WI Challenge: The Megali Idea succeded?

Leo Caesius

Banned
Well that's what actually happened after ww1. Greece was given large parts of the Western coast of Anatolia and future prospects of getting Constantinople. But without sufficient Western armed support they were decisively defeated by the Turks. And even if they had gotten armed support and had defeated the Turkish nationalist movement, some time in the future it would probably still be lost for many many reasons.
The Megali Idea was absurd really... and history has been really good to the modern Greek state, it got a lot more than it deserved territorially imho...
You're neglecting to mention that they invaded Turkey with the intention of taking Ankara and the whole country (rather than merely the claims given to them at Sèvres) while the Turks were in the grips of a civil war and simultaneously fighting wars against Armenia and France. I'm not sure any of the Western powers could have afforded to provide any more support than they were already giving. Everything was already decisively in favor of the Greeks, and they still blew it.
 
Not a Chance.

Unless you want to see the Ottomans hellenize to the degree that the old Seljuk areas break off (and even then it would be as much Muslim as Christian), you are out of luck for a 'Greek' state with the POD range you speak of.

HTG
 
You're neglecting to mention that they invaded Turkey with the intention of taking Ankara and the whole country (rather than merely the claims given to them at Sèvres) while the Turks were in the grips of a civil war and simultaneously fighting wars against Armenia and France. I'm not sure any of the Western powers could have afforded to provide any more support than they were already giving. Everything was already decisively in favor of the Greeks, and they still blew it.
Well i think the invasion was more of a preemptive strike while the Turks weren't organised enough and to force them to accept Sevres. The logic i think was that the Turks would continue to attack the coastal regions constantly and retreat at will into the interior if things went bad.
Imo the odds were in favor of the Greeks, but only temporarily. With a larger population and a new found unity in Kemal it would have been only a matter of time till the new Turkish state would try to take back what it lost. Also while the internal situation of the Turks got better, that of the Greeks worsened more and more; although that does count as a failure of the Greek nation to unify in a war.
To Cyreidel:
I don't think that Constantinople would be given to the Greeks so easily... It was too important for it to go to such a small and poor country, also the population was mostly Muslim by that time i believe.
 

Xen

Banned
Reviving an old thread, I don't do it often but what the hell!

The only way I can see something like this even remotely happening depends upon the Russian Empire surviving the First World War. What would need to happen.

1) Russia fares better in the war and sticks it out until the end
2) No Bloody Revolution
3) Britain, France, and Italy are not going to want Russia to gain Constantinople, Russia claiming to be the third Rome will want it back in Christian hands, and it henceforth given to Greece
4) All Muslim Turks are forcibly expelled from Constantinople by the Greek and Imperial Russian Army (this applies to other areas of the Megali Idea as well)
5) Population exchanges as per OTL

What is likely to happen
1) Greece does something stupid and loses the city and most (though not all) of its acquisitions back to Turkey
2) Greece does something stupid and loses most of its territories in Anatolia, only the intervention of the Russian Army prevents the fall of Constantinople. Russian Army secures control of the straights for Greece and establishes permanent military bases in the region
3) Anatolian Greeks established as the population base in Constantinople (which already had a significant Greek population), a quarter of the city is settled by Russians and Ukrainians, Russia establishes a naval base here
4) Greece becomes a puppet state of Russia
5) Turkey/Ottomans (who ever emerges on top after the war) remains bitter toward the Greeks and Russians, possibly even becoming an Islamic Republic ruled by Religous extremist, further destabilizing the Middle East
6) Possible wider Muslim/Western divide
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
This is too hard with an POD before 1900. The only chance would be in the Greco- Turkish war after WW1, if you have an even more unstable Turkey. Then there could also be Armenian and Kurdish nations post WW1 which would be fun.
 
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