not willing to do, counter-proposing a trade agreement like the one just signed with the British, which in turn was not enough from the Soviet point of view. But if Turkey was losing, and it looked so at the moment, Moscow had no reason to give up Russian imperial territory in Kars and Ardahan to the Turks. Negotiations continued. So did Russian military aid to the Nationalists and Greek navy efforts to stop it. In the meantime, Greek merchant ships start transporting Caucasus Greeks back to Greece and the Soviets waited, just like the western great powers for the outcome of the coming battle for Ankara…
[1] Kemal for every practical purpose redeploys more units than in OTL to defend Ankara. But on the other hand he starts from a weaker overall position, couple with much heavier permanent casualties, his casualties at Kutahya may have been comparable to OTL but unlike OTL they remained lost instead of being able to pick up several thousand stragglers thanks to the Greeks not pursuing…
[2] This is historical, the description comes from the Pangalos archive. The fortification effort was cancelled by the royalist government after the November election as it was considered superficial and unneeded…
[3] In OTL he did so in the mid 1920s.
[4] Yes that Kazantzakis
[5] Or so Giannis Kordatos second general secretary of the Communist party of Greece to be, still Socialist Labour Party of Greece at this point, claimed to have brought that proposal from the Soviets to the Greek government in OTL, but his account is questionable.
In OTL the Greeks took in somewhat more that 58,000, a large number up to a third by some accounts (so call it 20-25,000) died in the south Russian ports they had to remain from several months to a year before the new royalist government actually agreed to take them in and the Soviets as late as 1924 were insisting on sending another 70,000 which the Greeks refused to accept as they already had to deal with a refugee influx of about 1.4 million people.
The Greek ministry of care statistics, collected by Kazantzakis in 1919 estimated the Greeks of Russia to about 593,700 people as follows:
Transcaucasus: 168,700
Ukraine and south Russia: 375,000
Rest of Russia and Azerbaijan: 50,000
So TTL call it at a minimum ~150,000 people and quite possibly more depending on circumstances. The population of Greece in the 1920 census, including East Thrace but excluding Ionia was 5,536,000. So arguably notable...