WI: No Greco-Turkish War (1897)

What if the pointless Greco-Turkish War of 1897, fought over Crete (which was "freed" by the Great Powers a year later anyway), never happened, perhaps as a result of king George I using some more of his brain after witnessing the international condemnation against his intentions?
What are the effects on Greece? Does Venizelos get butterflied away? What about the Balkan Wars?
 
Crete most likely remains Ottoman. No understanding about the Ottoman strength may result in a later war without allies. It may butterfly the Balkan Wars instead of a World War.
 
Depends. Sometimes wars-gone-bad teach some great lessons. Both the Greek army and Constantine did a much more credible job in the Balkan wars than they did in 1897.

Plus on the other hand, the turks will have more resources in overhauling and integrating military reforms for the incoming Balkan War.
 
Italians may get some ideas as they fight for Libya. As a former Venetian colony it fits perfectly into their crazy irredentist agenda.

Liberal Italy has no real interest in expanding in the Aegean; the Islands were seized to try and force peace talks and only kept by chance, as Ottoman weakness allowed to keep them.
Besides, a Crete campaign would be a major, drawn out, extended effort and draw opposition by all the other Great Powers and Greece.
 
Liberal Italy has no real interest in expanding in the Aegean; the Islands were seized to try and force peace talks and only kept by chance, as Ottoman weakness allowed to keep them.
Besides, a Crete campaign would be a major, drawn out, extended effort and draw opposition by all the other Great Powers and Greece.

That doesn't disqualify a chance of occupying Crete if such war happens. Although a bigger Island as Crete is in no position to end up Italian without consent of Great Powers (UK, Germany and Russia).
 
France and the UK tended to be very lenient towards Italy, as a way to keep it out of German influence. Also, by the end of the century, there's pretty much nowhere else to expand.
 
France and the UK tended to be very lenient towards Italy, as a way to keep it out of German influence. Also, by the end of the century, there's pretty much nowhere else to expand.

Nobody really cared Italy gaining Libya as it is plain worthless until the 50s when oil would be discovered. But Crete is no worthless desert. And it will alienate Greece.
 
Nobody really cared Italy gaining Libya as it is plain worthless until the 50s when oil would be discovered. But Crete is no worthless desert. And it will alienate Greece.

Fair enough. Still, they lost strategically-placed Tunisia to only get... Libya? It's understandable that the Italian public opinion was always so pissed off about their government's colonial ventures. I mean, a more competent Italy could have demanded so much more from Britain and France. The Western powers simply needed to somehow appease the Italians to avoid German influence. If Crete was on the table... why not? It'd be better than an early Berlin-Rome axis.
 
That doesn't disqualify a chance of occupying Crete if such war happens. Although a bigger Island as Crete is in no position to end up Italian without consent of Great Powers (UK, Germany and Russia).

Sorry for the late answer.
The point is, a whole Cretan campaign would not be the minor, navy-driven affair that the Dodecanese occupation was; most importantly, it'd need too many resources and use up the window of tolerance before the Great Powers needed to rein in Italy.

As for the interest in allowing the Italians to keep Crete, if they actually seized it there would be reasonable backlash, perhaps it'd be traded to Greece for Corfu or something like that.
 
Sorry for the late answer.
The point is, a whole Cretan campaign would not be the minor, navy-driven affair that the Dodecanese occupation was; most importantly, it'd need too many resources and use up the window of tolerance before the Great Powers needed to rein in Italy.

As for the interest in allowing the Italians to keep Crete, if they actually seized it there would be reasonable backlash, perhaps it'd be traded to Greece for Corfu or something like that.

Implying Greece will give up Corfu for Crete (even though it sounds like a decent deal). Using Italian occupied Crete as a rallypoint is more likely.
 
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