The City-State of Constantinople

I had the idea of Constantinople being an Eastern Mediterranean Singapore or Hong Kong.

I'm wondering how that might actually happen. I put it in Post-1900 since the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires will be kind of an issue.
 

Germaniac

Donor
This might be a great way to rest the argument about how Russia would react to a Greek-Russian split over the city in the advent of its capture.
 
WW1 POD, the Ottoman empire ends up being partitoned by the Allies, and Constantinople ends up like Danzig, it comes under the Protection of the League of Nations.

Somewhere In those Lines i guess :p
 
Greco-Turkish War ends with a forced peace after Greek victory in Anatolia. Greece receives Eastern Thrace and Smyrna, Free City of Byzantium (Constantinople) created under League of Nations mandate. I was thinking about this for my TL on the Greco-Turkish War. I choose Byzantium as its neutral as opposed to Istanbul or Constantinople.
 
WW1 POD, the Ottoman empire ends up being partitoned by the Allies, and Constantinople ends up like Danzig, it comes under the Protection of the League of Nations.

Somewhere In those Lines i guess :p
Bulgaria joins the Allies instead of the Central Powers and ends up getting European Turkey - whatever is given to the Constantinople city state?
 
It would just shrivel and die without being the center of a large system, just like it did when it was all that was left of the Byzantine Empire. It would have no hinterland, and it's not necessary for any of the trade that passes through the Straits.

It could only last as long as the Powers had the will to maintain it as an independent city-state, as Greece and Turkey will both be gunning for it - and as it's loss would turn Turkey into a Soviet client state, I'd put my money on Turkey.
 
If the Turks managed to retain the rest of their OTL territory then yes, however with a far greater loss in WWI and a devastating loss to the Greeks in the independance war we could very well see Anatolian Turkey sliced up into British and French concession zones, along with the Armenians getting their 'historical claim' as they try to take advantage of the situation. If Istanbul ended up a city state as a result of the Turks losing badly, then I'd also envision the Greeks also getting much of the territory they imagined when they dreamed up their whole 'Megali Idea'.

Yes, what is left of Turkey would be turned to a Soviet client, but in order to get back Istanbul they'd have to cross the straits through a narrow gap while the Greeks, with additional territory in Western Anatolia, would be in a better position IMO.
 
Greece controlling anything on Western Anatolia only destabilizes and makes the country weaker. At the sametime such a scenario also turns Turkey into a Soviet satellite which is bad in the long turn. So besides Greece not having a realistic chance of winning the war in the first place, this isn't really a viable option to getting an independent Constantinople city-state.
 
Top