Turkish entry

[Guest Mike]

I was reading up on Turkish attitudes in WW2 for anotehr game recently, and figure that SC2 has a few things wrong - the Turks were not in the least bit pro-German - they had a treaty of neutrality, but for the entire war they received arms and armaments from the allies.

They were strictly neutral, and only joined the allies in 1945 in order to get a voice at the peace table.

allied attitudes to Turkish neutrality can be seen at http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/rpt_9806_ng_turkey.pdf

So IMO:

1/ Turkey should not react in any way to allied Invasion of syria, Iraq and Iran.

2/ It should become more pro-allied if/when Romania is conquered by the allies

3/ It should start at allied +20%

[alleeannt]

I'm not convinced about it...

1) The Turkish armed forces received weapons shipments from Great Britain, and U.S. but also from Germany.

2) Also just before the onset of hostilities the Turkish navy underwent a program of expansion and modernization: two submarines and four destroyers were ordered for construction in U.K.,

two submarines were ordered for construction in Germany.

3) Thanks to British and French shipments one air regiment, along with five independent air wings, was formed in 1941. Shipments of military equipment from Germany replaced the shipments from Allied countries in the same year: in 1943 the Turkish Air Force consisted of 6 regiments, which included allied airplanes (like Hawker Hurricane.IIB and C and Bristol Blenheim.I) and german ones (like Focke Wulf FW 190A-3 and Heinkel He 111F-1... superior and newest!)

4) the anglo-soviet invasion of Iran, on August 1941, was a warning for the Turkish government (soviet troops advanced from Adzerbaigian to Maku e Khoi, few kilometers from Iranian-Turkish border...)

5) As sustained by P.Carell in his "Operation Barbarossa", from the conquer of the Black Sea ports of the west Caucasus (Novorossisk, Tuapse, Soci, Suhum and Batum), there had been the Turkish "axis-conversion".

6) Surely, as reported by W.Churchill in his book "The second world war", on August 1942 (before the first battle of El Alamein) and on January 1943 (after Stalingrad and the second battle of El Alamein) the position of Turkey was different..., but however the "allied-conversion" of Turkish government was prudent (also in 1943!!): Turkey was warried about the imperialistic politic of Russia, but it was surely linked with USA/UK... but that does not mean an "allied-inclination"...

[Guest Mike]

The US sent $43 million worth of munitions to Turkey in WW2, and Turkey bought 72 Fw-190's from Germany for cash, replacing a hodgepodge of 35 Hurricanes, a couple of dozen PZL-24's and some Curtiss Hawk II's (30+ built under licence in the late 30's)

That fact that Turkey received aid from both sides shows it's penchant for strict neutrality - the invasion of Iran did not result in Turkey becoming more pro-axis, nor did the invasion of Syria or Iraq - regardless of "intentions" - they were not intended as "warnings" for hte Turkish Govt.

Some individuals in hte Govt apparently favoured Germany after its early successes, but Ismet Inonu never wavered from his belief that Germany could not win the war. The 1939 treaty with France and Britain was signed 4 days after one with Germany.....

And certainly Turkey was concerned about Soviets - it was the soviet threat to the Straits that caused it to forsake neutrality and Join NATO in the early 50's.

However Turkey was also concerned about Germans - it's 1941 treaty with Germany stipulated that no German troops were to come within 20km of the Turkish border with Bulgaria.

The game has many things that can affect Turkish attitudes - the trouble is that most of those things actually happened, and Turkish attitudes did not change one whit.

[ June 21, 2007, 06:17 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]