Antoine Béthouart is leading the Free French forces in Greece. There is a lot pressure to transfer the French troops to Syria but general Charles De Gaulle at the head of the Free French army in Syria can see how this which militarily useful would not be a good idea politically.
Ismail Canbulat is head of the
Renewal party as the CUP has been renamed after the Great war. He's technically out of government, but backs Peker, while the Renewal party entusiastically supports the war against the Soviets.
Sir John Carden, continues to work for Vickers. His Centaur tank is Britain's best design at the moment and given the mixed reports being received from frontline units about the Crusader tank there is some thought whether Crusader should be replaced in the production lines with Centaur.
Raoul Castex, is commander in chief of Free French armed forces. He and admiral Durand-Viel were responsible for bringing the French forces in Constantinople to the Free French side, with his quick action afterwards gaining also Syria for Free France.
Chrysanthus II, patriarch of Constantinople was executed, earlier in the year, his death sentence was outstanding by the Turkish courts of independence since 1921. The ecumenical see remains empty so far.
Corneliu Codreanu is part of the Romanian government, since the government of Ion Bratianu was overthrown in the afterman of Romanian defeat in Bessarabia. Ion Antonesku is not particlarly happy about it but so far has had no excuse to confront Codreanu's Iron Guard. The regime has put most older politicials like Ion Maniu under house arrest.
Michael Collins, having survived an assassination two decades earlier remains the undisputed leader of Ireland. He has led his nation well and surprisingly has a good wirking relationship with Winston Churchill dating back to the peace negotiations that secured Irish independence. ireland remains neutral. But she is an increasingly pro-allied neutral.
Penelope Delta is again at work after completing her massive Romiopoules. A few months before with the Germans apparently driving to Athens she came to the brink of suicide. Thermopylae restored her faith and her determination. She can't give up any more than the Greek boys dying to stop the Huns and the Bulgarians at Thermopylae. She's feverisly writing again. Her new book takes a similar theme with her earlier "At the time of the Bulgarslayer" this time about a young woman trying to help the army of Nikephoros Ouranos against the Bulgarians of Tsar Samuel in the lead to the
batle of Spercheios. That the action is taking place in the same area with the current fighting is hardly accidental...
Alec Isigonis is working for ELEO in Greece after being mobilized. He's not entirely happy about it but when the marching orders come there is not much you can do. Besides ELEO is partly owned by his family so he both has way more leeway than he had in the British companies he worked for and direct economic incentives, ELEO profits ultimately end to his own pockets as well.
Kazim Karabekir, had been minister of war from 1922 to the death of Kemal in 1938. The rebuilding of the Turkish army following the Great War has largely been his work. Following an unsuccessful bit to succeed Kemal he had been eased out of power and sent as an ambassador to Moscow. He's back to Sivas after the declaration of war and still a member of the rand National Assembly. Both he and his friend
Ismet Ismirli pasha are being quietly watched by the regime but Peker does not dare do anything against them.
Zvi Koretz, remains arch-rabbi of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki. The occupation has been hard on the Jews, but no organized large scale action against them has taken place. Yet. Koretz has some hope. After all for all the thuggery seen before the start of the war the nation of Goethe, surely cannot descend into complete barbarism. In the meantime he has more immediate problems like the absence of a large part of the males of working age from the community, the largely Jewish 50th Infantry regiment of the Greek army is fighting on in the south.
Sergei Korolev, was denounced and arrested in March 1938 along with Valentin Glushko. Both of them were lucky, short off, to avoid the GULAG, after 17 months of imprisonment they were moved to a sharashka under Tupolev in August 1939. A friendship has been born during their imprisonment...
Thomas Edward Lawrence, is leading SOE commandos and Kurdish guerrilas, somewhere in Turkish Kurdistan. It can be a sometimes frustrating experience. But Lawrence is not doing this for the first time and the knights of Saint George, of which SOE has an abundance, can be mighty persuasive.
Rauf Orbay, is navy minister. Over the past two decades he has been able to regenerate the navy, but frustratingly its fsingle major encounter with the Greeks has not gone particularly well.
Recep Peker is the "Millî Şef", the national chief of Turkey and head of the ruling
Halk partisi. He has joined the Axis, a choice that has proven hugely successful so far but also brought Turkey fighting on four fronts. He understands well that he has to keep marshall Fevzi Cakmak on his side. Often overlooked, Cakmak has been hugely influential since 1919...
Zygmunt Pulawski, survived a near crash of his PZL.12 prototype back in 1931. His fighter designs have been something of a sensation in the past decades. He was able to escape the fall of Poland in 1939 and along with several other Polish engineers and technicians was quickly employed in KEA the Greek State Aircraft Factory which was already assembling his own P.50 and PZL.37. He fears PZL.37 despite being successful won't be staying for much longer in the production lines, as the Greeks are not able to make all too many of them. But Ierax II an improved version of his P.50 is in service with further improvements of the drawing board. As is Lynx a two engined design loosely based on PZL.54, the drawings for that could not be saved when Poland fell. Hopefully when Poland is liberated he and his fellow engineers will be able to resurrect Polish aviation industry from the work they are doing in Greece...
Aca Stanojevic, has been prime minister of Yugoslavia and continues to lead the government in exile despite his age, he's 89 at the moment.
Milan Stojadinovic, had been in exile in Rome since his government was overthrown by pro-allied forces in Christmas 1937. With Serbia occupied he's back in Belgrade leading a collaborationist government there...
Vladimir Triandafillov is leading an army in the Caucasus front. The units under his command, have shown the best performance during the recent Soviet offensive pushing nearly to the gates of Erzurum before German and Turkish reinforcements managed to stop the Soviet advance.
Jose Varela is leading troops loyal to the government of general Ochoa against the Falangists and Alfosists under Emilio Mola and Juan Yague in had has become the 2nd Spanish Civil war. Both sides are exhausted from the previous war and unlike it no external help is forthcoming so far.
