30.08.1922... What if..

[Quildavyr]

Greeks have won?

I want to see just a good discussion and that is all

 

[Squonk]

Greeks get about 1261 borders in Asia Minor. Population exchange. Armenia (western) stays independant, as well as part of Cilicia. perhaps independant Kurds. Hatay stays in Syria. Turkys is either divided into spheres of inphluence or, more likely, stays independant, but joins joine Germany in ww2 to get everything back, occupies western Anatolia and Armenia. USSR has hard time in Caucasus - may lead to german victory in ww2, depending on turkish strenght. But, assuming Allies win nevertheless, it probably capitulates in front of allies - Greece gets even more land, and Cople for sure, entire Armenia is soviet, and Tao georgian, perhaps Trebizond is a Soviet Pontic Republic, Kurdish SSR is established as well. USSR does not have a strong rival in the area post-ww2 - is stronger in Cold War. Greece is much, much, stronger and more important than it is today, and its population is double of what it is today, while Turkey is much less important, and - not secular at all (Ataturk's victory allowed him to modernise Turkey, so without victory over the Greeks he wouldn't be able to afford that).
Turkey does not want to joine EU. There is huge Greek diaspora in Germany instead of Turkish. EU fears it will be overriden by the traditional Greeks, not willing to comfort to western values

 

[Quildavyr]

Turkey does not want to joine EU. There is huge Greek diaspora in Germany instead of Turkish. EU fears it will be overriden by the traditional Greeks, not willing to comfort to western values

This would be funny

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Quil, I'm dissapointed in you.

 

[Quildavyr]

Quil, I'm dissapointed in you.

Just why?

 

[Kyriakos]

By far the most important difference would be that i would probably be living in Constantinople

 

[Quildavyr]

By far the most important difference would be that i would probably be living in Constantinople

You can still do that

But if we accept the Squonk's theory,Constantinople would be again too crowded

 

[scy12]

At 1920 -22 the Greek state and the Turkish one where equal on population , but the Turks had the problem of lacking a goverment. And the fact that now the Great powers did not want Turkey to disappear.

So long all territorial expansions of the Greeks who have been fighting for about 10 years continuisly was done by Eleftherios Benizelos. All wars where fought by him other than the war of 1922.

So by law (After ww1) Places with substantial Greek majority at the western Turkish coast would join Greece after a referendum. The Greek army went there.

The Stupid generals however thought they could beat the Turks in mainland Turkey who enforced a scorche earth strategy.

Then it was the time to capture Constantinople which was far easier to capture as a strategic target and far easier to sustain.


Now... I believe that eventually either we get lucky and Turkey gets in total chaos. Or they eventually get the areas in the western coast and since they are master killers they may succeed doing it with an other way.

But i do think that they could not get Constantinuple back. I think the Greek leadership was very stupid back then. While Kemal outsmarted them , he was also a genocidal killer on the same worth as Hitler and worst. But Turks love him for the same reason i presume Germans would love Hitler if he was not defeated.

Which is a strategic disadvantage of Greeks in general(And i am proud of it) . Turks have no problem to practice genocide. We had a problem of doing it.

 

[Quildavyr]

@Scy12:I dont think you read the OP.

What if Greeks have won?

I want to see just a good discussion and that is all

 

[scy12]

@Scy12:I dont think you read the OP.

But i have. Genocide being done by those Turks then (I am not saying that you today are the same as them , then) it is something that would happen certainly unless they did not have the ability to do it. In the scenario that Greeks win , Turkish Genocide does play a role on how the place could look in that hypothetical.

Now. Let's imagine the Neoturks does not ever exist. Then they would not have participated in such genocides. So blame them if you think that the genocide is an embarrassing historical fact

 

[TheLastOne36]

Kurdish SSR is established as well.

Why do you think that Iran would not stop the USSR from forming an SSR in Turkey again?

 

[Squonk]

well, at the beginning of XX century kurdish nationalism was weak... and iran minded Kurdish SSR after ww2, because it was made of ITS territory, not of Turkey's.

 

[Dachs]

Ooh, Greco-Turkish War. My favorite.

The Stupid generals however thought they could beat the Turks in mainland Turkey who enforced a scorche earth strategy.

Then it was the time to capture Constantinople which was far easier to capture as a strategic target and far easier to sustain.

The problem wasn't really "scorched earth strategy" by Kemal et al. The main Greek problems involved the support of the Turks by the Allies - which you mentioned - and Konstantinos I's attacks on the Sakkaria line, which were made immediately after a tough series of battles (those of Inonu and Eskisehir) by an exhausted army at the end of its supply tether. Remove Konstantinos and you remove both of those problems (as he, being a German sympathizer in the First World War, was unpalatable to France and the UK), hence the critical moment for the war lay in the Athens gardens where Alexandros was bitten by a monkey. Take away the monkey bite and you keep Alexandros, Venizelos, and the rest of the pro-Allied Greek government. You also keep the veteran officers from the First World War that Konstantinos had purged when he came to power in late 1920/early 1921, preventing idiocy on the scale of Anastasios Papoulas. Hence Greek leadership is not as great a problem as it was in OTL, and Allied aid continues to flow to Greece. Get to Ankara (without overextending), crush the Nationalists, bye bye Kemal and hello Greek control of western and northwestern Asia Minor (and probably Italian protectorate over southwestern Asia Minor amirite?).

So yeah, just fleshing out the PoD itself. I generally agree with Squonk on the later travails of the Greeks, assuming everything happens in the same general fashion. (Butterflies FTW?)

 

[scy12]

The problem wasn't really "scorched earth strategy" by Kemal et al. The main Greek problems involved the support of the Turks by the Allies - which you mentioned - and Konstantinos I's attacks on the Sakkaria line, which were made immediately after a tough series of battles (those of Inonu and Eskisehir) by an exhausted army at the end of its supply tether. Remove Konstantinos and you remove both of those problems (as he, being a German sympathizer in the First World War, was unpalatable to France and the UK), hence the critical moment for the war lay in the Athens gardens where Alexandros was bitten by a monkey. Take away the monkey bite and you keep Alexandros, Venizelos, and the rest of the pro-Allied Greek government. You also keep the veteran officers from the First World War that Konstantinos had purged when he came to power in late 1920/early 1921, preventing idiocy on the scale of Anastasios Papoulas. Hence Greek leadership is not as great a problem as it was in OTL, and Allied aid continues to flow to Greece. Get to Ankara (without overextending), crush the Nationalists, bye bye Kemal and hello Greek control of western and northwestern Asia Minor (and probably Italian protectorate over southwestern Asia Minor amirite?).

So yeah, just fleshing out the PoD itself. I generally agree with Squonk on the later travails of the Greeks, assuming everything happens in the same general fashion. (Butterflies FTW?)

Exactly. Konstantinos the idiot (as we call him) did everything wrong. The battle at the Sakkaria rivver was an incredible destruction.

But don't underestimate the effectiveness of scorched earth . Having read several stories about the experiences of the soldiers i know quite well that they where both starving , getting sick and weakened due to it in a big extend and the fact that they marched and fought continuously. Kemal's army on the other hand has there supplies with them and i believe the "Allies" also gave them supplies. (Not only weaponry but also food)

Now Venizelos always archieved to have the Foreign powers at his hands. But when he was defeated in the election because the opposite side promised "No more war" to the Greeks it seems their election campaign was based on a lie.

The truth is there is another problem of. Greeks who supported the king passionately hate Venizelos supporters and the Benizelos supporters passionately hated the king and his. The idiot Konstantinos replaced all Generals of Benizelos and other Greek officer with his own.

It was a divided army.

But bassically it was all because Konstantinos the idiot was an extreme liability.Benizelos being also a dictator at some times should had made an attempt to sustain his rule without the election.