What If Turkey Had Entered World War II?

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this article by @DaleCoz here

 

[Thande]

I remember reading Dale's essays on this years ago, good to see them represented here.

 

[Ricardolindo]

It's a very interesting article.

 

[Death's Companion]

I have to say I'm kind of blue screening on how to respond to this because well it seems in bad spirit to let any semblance of reality into the scenario.

Suffice to say I just don't think the logistics or timescales make even the slightest bit of sense.

 

[David Flin]

I have to say I'm kind of blue screening on how to respond to this because well it seems in bad spirit to let any semblance of reality into the scenario.

Suffice to say I just don't think the logistics or timescales make even the slightest bit of sense.

It was written at a time when Handwavium was in plentiful supply.

 

[Jared]

It was written at a time when Handwavium was in plentiful supply.

Since the easily accessible handwavium deposits have been exhausted, authors now purchase the slightly more expensive but still available narrativium.

 

[DaleCoz]

Since the easily accessible handwavium deposits have been exhausted, authors now purchase the slightly more expensive but still available narrativium.

I had to go back and reread this to remember what I said. I just finished doing that. This was one of my earlier World War II alternatives and it shows. Let's just say my understanding of logistics has improved a bit in the decades since I wrote this.

That being said, the idea of a divided and embittered Turkey becoming a battleground or a pathway in World War II isn't necessarily a bad one. If I was writing this today, I would probably do several things different. First, I probably wouldn't have the lead-up to World War II being as similar to real history in the scenario as I did. A partition of Turkey would have had quite a few impacts in the interwar years, and I don't think it's realistic to ignore them. Second, I would have to think through how far the Germans could generate force in this scenario. Germans staging across Turkey to take Iraq would by itself be quite a feat given the not overly dense Turkish transport system of the era. Going on to attack the Soviet Union from Turkey and all the other stuff I had them doing--yeah that was not particularly realistic. Just too far from manufacturing centers.

I suppose that if the rump of Turkey had become a revisionist power in the early 1930s and the Germans had put an effort into building them up in the late 1930s, some of this might be sort of workable, but German resources going there wouldn't be going somewhere else, and Germans sniffing around the Middle East would bring British hostility to the Germans to the front much earlier.

Has anyone else given the "Turkey in Wo4rld War II" alternative a look?

 

[Max Sinister]

Not yet... although it makes awfully sense. Two words: Bomb Baku. - But seen from a writer's PoV: Doesn't that make things too easy?

 

[History Learner]

I had to go back and reread this to remember what I said. I just finished doing that. This was one of my earlier World War II alternatives and it shows. Let's just say my understanding of logistics has improved a bit in the decades since I wrote this.

That being said, the idea of a divided and embittered Turkey becoming a battleground or a pathway in World War II isn't necessarily a bad one. If I was writing this today, I would probably do several things different. First, I probably wouldn't have the lead-up to World War II being as similar to real history in the scenario as I did. A partition of Turkey would have had quite a few impacts in the interwar years, and I don't think it's realistic to ignore them. Second, I would have to think through how far the Germans could generate force in this scenario. Germans staging across Turkey to take Iraq would by itself be quite a feat given the not overly dense Turkish transport system of the era. Going on to attack the Soviet Union from Turkey and all the other stuff I had them doing--yeah that was not particularly realistic. Just too far from manufacturing centers.

I suppose that if the rump of Turkey had become a revisionist power in the early 1930s and the Germans had put an effort into building them up in the late 1930s, some of this might be sort of workable, but German resources going there wouldn't be going somewhere else, and Germans sniffing around the Middle East would bring British hostility to the Germans to the front much earlier.

Has anyone else given the "Turkey in Wo4rld War II" alternative a look?

My only real issue with it is keeping everything the same and having a divided Turkey be so powerful; I think it would be far easier and realistic to have events play out differently in the 1930s or such to have Turkey join the Axis. As it were, however, it might very well be a game changer based on the historical evidence. Let me start with the Allied view of such, from Britain, Turkey, and the Soviet Union 1940-1945:

Spoiler: Page 64

Spoiler: Page 65

Spoiler: Page 66

As for logistics, most estimates I've seen suggest the railways could support 10-20 German divisions, based on capacity limits and density of the network. IIRC, this was also the contemporary Allied belief too, which played a factor in their conclusion they simply could not handle a German thrust from an Axis Turkey into the Middle East.