This Greece in WW2.

Markus

Banned
Stumbled across this map earlier today and got thinking. What would happen in WW2 if Greece still held the yellow parts of this map, instead of ceeding them to Turkey in 1923?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greekhistory.GIF

What kind of industry and natural resources are in the yellow regions?

How do the Greeks keep them unlike in OTL?
What about NOT invading the rest of Turkey and just securing the yellow areas instead?

What does this mean for WW2?
Perhaps a Turkish-Italian(-Bulgarian?) alliance in 1940?
 
We'd definitely see a Turkey aligned with Italy and later Germany. The effect would be a Axis Turkey, a Anatolian front and possible USSR dominance of Anatolia in 1945!!:eek:

I dunno, Anatolia is good defensive territory, I'd think Britain could hold there and then ultimatly use it as a base to liberate a bit more of eastern Europe. Bulgaria perhaps.

Also Greece is obviously a lot stronger here....
 
As a side note, if Turkey is clearly unfriendly, the French won't give Alexandrette/Iskenderon to them, meaning that the Syrians will be less displeased with the French, and that post war Syria will have more industry and a more useful coast line.
 
Just a little rough idea:

ITTL Greece won the war against Turkey in 1923, even if with lot of difficulties. By the Tittoni-Venizelos agreement, Greece exchanged a part of the land acquired in Anatolia, Antalya, with Dodecanese. Turkey managed to stabilize itself enough and to counter the other separatist movement (armenians etc...); the loss of Smyrne and Antalya is anyway a real sore spot.

In the twenties, Greece realize that a war against Turkey is inevitable. So the greeks starts a progressive fortification of the border and to modernize the army as much Greece's finance allows. Later a defensive pact is made with Italy: if a foreign power attack one of the two countries, the other will intervent. The logic behind this agreement is to avoid an alliance between Italy and Turkey: war on two fronts would be disastrous.

Ironically the greek armament rouse apprension in Turkey, which procede with an arm program of her own...

During the late 30's a series of border accidents sour the relations between the two nations. On 23 may 1939 a greek patrol, that had mistakenly strayed into turkysh territory, is attacked: the second Greek-Turkey war has started.
After some initial success, the greek army suffer a sudden defeat and is slowly thrown toward the sea. Afraid of losing the war, the greeks ask for italian intervention. Mussolini is thrilled to oblige...

At this point, I am a bit puzzled about what would happen: if the greek-italian counter offensive is successful they could beat Turkey and gain control of Anatolia; if Italy declares war on allies as per OTL, Greece would be dragged into war too.
With an axis controlled Anatolia the go-for-ME strategy becomes viable (maybe with Guderian in command of an Asian-Korp :D), but what would be the allied reaction? Would they allow the whole thing to degenerate to that point? And what would be the position of Vichy Syria? IOTL they fought against the british in 1943 if I remember correctly...
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
For the Italians and Greeks to become friends the Greeks have to give the Italians the rights to naval bases in the Greek archipelago. I can't really see that happen, especially with a stronger Greece with even more confidence.
 
For the Italians and Greeks to become friends the Greeks have to give the Italians the rights to naval bases in the Greek archipelago. I can't really see that happen, especially with a stronger Greece with even more confidence.

Noted! The naval rights could be a problem, but I reasoned that an agreement could be found. ITTL the main concern for the Greek would avoiding an alliance between Italy and Turkey. And after the beginning of the 30's (let's say 1933) they would be allied of sort.
All of this could be countered by a more pro active british diplomacy...

It's just a wild idea, nothing really refined, anyway :D
 
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