My guess is that Stalin will be much more willing to support the communists during the Greek Civil War if it ever happens if Greece ever gets control over the straits.
Leaving aside that TTL Greece in the end of 1943 has a fully equipped army of over half a million men making ideas of armed revolt... problematic, where would the Greek communists ever get the popular support to start a revolt TTL?
Interesting dynamics. Stalin's reasoning makes sense. Now the Greeks can put a spammer into it but to a point. And my guess is the plebiscite will only cover the European side. The Soviets are unlikely to tolerate a Greek naval base in the Halic. They will argue that Greek domination of the Agean (Mudros) is adequate balance for Soviet domination of the Marmara Sea.
Britain might not be entirely happy with this calculation, but as long as the Greek navy, with British support, can be counted upon holding the Aegean, the Soviet Vlack sea fleet remains bottled up.
I have a feeling the Greeks are going to agree to one thing and then do another. The Soviets have very little chance of forcing the straights if the Greeks refuse to hand it over. At least not without marching through Turkey and the Balkans to try and take it by land. Could the Soviets do it? Probably. But I doubt Churchill would let them go it alone.
And honestly Russian military bases in the straits is just asking for trouble. Honestly it should be fully Greek, or fully UN. Giving the Russians bases in the straits seems like a step way to far.
The Soviets would not accept fully Greek and the Asiatic side is Turkish majority. Fully UN... how do we define fully UN? You'll send the Swiss and Swedes to guard it? If it's the four great powers occupying Constantinople under the UN... why that means a Soviet military presence.
It's a good "promise" to break once the soviets start breaking promises as to how free and democratic the states of Eastern and Central Europe are allowed to be.
Possibly... then the Soviets are not idiots to not understand as much. If anything paranoia was a state trait.
That depends on the naval situation in the Black Sea, and on Turkish willingness to resist a soviet drive to the Asian Side as much as they will resist a Greek drive to the European side
By 1944 the Soviet Black sea fleet was mostly immobilized from lack of maintenance facilities. Emphasis on mostly. What the Turks will be doing... depends on what terms they are getting. From both sides.
The Roosevelt administration will obviously not put much pressure on Stalin on unimportant issues to it, just as Sikorsky was not buzzing all ears.
Stalin will not want to give up a major economic center and oil fields, to which he has more rights than Bialystok, and I see no reason to change the position ITTL.
Theoretically, the maximum that Stalin can agree for saving of Polish feelings to is plebiscites in Lviv and Bialystok with a predictable result.
That both Poles and Ukrainians will want the area can be taken as granted. Taking the Polish 1931 census data with a straight face (having seen rival statistics in the Balkans and Anatolia I'd be wary but since the Ukrainian wikipedia is using them without, apparently, questioning them I'll stick by them) the city itself and its district were both Polish majority but the same could not be said about much of the surrounding area as can be seen in the map below:
(Lwow district 1931 courtesy wikepedia)
So I can easily see both the Poles arguing that they are in the majority in the entire voivodeship, where they are with 1.8 million to 1,067 million and the Ukrainians that they are in the majority east of the OTL line. (where by my count, you roughly have 739,047 Poles to 757,199 Ukranians, I had to count the entire districts east of the 1945 border obviously). Do the actual statistics matter? Arguably not to Stalin.
So there are two items to consider here. First how much more influence a surviving Sikorski can exert compared to Mikolaijczyk? Most accounts agree he was more influential but how did this actually translate in practical terms? Uncertain. I'd guess he'd have some influence but not overwhelming influence. Second what is different TTL to affect the decision? After all TTL Churchill DID support the city being retained by Poland and out of the 5 schemes proposed for the Polish-Soviet border, 4 were leaving it to Poland but Stalin stuck to his guns figuratively speaking and got what he wanted. So why he would be willing to deal TTL. I'd argue there is an obvious answer to this... what is more important to Stalin? Securing the there won't be RN battleships and carrier battle groups in Constantinople pointing at Soviet Ukraine, or Lviv? If he had to throw it as a bone to Churchill would he? On the reverse a Churchill that had to accept the Soviet presence in the straits would he be using it at leverage to gain what concessions he could elsewhere in Europe?
Another strategy Stalin might resort to is make Greece a strictly neutral nation similar to Austria. But I have doubts it’ll work.
To put it bluntly that's not happening and Stalin can probably understand that...
I won't speak for Lascaris here but I feel like the dynamic isn't being fully appreciated.
A Greek Civil War is incredibly unlikely. The government, unlike OTL, is far more unified and stable, and was not totally discredited and force to flee into exile while all of Greece was brutalized and plundered. Communist influence, insofar as it exists, is going to be fairly limited. The same dynamic is why Stalin wouldn't have any grounds or even dreams about demanding Greek neutrality. Greece is an allied power that has been fighting on the continent just as long as the Soviets have. He has some leverage to make demands about the straits and the post-war arrangement around the Black Sea, unhelpfully enhanced by Roosevelt, but he has no leverage as to Greece's eventual diplomatic and political orientation.
A Greek Civil War is certainly unlikely. By this point TTL Greece is starting to turn into an alien beast compared to OTL Greece. Sure it's Greece, same language and core culture, often enough same people but core events that formed up OTL Greece after 1920, disaster in Anatolia, occupation and civil war in 1941-49 are getting very different. For one thing this Greece is oozing self-confidence to put it bluntly. Then there are subtler differences. Frex the Greek army fighting this war for all its external trappings is not the OTL Greek army of 1940, just better armed and bigger. It's the direct descendant of the Venizelist army of 1918...
Well, to be frank, I find it rather peculiar that the fate of Greece was even discussed by Mr Churchil and comrade Stalin in the "napkin agreement ". Greece not been occupied would probably exclude any conversation altogether.
Now, on the Straits, IMHO, no matter how sympathetic Roosevelt would have been to the Soviet concerns, Churchill would definitely have vetoed any Soviet direct control (2 bases!!!) with teeth and nails!
Roosevelt at this time was talking about the "four policemen" ruling the world, everyone else being disarmed with Britain running Western Europe and its immediate empire and the Soviets everything else...
It would be also interesting to see how the Big Three are going to sell the whole settlement on Constantinople. How are they going to ignore the Greek plebiscite, in favour of the Turks, ie sell off the only standing democratic country in continental Europe in favour of the country which caused the biggest headache after Germany and Japan. And at the same time be totally OK with the major border adjustments in Eastern Europe...
Except if Britain makes sure there are enough boats available at the Bosporus when the Greek Army enters the City. Although I wouldn't like such a think to be a planned strategy of Greece...
Well Roosevelt's in Athens is showing how. "Sure mate you can have Constantinople, we'll just have a proper plebiscite of the entire population, what you held in 1941 was highly irregular as you know. What you don't want a plebiscite and prefer the pre-war situation? Why of course we'll support you on this as well, it's your decision after all."
tbf I can see underground agreements where the British and American areas are given to the Greeks
That's a different question...
Or maybe Britain and the US decide to change their mind and accept the plebiscite if they feel that rejecting it is going to cause a lot of Greeks to become pro-Soviet. That and I imagine that even the pro-Western Greek leadership is going to demand kicking and screaming for the Greek plebiscite to be accepted, arguing that Turkey needs to be punished.
"But we are punishing Turkey. See? Kurdistan was made independent, it's losing territory to you and the Soviets, losing official claim to Constantinople, how much more punishment you want? Harsh treatment last war just made the Germans and Turks and Bulgarians want a return engagement. Surely you see the mistake in that? Don't act as a spoiled brat like De Gaulle!"
I think that the Bialystok inhabitants will gladly vote for the return to the Rzeczpospolita Ludowa and its glorious leaders Bierut and Gomułka
They'll gladly vote with a 99% majority joining the socialist motherland they should be joining. They'll be so enthusiastic they won't even want the ballot to be secret and the ballots will be in packs of 100 to ease up counting in the ballot boxes!
First agreements are not always going as planned. I could argue for a Soviet base in the Asiatic side of Constantinople but not for a base in Biga. If the Soviet need the Black sea the can have it just with a base in Constantinople and nothing more. Well the Greeks have an army close to Biga and they could get it if they pushed for it.
They could likely capture it. Post that it's over 80% Turkish which will be causing trouble in the peace table...
I feel like this is likely to happen in the end - or at least, something the Greeks will try to do. Whether they manage to achieve a fait accompli or not is a different question, but unless things go really badly I think it would at least offer them greater leverage in negotiating for their position in the Straits in due time. Though by the same virtue, should they do so I feel strongly the Soviets would renege upon their current promises of taking only 50% stake in influence within Turkey.
Irrespective of that, if the end of the chapter is to be interpreted as such, I think at least European Constantinople is likely to be accepted as a de jure annexation by the Greeks.
Chances are that even if they did not take it de jure it would be still closely associated with Greece. Which would be keeping the prospects of future union open. Right now winning the plebiscite depends on what the Armenians will be voting...
Plovdiv/Philippopolis feels more likely to me than Burgas.
It was claimed by some at least in OTL..
While I agree with you, Burgas isn’t all that out there. If the Greeks aren’t going to have full control of the straights I imagine the UK is going to be very much in favor of a solid ally having a proper Black Sea base to prevent it from being a Soviet lake. That said I wouldn’t be surprised if behind the scene the UK was telling Greece to do whatever they felt they could get away with in relation to the straights and they’d have UK support.
Burgas, Pyrgos for the Greeks, Greek population is gone for over a generation at this point, since the 1906 pogroms. TTL it is 80km from the border so someone raising claims on it wouldn't be surprising.
Guys, I don't think Greece is so maximalist to pursue either Burgas or Philippopolis/Plovdiv!
Greece so far has been very careful to ask only for what can be consolidated.
Greece so far was also being guided by one of the best diplomats of the era. Now Dragoumis is himself a veteral diplomat but how well he'll take to the compromises he'd likely need to make is a different question...
For control over the Black sea if Constantinople is an international city the US probably would park a bunch of ships there anyways, and if its Greece (I don't see any way that Turkey gets the European portion of the city) then Greece would allow the US to do so.
The whole exercise from the Soviet point of view is exactly about securing the US WON'T be parking a carrier battle group in the Golden Horn...
Indeed. And we should actually take the n account that international zones, which were so much present in the afetr WWI settlements, were almost completely absent from the WWII settlements, apart from Berlin, which is a totally different case!
Trieste and Berlin are offering interesting examples here and in terms of importance Constantinople is certainly comparable to Berlin. Which complicates things...
