Athens, October 5th, 1939
If it was the wrong time for politicking with a war ongoing, the Greeks hadn't really noticed. Since June Georgios Papandreou had come under mass attack over the participation of his son in a Trotskyite organization and it was clear to him that come from supporters of Sofoklis Venizelos, the son of Eleutherios and his rival within the Liberal party. It was true that Kafandaris who had actually succeeded the late Venizelos had backed him but had still forced Papandreou to leave the ministry of education for a different ministry, a slight that Papandreou had been forced to accept at the time but had done so with ill grace. Worse yet he had to see his son leave for the United States as a result for the scandal. Papandreou's reaction had taken nearly 3 months to emerge but now it showed with the creation of the Democratic and Agrarian party. Twenty more Liberal MPs including Ioannis Sofianopoulos and nine senators had followed Papandreou into the new party and while the Democratic MPs had continued offering their support to the government, now Kafandaris, directly controlling only 124 MPs directly depended upon Papandreou who was already asking for his return to the ministry of education. But Kafandaris was not a man to take well to this kind of pressure. If Papandreou was not willing to back him, he'd enter talks with Stratos. And if Stratos would not see reason which he did not, despite Zavitsanos best efforts to arrange a coalition then the matter would be taken to the ballots, after all he felt a new mandate was needed, the voters had elected Venizelos not himself. A snap election was called for November 12th.
Pera Palace hotel, Constantinople, October 12th, 1939
Zygmunt Pulawski, shook hands with the two Greeks opposite him at the table. Pulawski had just got a chance to not just continue working on aircraft but to continue working on aircraft of his own design. And the Greek KEA aircraft factory had just gotten a new technical director and chief designer it sorely lacked. Under instructions by Prodromos Bodosakis, informally assigned by Kafandaris to coordinate the Greek war industries, Greek recruiting agents were fast at work among the Polish civilian refugees offering jobs to any engineers that had managed to escape to Constantinople. Anyone who agreed would find first a room in Bodosakis own Pera palace and then a ticket to a secure job in Athens. For many it was proving more enticing than the uncertain possibility of maybe securing work in some French factory if they managed to reach France. The Polish government in exile, still in shock from the defeat, wasn't minding... much. After all this way some independent design capability might find its way back to Poland after liberation. Besides the Greeks while neutral were proving quietly helpful so far...
Psamatheia/Samatya, Constantinople, October 15th, 1939
"Join the fight for freedom! Volunteer today for the Armee d' Orient!" the poster proclaimed in French... and also Greek, Armenian, Russian and Turkish. In the opinion of the sergeant who was keeping with his squad a wary eye over the volunteer recruiting center at the
Surp Kevork church the poster was just wasting printing ink with some of the languages. Armenians were volunteering in reasonable numbers, they were traditionally pro-French and there were over 220,000 of them in Constantinople, which was why the recruiting centre was in one of their churches. Russians so far were mostly indifferent, why a White Russian emigre would join the fight for Poland? Greeks... if Greeks wanted to volunteer there was always the Greek army, they didn't even need to take the ride to Catalca, they could do right here in the city. As for the Turks, the only interest shown was by the people who he was certain were keeping an eye at who was volunteering, Turkish sympathies in this was were for understandable reasons rather specific which was one of the reasons his squad was here. That the situation in the queen of cities was... delicate was rather an understandment. Back in August after the German-Soviet pact France had decided to give a message of firmness and had sent admiral
Georges Durand-Viel, the former head of the French navy, as French High Commissioner to Constantinople. But the move had not been accompanied by any notable reinforcement of the allied military presence. Allied forces still consisted of the 6e Regiment Etranger d'infanterie and the British 85th infantry brigade. The Italians were at the other side of the straits at Uskudar their "Corpo truppe di Constantinopoli" must have at least 5,000 men itself. The Turks or for that matter the Greeks? The correct answer was who really knew? But the police was mostly Greeks and Turks and both countries had a tradition of militarized police forces. And you couldn't discount anyone from boy scouts to sports clubs in this damn place. Back in the spring by some unfortunate coincidence
ASP, the Pera Sports Club had won for the first time the Greek football championship at the very time
Galatasaray had won her first Turkish football championship. Fans of both teams had come out to celebrate. Then promptly clashed with each other, with fists quickly giving place to rocks and crowbars and these promptly escalating to knives, petrol bombs and firearms. It had been by pure luck and prompt intervention by both sides, who did not care for unplanned troubles, that deaths had been avoided. But tension was still very much in the air in the friendly game arranged between ASP and Galatasaray a couple weeks later supposedly to mend fences, that some idiot Greek journalist in
Apogevmatini had nicknamed it the "Constantinople champion game" and his counterparts in
Tanin had taken up the idea had hardly helped reducing tensions...
Athens, October 19th, 1939
Back in September 10th
Euripides Bakirtzis had been sent by Pangalos to meet with Maxime Weygand in Constantinople to discuss military cooperation between France and the Balkan nations. Bakirtzis in his report back to Pangalos in September 15th had not been entirely impressed by Weygand's plans and proposals. Now Weygand was in Athens and Pangalos, very much agreed with his subordinate and protege. In Weygand's opinion it would be impossible for the Germans to breach French defenses in the west, but also equally impossible for the allied armies to breach German defences while Italy would join the war on the German side. The solution? A second front in the Balkans against the Germans that would decide the war very much like the defeat of the central powers in 1918 had begun in the Macedonian front. Pangalos might have been sympathetic but was not blind. Weygand promised that France would provide 4-5 divisions initially to the new Balkan front. Was that in addition to French forces in Syria? No it included them. What would happen if Turkey and Bulgaria chose to fight the Balkan entente then? Surely they would not? Alexandretta had already been given to Turkey and the Balkan Entente nations could negotiate with Bulgaria and Turkey their current differences to secure their neutrality and even inclusion to the Balkan Entente? It was pure chance that Pangalos had not thrown Weygand off his office then and there causing a diplomatic incident. What about specifics on air cover? Some would be surely provided. In the end the only concrete thing that had come out of the meeting was Weygand committing to support Greek requests for arms deliveries from France in anticipation of future cooperation...
Greece, November 12th, 1939
Election time. And the first election since the death of Venizelos. Despite friction between them the Liberals and the new Democratic party had formed a "National Coalition" to enter the election against the "United Opposition" of Stratos and Dragoumis. The National Coalition had come close to winning with 44.42% of the vote. But the United Opposition had won 47.33% and 137 seats in parliament to 113 of the National Coalition. At the party level the National Radical party had won 27.44% and 79 seats, the Conservative Reform party 19,89% and 58 seats, the Liberals 38,03% and 97 seats and the Democratic Agrarian party 6.39% and 16 seats. The Greek Communist party with 5.43%, slightly diminished from 1936, had failed to elect anyone in parliament although it had secured three senators. But who should form the new government? Not Stratos whose party had actually lost votes from the previous election. Not the National Coalition, which fell 13 seats short of a majority. Stratos backing a Dragoumis cabinet would had been logical but Stratos had not forgotten the fall of his own government and his replacement by Dragoumis back in July 1932 and as a former Liberal had contacts also in the Venizelist camp. His 58 MPs made him kingmaker. If the Conservative Reform party backed the Liberals there would be a Liberal government. If it backed the National Radicals, Dragoumis would become prime minister. The role was convenient and he start negotiating with both.
Ansaldo, Genoa, November 15th, 1939
Battleship Impero was launched. Along with her sister Roma they had been laid the previous year, part of the 1938 program much to the consternation of the Italian finance ministry that was facing significant problems paying for all three services on top of the massive costs being incurred due to the Spanish civil war. Fortunately for the ministry the end of the war in summer of 1938 had freed up funding and the navy had finally managed to lay down the three heavy cruisers that since 1935 were supposed to counter the pair of cruisers the Greeks had building in the United States. But now war was closing much earlier than anticipated and both the new battleships and the new cruisers were not going to be ready before 1942 at the earliest. All was a matter of choices of course. Impero and Roma cost about 1.6 billion lire and the three cruisers, Luigi Rizzo, Venezia and Constanzo Ciano another 900 million for a total of 2.5 billion lire. The support to the Spanish nationalists had cost Italy 13.4 billion lire [1] . The Ethiopian war another 33 billion lire...
Greece November 25th, 1939
On the first session of parliament in November 19th Stratos had backed the conservative Liberal Konstantinos Zavitsanos as president of the chamber. But negotiations for a government had kept dragging on, as Stratos kept negotiating with both sides trying to maximize the price of his support and an increasingly frustrated Kafandaris, remained at the head of a caretaker government. What Stratos failed to account for was that he was overplaying his hand and that in person while respected he was hardly popular among his fellow politicians. Or for that matter that Dragoumis while technically in the right was widely respected as an intellectual all across the political spectrum even among communists. Or that passionately anti-Venizelist, Dragoumis family had its own connections to the highest levels of the Venizelist camp, after all the Benakis family were close confidantes of Venizelos and even if someone forgot his own love affair with
Penelope Delta nearly a generation ago she and his sister
Natalia Mela remained close friends. And thus when the coalition government between the National Radicals and the Liberals would be announced in November 25th the only one surprised was Stratos. Ion Dragoumis would become prime minister for a second time with Kafandaris his deputy. The three war ministries would go to Liberals, War to Kafandaris in person, air to
Alexandros Zannas, Penelope's son in law and the Hellenic Air Force's spiritual father and Navy to
Alexandros Hatzikyriakos. Both
Theodore Pangalos and
Ioannis Demestichas would retain command of the army and navy respectively, after all this was not the time to start shifting around the high command. It was about time. Five days later the Soviets invaded Finland...
[1] Or in other words the early end to the Spanish civil war reduced Italian costs by about 900 million enough to allow Italy to begin construction of the Ciano class cruisers a year ahead of OTL (and actually lay them down instead of the war intervening). Then on top of that the Italians will be reacting to Greek naval construction TTL which turns the ships from large light cruisers to heavy cruisers instead. And accidentally also forces the French's hands with their Saint Louis class but that's a story for later...