Republic Turkey including Armenia, Azerbaijan, all of Thrace and Northern Iraq

In theory, how would Turkey turn out between 1930 and 2020 if it included Armenia (to be connected with Azerbaijan), Azerbaijan (for the extra Turkish population and oil), Western Thrace (for defensive purposes) and Northern Iraq (for the oil). Would it be a crucial state for the participants in WWII? A Russia/USSR without Azerbaijani oil is radically different in military. How would

Extra information:
- Syria remains independent with/without Hatay
- Georgia is independent with the Russian/Soviet border on the Caucasus mountains

With whom is the risk of war higher? Russia/USSR or Nazi Germany? Would it be a state as developed as Spain or even Italy?

Go nuts.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
definately a sure-shot enemy of Russia/USSR

They may ally themselves with Axis to invade and cripple USSR in the 40s

OR they can be a useful british ally esp if dealing with a rising Italian fascist power in the Eastern Med

but take into account the potential for internal unrest with such massive numbers of greeks, arabs and armenians not to mention kurds

they could be just a later day A-H empire
 
In theory, how would Turkey turn out between 1930 and 2020 if it included Armenia (to be connected with Azerbaijan), Azerbaijan (for the extra Turkish population and oil), Western Thrace (for defensive purposes) and Northern Iraq (for the oil). Would it be a crucial state for the participants in WWII? A Russia/USSR without Azerbaijani oil is radically different in military. How would

Extra information:
- Syria remains independent with/without Hatay
- Georgia is independent with the Russian/Soviet border on the Caucasus mountains

With whom is the risk of war higher? Russia/USSR or Nazi Germany? Would it be a state as developed as Spain or even Italy?

Go nuts.
Western Thrace would be nice for the muslims living there but doesn't add that much, if you don't have frontier with Greece but friendly greater Bulgaria then everything should be fine, but even if not eventually things would chill like in otl.
Northern Irak is majority kurdish so for the fisrt decades its not gonna be problematic and the oil is gonna be useful but when kurdish nationalism develops thencits gonna be far more problematic then in otl not only because they now control the vast majority of kurdish land and have an even greater % of kurdish population but the worst is that now Irak has no kurdish minority so whoever rules Irak has no impediment to support kurdish insurgence.
Now Azerbaijan I only see it posible in a Central Powers victory in which the ottomans collapse anyway as a "loser among winners" ala Italy. Because if no Ottomans in WWI then they don't collapse. The azeri are turkic but not anatolian turks. Their lenguage is close but not fully intelligible with turkish (iirc only 70%, like Portuguese and Spanish). And more importantly they have been religiously and politically separated and even confronted for centuries. I don't mean they cant be friendly with turks or even prefer their rule over Russians or iranians, but they have a strong national consciousness. They wouldn't think of themselves as part of the turkish nation but as an equal turkic sister nation of its own. They would demand a lot of autonomy and probably control of their oil and religions and lenguage politics, heck they may even demand a federal republic and to make azeri co oficial with turkish. Also that Armenia should be part of their autonomous state, as the muslim and turkic minority there is mostly azeri. Having both that much kurds and azeris may force turkey into federalism eventually.
About Armenia... oh boy, I hope Enver Pasha never gets into government and maybe you could let northern Armenia be a rump state or get annexed by a friendly pro german georgia. Because you arent keeping the caucasus without germans so we are talking of a radically different world then in otl.
 
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Most any PoD close to or during WWI where the Ottomans keep Armenia means that the self-identified Armenians will only survive as a diaspora. Nationalism was inexorably on the rise with the Young Turks, and that means the Armenians have no place in Anatolia.

That’s not to say that there’d be a total genocide: there’ll be a lot of “crypto-Armenians,” and a lot more refugees into the Russian Caucasus and/or the Levant. I’m talking ethnic cleansing, not complete annihilation.
 
Most any PoD close to or during WWI where the Ottomans keep Armenia means that the self-identified Armenians will only survive as a diaspora. Nationalism was inexorably on the rise with the Young Turks, and that means the Armenians have no place in Anatolia.

That’s not to say that there’d be a total genocide: there’ll be a lot of “crypto-Armenians,” and a lot more refugees into the Russian Caucasus and/or the Levant. I’m talking ethnic cleansing, not complete annihilation.

If the PoD is after WW1? Then it is not going to be fun for the Armenians. Nothing traumatic as the only possible way to achieve this is Britain agreeing. And for them to agree, the Armenians have to be a non-issue for Turkey, possibly guaranteeing seats in the parliament for x numbers of Armenians.

If it is before WW1 then the Armenians would be fine in theory.
 
If the PoD is after WW1? Then it is not going to be fun for the Armenians. Nothing traumatic as the only possible way to achieve this is Britain agreeing. And for them to agree, the Armenians have to be a non-issue for Turkey, possibly guaranteeing seats in the parliament for x numbers of Armenians.

If it is before WW1 then the Armenians would be fine in theory.
Well, the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan that controled south Armenia did have a good number of Armenian representatives in their parlament so if its this republic becoming a state of turkey maybe they keep their own parlament with the armenians in there. Armenians in a all turkey parlament are gonna have their representation diluted so keeping things at a regional azeri parlament in gonna be better.
 
This would be an utter disaster from the perspective of Armenians and Greeks.

Turkey already got very favorable borders in 1923. Their claims to Western Armenia, Eastern Thrace, and Kurdistan were on shaky ground, and they still got them. This thread is like asking "How would Germany have turned out if they conquered Warsaw and Paris and kept them for decades?"

Long story short, this would lead to Armenians becoming a diaspora only, primarily in Christian Western countries, which means that they would intermarry and assimilate out of existence within a few generations.

Religion is the biggest barrier to assimilation, far more than other things like language or culture. Notice how most 3rd-generation Muslim immigrants (i.e. grandchildren of the original immigrants) in Western countries usually still have Middle Eastern-sounding given names like "Mohammed" and "Rashid", and still only have ancestry from one area, whereas most 3rd-generation Christian immigrants usually have Western/Anglo-sounding names like "Edward" or "Catherine" and usually have ancestry from multiple countries.

So if Turkey annexes all of Armenia, all Armenians that survived the genocide will either be forcibly Turkicized (like the ones left in OTL Turkey) or go to the west and become assimilated with the natives of those countries (like modern Armenian-Americans - most of the younger ones don't speak Armenian and have other ancestries)

So Armenians would effectively cease to exist as a people if this Turkowank had actually happened.

Thank God this scenario never became reality.

PS: For Armenians to actually survive this Turkowank as a cultural group, there are a couple of options, all of which are unlikely

1. Ottomans/Turkey not genocidal towards them: Requires a POD before WWI, but more likely before the late 1800s. Then they'd be like OTL's Kurds: A large minority in Turkey that's the majority in the Eastern parts of the country.
2. Armenian exiles from this Superturkey head to a country that isn't mostly Christian (India and China are the best possibilities)

Possibly some other conditions could enable an Armenian cultural survival in the case of this bloated Turkey
 
Turkey already got very favorable borders in 1923. Their claims to Western Armenia, Eastern Thrace, and Kurdistan were on shaky ground, and they still got them. This thread is like asking "How would Germany have turned out if they conquered Warsaw and Paris and kept them for decades?"

A thousand year's to 600 years worth of Turkish land... Shaky ground? Come on.

The Gümrü treaty with Armenia before USSR incorporated Armenia was something very close to this. Turkey was basically given free access over Armenia.

They wouldn't think of themselves as part of the turkish nation but as an equal turkic sister nation of its own.

There is literally nothing impeding union with this. The correct term was always "Azerbaijani Turk" and "Anatolian Turk".
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
definately a sure-shot enemy of Russia/USSR

They may ally themselves with Axis to invade and cripple USSR in the 40s

OR they can be a useful british ally esp if dealing with a rising Italian fascist power in the Eastern Med

but take into account the potential for internal unrest with such massive numbers of greeks, arabs and armenians not to mention kurds

they could be just a later day A-H empire
What makes you think those minorities will be allowed to stay?

If the PoD is after WW1? Then it is not going to be fun for the Armenians. Nothing traumatic as the only possible way to achieve this is Britain agreeing. And for them to agree, the Armenians have to be a non-issue for Turkey, possibly guaranteeing seats in the parliament for x numbers of Armenians.

If it is before WW1 then the Armenians would be fine in theory.
First of all, does Britain actually care about Armenians? Second of all, I think this scenario is easier to achieve if Britain is too distracted. This is in my opinion the best way to achieve the scenario: the Bolsheviks partition the Caucasus with Turkey as OTL, but then the Bolsheviks provoke a massive intervention against them by France, Britain, Japan, and the USA. Turkey backstabs the Bolsheviks and takes Armenia and Azerbaijan from them as the Bolsheviks are collapsing. Meanwhile, D’Annunzio’s antics start a war between Italy and Yugoslavia. The Turks continue the war with Greece as the rest of the world is distracted, and the Bulgarians join in on the Greeks, causing a crippling Greek defeat.
 
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In theory, how would Turkey turn out between 1930 and 2020 if it included Armenia (to be connected with Azerbaijan), Azerbaijan (for the extra Turkish population and oil), Western Thrace (for defensive purposes) and Northern Iraq (for the oil). Would it be a crucial state for the participants in WWII? A Russia/USSR without Azerbaijani oil is radically different in military. How would

Extra information:
- Syria remains independent with/without Hatay
- Georgia is independent with the Russian/Soviet border on the Caucasus mountains

With whom is the risk of war higher? Russia/USSR or Nazi Germany? Would it be a state as developed as Spain or even Italy?

Go nuts.

Your title is misleading, unless you forgot to mention Bulgarian Thrace (the largest part of that region). As for your question, the Republic of Turkey would likely lose most of these territories in the early 1920s, due to the Soviet Union being an enemy (control of the Baku oil wells was considered nonnegotiable by the Soviets).

A thousand year's to 600 years worth of Turkish land... Shaky ground? Come on.
Unless you consider the only principle worth following "Might makes right", length of control does not justify in any moral way the right some territory. And from the legal point of view, all these had already been ceded by the Ottomans.
 
Would the Azerbaijanis be assimilated? How close are the Turkish and Azerbaijani languages?

They're reasonably close, but are built on different dialect bases - Azerbaijani is related more to Eastern Anatolian dialects while Turkish is based on the standard dialect of Istanbul, and is basically a hybrid of New Ottoman Turkish drastically reformed with a Western Anatolian dialectal base. While there are some differences in phonology and morphology, the main one is that Azerbaijani (both the Soviet Baku-based standard and the Iranian Tabriz-based standard - don't ask) did not go through the language reform Turkish did, and thus retain many of the old Perso-Arabic loanwords that Standard Turkish dropped (and Azerbaijani, in turn, in the northern areas that became first part of the Transcaucasian SFSR and later the Azeri SSR, absorbed a shite ton of words from Russian, for obvious reasons) and thus at first glance are mutually incomprehensible.
 
control of the Baku oil wells was considered nonnegotiable by the Soviets

This kills the idea right off unless the PoD leads to a crippled Russia as well. It’s doable with an even worse Russian Civil War leading to a horribly unstable White Russia IMO.
 
As for the OP itself - unfortunately to get those borders requires Turkey to become a member state of the Soviet Union first. In particular:
>it requires the non-presence of Mustafa Kemal Pasha - or if he's still around, in a different capacity than OTL.
>it also requires the main current of the nationalist movement to view Communism, and in particular the Bolsheviks, in a favorable light and something to emulate. Thus providing a much-needed boost for the Russian Communists once they strike in the October Revolution.

Then and only then would you get Turkey within the borders specified by the OP. But it won't be called Turkey - the term "Turk" at the time was negative and implied someone uncouth, a country bumpkin worse than even the fellaheen in other areas of the Ottoman Empire. Instead you'd get a grandiose title like, for example, the Anatolian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in place of OTL's Transcaucasian SFSR and thus restricting the SFSR designation to the cores of former empires which joined the Soviet Union. It would also mollify any concerns the Kremlin would have about access to Caspian Sea oil.
 
They're reasonably close, but are built on different dialect bases - Azerbaijani is related more to Eastern Anatolian dialects while Turkish is based on the standard dialect of Istanbul, and is basically a hybrid of New Ottoman Turkish drastically reformed with a Western Anatolian dialectal base. While there are some differences in phonology and morphology, the main one is that Azerbaijani (both the Soviet Baku-based standard and the Iranian Tabriz-based standard - don't ask) did not go through the language reform Turkish did, and thus retain many of the old Perso-Arabic loanwords that Standard Turkish dropped (and Azerbaijani, in turn, in the northern areas that became first part of the Transcaucasian SFSR and later the Azeri SSR, absorbed a shite ton of words from Russian, for obvious reasons) and thus at first glance are mutually incomprehensible.
The biggest problem isn't the lenguage (south french patois were even more distant from Paris french), but the centuries of political and religious separation. They would want a special status. To have their autonomies and unity of their territory under their own local state government, something like Bavaria in the German Empire if every other state of it were prussian provinces and if Bavaria spoke a different german lenguage like the swiss.
 
The biggest problem isn't the lenguage (south french patois were even more distant from Paris french), but the centuries of political and religious separation. They would want a special status. To have their autonomies and unity of their territory under their own local state government, something like Bavaria in the German Empire if every other state of it were prussian provinces and if Bavaria spoke a different german lenguage like the swiss.

Hence my suggestion above your post that as I see the only way to make the whole thing work would be is if Turkey was part of the Soviet Union - even if it all was centralized ultimately from Moscow, not Ankara, the SFSR arrangement that already existed for Russia at that point would make the most sense for our not-Turkey since it would be better equipped to take all of the issues mentioned in this thread into account. (Of course, then it brings with it issues of a totally different nature, like the ever-present threat of Russification, including even to the Turkish language itself, but to a point it would probably work best for such a difficult situation.)
 
What makes you think those minorities will be allowed to stay?


First of all, does Britain actually care about Armenians? Second of all, I think this scenario is easier to achieve if Britain is too distracted. This is in my opinion the best way to achieve the scenario: the Bolsheviks partition the Caucasus with Turkey as OTL, but then the Bolsheviks provoke a massive intervention against them by France, Britain, Japan, and the USA. Turkey backstabs the Bolsheviks and takes Armenia and Azerbaijan from them as the Bolsheviks are collapsing. Meanwhile, D’Annunzio’s antics start a war between Italy and Yugoslavia. The Turks continue the war with Greece as the rest of the world is distracted, and the Bulgarians join in on the Greeks, causing a crippling Greek defeat.

The Greeks of Istanbul were still staying per treaty. It was likely that they could have been transferred in 1923 as well. But the bigger the Turkish border would get the more likelier Great Powers would insist on the minorities to stay where they are rather. Where else can they go?

Britain does not have to care about Armenians. it is a reason to meddle and get fair deals to them as happened before with the Ottoman Empire. So did Russia. Armenians would be a means to an end. In this case getting their share of the Baku Oil with the Armenian Citizens being the guarantee Britain gets their oil share.
 
Would the Azerbaijanis be assimilated? How close are the Turkish and Azerbaijani languages?

Not really assimilated. A large majority of Azerbaijanis consider themselves as Turks. Their language would be just a dialect just as Macedonian Turks speaking Turks. Merely a dialect.

A federal state is a must if this were to be achieved.
 
This kills the idea right off unless the PoD leads to a crippled Russia as well. It’s doable with an even worse Russian Civil War leading to a horribly unstable White Russia IMO.

I was thinking of Russia ending up in total anarchy for at least 10 years... So until 1928. Russia is even more crippled and until then, this Turkey needs a fair deal with the British at least. it does not guarantee Turkish rule over Azerbaijan but it does help them to use their time right.
 
Hence my suggestion above your post that as I see the only way to make the whole thing work would be is if Turkey was part of the Soviet Union - even if it all was centralized ultimately from Moscow, not Ankara, the SFSR arrangement that already existed for Russia at that point would make the most sense for our not-Turkey since it would be better equipped to take all of the issues mentioned in this thread into account. (Of course, then it brings with it issues of a totally different nature, like the ever-present threat of Russification, including even to the Turkish language itself, but to a point it would probably work best for such a difficult situation.)

I don't think the Soviets would go on with a larger Anatolian SSR with the Turks being there. It would be rearranged even more. Plus it would mean the Soviets would not get the Marmara area as the area would be possibly used to prevent it ending up in Soviet hands.
 
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