The Chanak Crisis, also called the Chanak Affair and the Chanak Incident, was a war scare in September 1922 between the United Kingdom and the Government of the Grand National Assembly in Turkey. Chanak refers to Çanakkale, a city on the Anatolian side of the Dardanelles Strait. The crisis was caused by Turkish efforts to push the Greek armies out of Turkey and restore Turkish rule in the Allied-occupied territories, primarily in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Eastern Thrace. Turkish troops marched against British and French positions in the Dardanelles neutral zone. For a time, war between Britain and Turkey seemed possible; In British politics, Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, and the Conservatives Lord Birkenhead and Austen Chamberlain were pro-Greek and wanted war. All other Conservatives of the coalition in his government, however, were pro-Turk and rejected war, with Lloyd George's position as head of the coalition becoming untenable. The Lloyd George cabinet was influenced by false intelligence, including the possibility that Turkey would conclude a military agreement with Soviet Russia; and although MI6 reported that Turkey and Soviet Russia were already drifting apart, the Cabinet continued to express concern about a Soviet Navy intervention. Churchill published a pro-war manifesto warning of a massive Turkish offensive into Europe undoing the result of the war, which was widely lambasted and embarrassed the British government. Lloyd George was warned by the Foreign Office, the Imperial General Staff, and even Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch against supporting the Greeks, but he ignored them all. Furthermore, the British public were alarmed by the Chanak episode and the possibility of going to war again. It further undercut Lloyd George that he had not fully consulted the Dominion prime ministers.
Unlike 1914, when World War I had broken out, Canada in particular did not automatically consider itself active in the conflict. Instead, Prime Minister Mackenzie King insisted that the Parliament of Canada should decide on the course of action the country would follow. King was offended by the telegram he received from Churchill asking for Canada to send troops to Chanak to support Britain, and sent back a telegram, which was couched in Canadian nationalist language, declaring that Canada would not automatically support Britain if it came to war with Turkey. Given that the majority of the MP's of King's Liberal Party were opposed to going to war with Turkey together with the Progressive MPs who were supporting King's minority government, it is likely that Canada would have declared neutrality if the crisis came to war. The Chanak issue badly divided Canadian public opinion with French-Canadians and Canadian nationalists in English-Canada like professor O. D. Skelton saying Canada should not issue "blank cheques" to Britain like that issued in 1914 and supporting King's implicit decision for neutrality. By contrast, the Conservative leader Arthur Meighen in a speech in Toronto criticized King and declared: "When Britain's message came, then Canada should have said, 'Ready, aye ready, we stand by you.'" By the time the issue had been debated in the House of Commons of Canada, the threat at Chanak had passed. Nonetheless, King made his point: the Canadian Parliament would decide the role that Canada would play in external affairs and could diverge from the British government. The—with the two exceptions of Newfoundland and New Zealand each offered a battalion, and would have joined the conflict- but neither any of the other Dominion prime ministers, nor Yugoslavia, Italy and Romania, offered any support.
And IOTL, the crisis quickly ended when Turkey, having overwhelmed the Greeks, agreed to a negotiated settlement that gave it the territory it wanted. The British cabinet decided on the 23rd September to give East Thrace to the Turks, thus forcing the Greeks to abandon it without a fight. This convinced Kemal to accept the opening of armistice talks and on 28 September he told the British that he had ordered his troops to avoid any incident at Chanak, nominating Mudanya as the venue for peace negotiations. The parties met there on 3 October and agreed to the terms of the Armistice of Mudanya on 11 October, two hours before British forces were due to attack. Lloyd George's mishandling of the crisis contributed to his downfall via the Carlton Club meeting. The crisis raised the issue of who decided on war for the British Empire, and was Canada's first assertion of diplomatic independence from London. Historian Robert Blake says the Chanak incident led to Arthur Balfour's definition of Britain and the dominions as "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of the domestic or internal affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations". In 1931 the UK Parliament enacted Balfour's formula into law through the Statute of Westminster 1931, and this would in turn be the 'beginning of the end' for the British Empire.
But what if it hadn't been resolved? What if there had been some manner of incident- let's say that instead of the Allied commander in Constantinople being the British General Charles Harington, who kept his men from firing on Turks and warned the British cabinet against any rash adventures, his predecessor General Milne remains in charge of the Army of the Black Sea, and an incident paralleling the Marco Polo Bridge incident winds up being the catalyst which sparks a British declaration of war against Turkey (effectively entering the Greco-Turkish War on Greece's side, thus greatly extending and expanding the scale of the conflict)? How do you think this conflict would pan out? Who'd wind up joining, or being roped into, this conflict? Who'd be likeliest to lose, and likeliest to 'win' (and for the winner, at what cost)? And how big could this war end up becoming, especially if others decide to enter the conflict in support of the Turks (such as the Soviets)- potentially enough to balloon into an earlier "WW2" (with its own 'Great Holocaust/s'- which, sadly, wouldn't require too much divergence from what happened during and in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War IOTL)?
Unlike 1914, when World War I had broken out, Canada in particular did not automatically consider itself active in the conflict. Instead, Prime Minister Mackenzie King insisted that the Parliament of Canada should decide on the course of action the country would follow. King was offended by the telegram he received from Churchill asking for Canada to send troops to Chanak to support Britain, and sent back a telegram, which was couched in Canadian nationalist language, declaring that Canada would not automatically support Britain if it came to war with Turkey. Given that the majority of the MP's of King's Liberal Party were opposed to going to war with Turkey together with the Progressive MPs who were supporting King's minority government, it is likely that Canada would have declared neutrality if the crisis came to war. The Chanak issue badly divided Canadian public opinion with French-Canadians and Canadian nationalists in English-Canada like professor O. D. Skelton saying Canada should not issue "blank cheques" to Britain like that issued in 1914 and supporting King's implicit decision for neutrality. By contrast, the Conservative leader Arthur Meighen in a speech in Toronto criticized King and declared: "When Britain's message came, then Canada should have said, 'Ready, aye ready, we stand by you.'" By the time the issue had been debated in the House of Commons of Canada, the threat at Chanak had passed. Nonetheless, King made his point: the Canadian Parliament would decide the role that Canada would play in external affairs and could diverge from the British government. The—with the two exceptions of Newfoundland and New Zealand each offered a battalion, and would have joined the conflict- but neither any of the other Dominion prime ministers, nor Yugoslavia, Italy and Romania, offered any support.
And IOTL, the crisis quickly ended when Turkey, having overwhelmed the Greeks, agreed to a negotiated settlement that gave it the territory it wanted. The British cabinet decided on the 23rd September to give East Thrace to the Turks, thus forcing the Greeks to abandon it without a fight. This convinced Kemal to accept the opening of armistice talks and on 28 September he told the British that he had ordered his troops to avoid any incident at Chanak, nominating Mudanya as the venue for peace negotiations. The parties met there on 3 October and agreed to the terms of the Armistice of Mudanya on 11 October, two hours before British forces were due to attack. Lloyd George's mishandling of the crisis contributed to his downfall via the Carlton Club meeting. The crisis raised the issue of who decided on war for the British Empire, and was Canada's first assertion of diplomatic independence from London. Historian Robert Blake says the Chanak incident led to Arthur Balfour's definition of Britain and the dominions as "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of the domestic or internal affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations". In 1931 the UK Parliament enacted Balfour's formula into law through the Statute of Westminster 1931, and this would in turn be the 'beginning of the end' for the British Empire.
But what if it hadn't been resolved? What if there had been some manner of incident- let's say that instead of the Allied commander in Constantinople being the British General Charles Harington, who kept his men from firing on Turks and warned the British cabinet against any rash adventures, his predecessor General Milne remains in charge of the Army of the Black Sea, and an incident paralleling the Marco Polo Bridge incident winds up being the catalyst which sparks a British declaration of war against Turkey (effectively entering the Greco-Turkish War on Greece's side, thus greatly extending and expanding the scale of the conflict)? How do you think this conflict would pan out? Who'd wind up joining, or being roped into, this conflict? Who'd be likeliest to lose, and likeliest to 'win' (and for the winner, at what cost)? And how big could this war end up becoming, especially if others decide to enter the conflict in support of the Turks (such as the Soviets)- potentially enough to balloon into an earlier "WW2" (with its own 'Great Holocaust/s'- which, sadly, wouldn't require too much divergence from what happened during and in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War IOTL)?
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