On the Copt proposals. Why is the Greece in this scenario impervious to the nuclear blackmail that historically forced France and the United Kingdom to back down? I do not get it? Why do people assume that the Soviets will not include it in the nuclear blackmail (a much more powerful Greece), and let it dictate terms in one of the most crucial regions of the world for them, when they are unlikely to tolerate it doing that in the Straits?
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- Thread starter Lascaris
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I'd think at least Greece would be playing hard against the Egyptians who're expelling every Greek and Copt in there and try to at least get as much of them out as possible. But things would get pretty dicey at least.
Getting hard with the Egyptians. Sure re economic policy. Defying a Soviet nuclear threat, and potential US pressure, in order to occupy Egyptian territory and set up a statelet? I do not think so. The Suez crisis and the role of Greece will probably play role in Lascaris scenario in clarifying the Greek relationship vis a vis the US, but that is about it.
Off memory, it wasn't Soviet nuclear blackmail but US economic blackmail which forced the UK to stand down; which in turn forced France to stand down.
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*(Only pragmatic empire building for me, after all I'm not that much of a Byzantinophile, I much rather prefer ancient Greece or even modern Greece up to 1922 IOTL speaking, than most of the Byzantine eras, except you know, Basil the Bulgarslayer's reign, because the guy was such a badass, and a few other exceptional emperors, but the Byzantine Empire in general, nah, not really)
Well, actually I believe that an involvement in the Suez Crisis would keep Greece's military battlehardened enough, (powerful enough to fend off the Turks for as long as need be), like IOTL France has remained a powerful military power thanks to their involvement over a plethora of independence wars in their colonies, and a few post colonial conflicts. On the plus side we get more settlers in Anatolia, as well as more resources from North-Eastern Africa that will drive economic growth in Greece proper and beyond. Also Europe as a whole gets to retain some of it's strength if the Suez Crisis is won, so they'd get much more of a say in NATO, turning it more into an alliance of equals, than being overly dominated by the US, as IOTL. (Which would in turn give far more flexibility in its foreign policy, after all ITTL the USSR would be way more contained in Eastern Europe.)
I don't like the British as much as the next guy, but the only areas of Greece colonized by Britain would be the Ionian Islands and Cyprus, the first of which experienced a relatively brief (1809-1864) British rule, comparatively to other colonizers of Greece (Venice, Genoa), or the Ottomans, whose rule over Greek regions was much much more protracted. Also the British rule in the Ionian Islands was one of the most lenient, comparatively to all the other aforementioned colonizers. As for the latter of which, (Cyprus), it would be the very reason that Greece would get involved in the Suez crisis intervention to begin with. Many of you fail to recognize that by leaving the issue of Cyprus for the 60s-70s to be settled, the Turkish state would have recovered by that time, both demographically and economically, but 1956 is the perfect time, because the Turkish state would be way too battered from WWII to respond with anything other than a diplomatic condemnation, so Cyprus would be secured for Greece without shedding blood over the island, enabling the Greek military to move in and fortify the island into an impregnable stronghold. There's a time and a place for everything and the Suez intervention is the perfect time for Cyprus to be finally reunited with Greece proper.
I believe the latter is more likely, but the first is also quite possible, one would expect dogged resistance from the Turks, if none other. Either way I hope we'll find out real soon.
I certainly hope so. Certainly some Greek women captured by Turks would have been forced into marriages with Turkish males (/soldiers), but I'm hoping they didn't just outright killed the children and everyone else for that matter, even if the reason for that was just that the Turks were too preoccupied with manning the frontlines.
We can only hope so.
Yeah, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean that Turkey necessarily had the resources to spare for that matter, or even the time to properly prepare, like they had prior to WWI, I believe we might see a combination of IOTL Bulgarian treatment (against Greeks within Macedonia/Thrace in WWII) mixed with labor battalions and a few concentration camps here and there.
Yeah, that's certainly a very likely possibility, the "Free City of Alexandria" has an expiration date. The enclave's fate would be inevitably interlinked with the Israelite control of Sinai, if (/once?) that falls, then so will the Free City of Alexandria. Knowing this vulnerability, evacuation plans should always be in place by the Hellenic military and the civilian administration.
I don't see how a greek involvement in the suez crisis would change it's outcome...i mean both the ussr and Americans were against the Franco-british invasion of Egypt in fact i think would be beneficial for greece to support Egypt
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There has been a lot of butterflies flying around ITTL, so I wouldn't be so sure that the Suez Canal Crisis will take place as IOTL, if it even takes place...
No one is pushing this Greece with the control of the straits, with a stronger position on the region. If pushed they should have the backing of the USA and if the Egyptians do something stupid a blockade or an embargo should be enough.
Well the question here is when that collapse will happen? Sooner so the Allies are less spent and their country is less devastated or later when they have 4 armies occupying them.
The Turks will never be OTL level of power and even at that it was Greek incompetence that allowed them to get a foothold on Cyprus. Greek incompetence which could happen ITTL as well just this time around it would need far more shitty steps. Also Greek blood would be spilled maybe not in Cyprus but in Egypt so that argument is not convincing. Siding with the US this time around could help Greece more to be real. Closer ties with them would prove more beneficial than being by the side of Britain and France. Also a side note maybe we have an earlier EU or ECSC at that point who could help Europe be more independent on the economic front.
Likely right, considering a Britain with some degree of control over Suez probably wants to keep/needs Cyprus more than a Britain that doesn't.
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To go back to commenting on current affairs, the Siege of Smyrna is over. The Allied armies are in Magnesia (OTL Manisa). There is some room in the Hermus Valley for maneuvering, especially since the Allies are way more motorized than their Axis counterparts. At this point, the Allies should have air superiority along with heavy bomber squadrons. If in OTL 1942 there were american heavy bombers in the Near East, then they should exist in TTL 1943 as well.
I believe the Allied objective will be a drive towards the Straits so as to collapse the turkish war effort while inflicting a defeat on the field. The Axis might try to hold e.g. Soma but the terrain is neither Olympus nor the Apennines. A potential line of defence might be from Mount Ida to Çataldağ. In any case, the frontline will be much expanded and that would strain even more the Axis since they have limited reserves (well they have manpower but not the material to arm them).
I believe the Allied objective will be a drive towards the Straits so as to collapse the turkish war effort while inflicting a defeat on the field. The Axis might try to hold e.g. Soma but the terrain is neither Olympus nor the Apennines. A potential line of defence might be from Mount Ida to Çataldağ. In any case, the frontline will be much expanded and that would strain even more the Axis since they have limited reserves (well they have manpower but not the material to arm them).
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I'd think Greece would flip flop between Britain and America due to Nasser's policies of expelling the Greeks while not wanting to directly fight Egypt. I'd think Greece would gain the most with allying with America and not Egypt and Britain since America can tell the Brits to fuck off and let Greece have enosis with Cyprus.
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The British only need their military bases within Cyprus, the rest is a burden, do not forget that the British government decided to release Malta as an independent state, despite it's extremely strategic location, out of fear for the less than ~150.000 welfare recipients burdening their welfare system, and that was Malta, a much much much smaller and half the population of Cyprus. The British would just jump at the prospect of securing these strategic military bases for almost zero upkeep costs, compared to burdening themselves with the complex nightmare that is the administration of a hostile population, while the British would also get the additional benefit of tying up a powerful state with an extremely important location (control of Bosporus straits, Athens/Piraeus for supply/logistics, turning their tenuous hold onto a hostile Cypriot population into an allied one, possibly the lease of a strategically located base on Crete in Souda etc), for literally zero cost at all, thus helping strengthen their hold onto Suez Canal, for the benefit of Franco-British interests and those of their allied states (aka Greece).
If only America would even bother doing as such a favor, but as numerous American analysts throughout the decades have pointed out, the cost/benefit analysis is strictly prohibitive for such an action on the American behalf, and that still holds true even in this ITTL environment. With a stronger Greece and a weaker Turkey ITTL, the Americans would simply favor a continued British occupation of the islands, indefinitely, in order to prevent any tensions within NATO between their eastern flank member states, just hiding things under the rug, and that is the sad truth here. The US strategic approach towards NATO was, is and will always be that the NATO members states not directly bordering with the Warsaw Pact (/or CSTO later on) must always concede in their disagreements with NATO border member states, in order to strengthen them, for the sake of our mutual defense. Doesn't matter who's right, doesn't even matter if with this approach the NATO allies are alienated, like in the case of France IOTL, which was forced to sacrifice all of it's strategic considerations, conceding them to Germany, and even through they departed the military structure of NATO, they had no other option than to eventually return to it. Long story short, border states are always right, because they are the first line of defense. The US would at best stay neutral in the matter of Cyprus, out of fear of further alienating their already frailing, unstable & enraged NATO ally, Turkey, which could very well easily decide to abandon NATO and turncoat, instead align with the USSR, at any given time, far more so ITTL than IOTL.
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Hopefully later, the Turkish stubborn spirit is extremely difficult to break, so hopefully their potential losses if they opt to surrender will carry them through to fight onto the bitter end, in that regard I believe them to be more willing to sacrifice their lives and fight onto the bitter end for their homeland even than Hitler's Nazi Germany.
Hopefully a northeastern offensive can secure (& hold) the southern Bosporus straits and cut off as many Axis units in Anatolia as possible, every non-Turkish Axis unit trapped in Anatolia is one less Axis unit in the way of any Western Allied offensive to liberate the Balkans in the short term. ITTL speaking, the Axis forces within the Balkans were already stretched thin within the Balkans, compared to the ITTL (Western Allied) enemy forces they are facing, so this can have an extremely significant impact to the ITTL Yalta Conference in the future, shaping the very future of Europe.
That exactly is reason why they should be on Greece's side. Greece will be on the border itself not by a colony. Its homeland would be in range of ballistic missiles of the era an more than likely they will have nuclear bases instead of Turkey. So as it was OTL they stayed neutral on the matter although Greece had every right here an uprising in Cyprus is not a simple matter on the British side. Greece can here just push the British out either by diplomacy or by revolution. Britain holds no cards here, Cyprus is already Greek they just haven't realized it yet.
Of course all of this is in the future and we have other pressing matters at hand like the border settlement of Greece in the eve of WW2, possible Balkan civil wars between communists and nationalists and the Korean war as well. Even after all this there is more than a decade with a huge swing in politics in Greece as I see them going to the left like the British did after the WW2 and we have a labour/left-leaning party on the cabinet when the crisis arrives with all that entails.
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Greece should really retain a limited presence in Balkan civil wars, no matter the cost, unless given direct (strategic) gains (to increase it's power projection in the wider region) as a recompense, (e.g Cyprus, or idk Malta (in the unlikely scenario that Britain would wish to dump it on Greece that is, there was a somewhat important Greek minority there in the past I believe?, some ~25.000 Greeks in 1915, or even sparsely populated strategically located islands either in Tunisia, such as Djerba and/or the Kerkennah Islands, which could be stated is on itself an additional reason to be on the good graces of the Franco-British, or some more islets on the Mediterranean coastline of Turkey, but that would prove difficult for the Turks to swallow, especially after so many territorial losses, or alternatively some strategically located Italian islands with very low population (>5.000 people reside within all 4 islands combined) near Malta, like Pantelleria, Lampedusa, Linosa and Lampione). Otherwise this endeavor would be a complete waste, regardless which side wins there. The Balkans are not essential to Greece's security concerns, but rather the complete lack of any sort of border with Warsaw Pact states would weaken Greece's position within NATO even further, resulting in the severe and possible near complete loss of US & NATO allied funding towards the Greek military and privileged military equipment procurement deals (like easing payment by spreading huge procurements over a whole lot of installments, with low interest rates, that Greece enjoyed more or less, compared to the rest of the world and even other, "safer" non-first line NATO members, who had little need for additional military equipment, due to their distance from Warsaw Pact and their lack of direct borders with Warsaw Pact) with NATO allies, on top of the loss of many Greek soldiers and even civilians more than likely in those inevitably gruesome conflicts. Long story short, too much to lose, too little to gain out of this whole endeavor for Greece specifically.
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If I recall correctly the Americans came to the Greek civil war guns blazing and did the same on Korea. The reason? Communism. I would agree that on the long term Greece should leave the Balkans to sort themselves out but hindsight is 20-20. The contemporary politicians would view the Soviets as a existential threat and a regional threat to their interest an as the Yugoslavs, Albanians and Bulgarians help the Greek communist OTL so would the Greeks to the same if the situation allows it of course. I doubt the Americans or the British would disagree with the sentiment and If I remember correctly Ion Dragoumis was an anti-Communist which could have an impact on how he views the Balkans. I will remain vague on the subjects as we don't know how the Yugoslavian situation will go nor the Albanian or Bulgarian for that matter. Still getting involved on anti communism won't have a diplomatic impact on the Western side only on the eastern with the Soviets, I would argue that both the Americans and British would be happy to see Greece contain communism.
I'd think it's very possible that the Americans help the Greeks fight the communists in Greece and in communist held Yugoslavia.
So Greece would get direct funds from the us to rebuild while their industries will have the supply needed to expand and be greater than Greece's competitors in the med.
Aside from Cyprus and the balkans..could the greek industrialist get their hands on german machinery during the deinstitutionalization phase of the allies occupation of Germany? Some like bodossakis would see the opportunity to dominate even more the greek heavy industry while other like Onassis would see an opportunity to get their hands in the greek heavy industry.. especially after the war greece would have a greater economic miracle
