The one I remember is the hero trying his best not to bath with the rest of his unit as that way the uhm... anatomical differences would become apparent.
Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles
- Thread starter Lascaris
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This is kind of a shot in the dark, but just how different are Turkish politics ITTL? I know Greece has had a drastically different time but Turkey should logically have had an even more divergent time having lost the war and kept the Caliphate. We’ve seen some hints but I’m curious about more of the details….
Hey Lascaris I found your timeline a few days ago and just got caught up. I have to say it’s excellent and incredibly well researched. I had a question though. Has anything important changed in Japanese policy or actions? I know they didn’t officially join the axis until September and nothing in Greece should change anything in Japan. It’s just they’ve been very quite so far. I’m sorry if you’ve already addressed this, I haven’t read many of the comment yet, as I was trying to catch up to the new updates.
Part 48 gives a reasonable summary for the situation at the time of the death of Kemal. To earlier at the final armistice between the Entente and Turkey, the sultan may still be retained but power within Turkey itself overwhelmingly lies with TBMM, the Grand National Assembly, Sivas is invulnerable to either the Greek army or the British navy while even if a rival pro-Sultan army is set up in the zone occupied by the Greek army by then it is pretty clear it will not have much appeal and the assassination of Djamal Ferid pasha further weakens the position of the pro-Sultan factions.
So the immediate post-peace situation involved a grand vizier friendly to the TBMM with Kemalists, Rauf Orbay and Kazim Karabekir having the war ministries and the army remaining under Fevzi Cakmak's control. By 1932 Kemal is directly back to the helm pushing reforms... and his own rule but ironically enough in his absence single party rule has been avoided aside from the ruling Halk partisi, the Kemalists you also have the Liberal party, under Fethi Okyar, the descendant of the "2nd group" in the OTL TBMM (third group TTL) and Ismail Canbulat's Renewal party which is none other than the CUP under a new name.
The multi-party system is the good news. The bad news? By the time of his death Kemal has marginalized both other parties. The worse news? Even in OTL if you did not want to be charitable you could easily point to similarities between Kemalism and fascism, actually in the 1920s and 1930s when fascism was in fashion the comparison was often being made. TTL it is more pronounced particularly since Ismet Innonu has to deal with the fallout of being the man who lost the decisive battles against the Greeks in 1921 leaving Recep Peker as Kemal's successor...
Thanks for the kind words. Japan is for the most part unaffected so far, changes in Greece and Turkey could not quite affect them and in the grand scheme of things WW2 so far has not really changed radically, that the Greeks are surviving, the Turks at war and a few more French colonies on the allied side are relatively marginal as far as matters evolve in East Asia. For now at least.
The manpower in the Yugoslav army in Greece comes mostly from Serbia... for entirely practical reasons like units further west not managing to escape in the first place. Since most of partisan manpower before late 1944 came from outside Serbia this should not much affect the partisans. That Mihailovic has a headstart of several months as the communist party of Yugoslavia still follows the Comintern line...
In Greece patterns of resistance are bound to be more radically different if for no other reason because unlike OTL were occupation came in the aftermath of a royal dictatorship with all that entailed for the legitimacy of the government in exile and the priorities of most politicians here the Athens government is very much legitimate.
"Fun" fact about him: In Kaiserreich, he leads the NatPop path for the Ottomans there and his regime leads to massive uprisings by every minority there.
I wanna ask what's going to happen after WWII. The Turks are going to lose more land this time right? So, will they lose Armenian and Kurdic/Assyrian land? If that occurs, I think the only plausible option is that they ally with the Soviets, which will make the Arab Israeli wars even more insane than otl.
We are still in May 1941. You are welcome to speculate on what happens after the war, but I'll give no spoilers for the time being.
We are still in May 1941. You are welcome to speculate on what happens after the war, but I'll give no spoilers for the time being.
Of course. I’m just speculating about how Turkey will fare, which is to say: worse than otl.
After successfully repelling the German invasion, the Greeks should push to Albania and maybe Yugoslavia at least and repel the Bulgarians from their invasion. That should be quite interesting and would cause quite a lot of deviation from otl and affect post WWII politics, in places like the Middle East and the such.
I don't think that Greece is in a position to launch offensives right now, especially as these would broaden the frontline considerably and into less defensive territory at that.
The first objective of any offensive should be to retake the Olympus line and retake as much of the Pindus mountain range as possible. More of Thessaly/Western Macedonia could be useful to access the area natural resources, especially lignite (how is mining going TTL @Lascaris?) but strong defensive positions are key.
The place to launch a large offensive perhaps as early as 1942 in my opinion is Anatolia. Turks are essentially at the end of the line for reinforcements and once the Soviets join the war, they can be attacked from 3 sides. Which isn't to say that conquering and occupying Anatolia will be easy at all. It will mainly be a war of infantry, with a lot of guerilla formations on both sides, which could lead to unpleasantness ...
Of course I think they should take back and fortify Greece before doing anything. I do agree that invading Anatolia seems like a better option as the Turkic armies should be worse than Italian armies, especially when their supplies are running dry and they can only rely on nothing. Anatolia is going to be a shitshow no matter what though, as the Turks are going to be desperate and the Greeks would be rightfully angry for what the Turks have done to their brethren.
I agree on Thessaly! Plus it has the port of Volos which was quite decent at 1939. I agree with both the Thessaly and Asia Minor options. However, I am not sure about Western Macedonia and the lignite deposits there. At a time of war, mines close to the frontlines are not worth it. If I had to make a guess, the most strategic mines in Greece are the ones in Parnassus and produce bauxite. But even these, lack an export market due to the war.
In general, I see Winston wanting to focus on the Smyrna Front, since the Allies can drive to the asiatic shore of the Straits and slowly open them up for USSR-bound shipping.
Now with the war at a stalemate at Thermopylae greece can recruit the 1941 class and with us aid this shouldn't be a any major difficulty in equipping them in let's say winter but now the new recruits can be used to close holes in the units and or replace the troops to worn out to be of use in the front
Soviets are going to be filling the gulags up and Stalin is likely to have massive relocation of Turkic people in the Soviet Union itself (specifically Crimea which happened OTL and the Caucasus) and Soviet annexed regions of Anatolia. Historical animosity will also play a role in this. This can also causes butterflies effects in Central Asia.
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I think the Middle East and Europe are going to look significantly different than in OTL because the Soviets are going to have to deal with a third front in the Caucuses. Even if it is just a side show it’s going to drain extra resources and manpower which the Soviets can hardly afford early on. That could have giant ramifications.
As it stands OTL, Meskhetian Turks were already deported so it us unlikely that more people will find their wya to Central Asia.
Let's be careful about confusing Turkic with Turks, Kazakhs and Turks have as much in common as say Romanians and Spaniards or Germans and Dutch.
It is very unlikely that Stalin would be mad enough to relocate Kazakhs or Uzbeks away from Central Asia unless the Soviets want to have another Bashmarchi rebellion on their hands. Where would they be relocated to anyways? Western Soviet Union is in need of rebuilding and can't take in a large influx of a very different population.
Where things could become very interesting TTL is with regards to Armenia. If there is a war between Turkey and the Soviet Union, Stalin could push for the Armenian SSR to encompass the entirety of Western Armenia. Very large scale population transfers could ensure, but it is very doubtful that the Soviet Union would be able to repopulate the territories with Armenians alone.
The lignite deposits in West Macedonia were not exploited till after WW2 if memory serves. Lignite deposits in southern Greece in particular Aliveri and Megalopolis are much more important at the moment. The allied army on Greece is not in a position to take the offensive right at the moment, it may have survived the initial German attack but this has not come cheaply...