In OTL, Churchill really wanted to get President Inonu to join WW2. If they did, do you think they'd get a UN Security Council seat? Or would they still be to weak for it.
Turkish UN Security Council Seat?
- Thread starter Lee-Sensei
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Look More Closely Later
Gone Fishin'
Depends
If they maybe declare war in 1943 just after Operation Avalanche, help the Allies hold onto the Dodecanese islands the Italians handed over, and maybe make a big push in 1944 into the Balkan peninsular at the same time as Overlord and Bagration it seems to me that they might be counted as having made a big enough effort to merit a security council seat. The longer they leave things, though, and the less fighting their troops do, the lower the chances get.
I think it depends on when they join in on the Allies' side, and what services they render.
If they maybe declare war in 1943 just after Operation Avalanche, help the Allies hold onto the Dodecanese islands the Italians handed over, and maybe make a big push in 1944 into the Balkan peninsular at the same time as Overlord and Bagration it seems to me that they might be counted as having made a big enough effort to merit a security council seat. The longer they leave things, though, and the less fighting their troops do, the lower the chances get.
Does anyone know if it was offered? Cyprus and the Dodecanese islands would probably go to them (to the chabrin of the Greeks). Maybe parts of Syria too. Was a position at the peace table equal to a major power offered to them in their conferences?
Maybe an alt-Turkey that retains greater leadership (and ownership) over the Muslim world.
I'm sorry, but no. Even assuming some kind of Axis victory over alt-Russia Argentina still isn't going Axis, not with the United States looking across the Atlantic with little regard for the Axis cause. Pissing off America in the 1940s is a VERY bad idea, especially if you are a little South American country with lots of hostile neighbors. Meanwhile, assuming a Japan anything like OTL means they will eventually get their faces kicked in for attacking the United States.
At BEST you end up with some sort of European Axis council consisting of the main European Axis countries, by which I mean Germany and friends. The actual United Nations (read the alt-Allies) will still control some 85% of global GDP and about the same level of power, plus tons of resources unavailable in Europe. And no way in hell are the Western Allies recognizing this Axis group as a legitimate claim to global unity. And while they don't neither will anyone else.
Even then the ENTIRE Muslim world combined would control what? 1% of global military and economic power? Less?
Look More Closely Later
Gone Fishin'
Position at the peace table
Some sort of offer for Turkey was apparently discussed at Teheran in 1943. I'm unclear if that was indeed subsequently offered to Turkey, but there were a number of meetings in Cairo between Churchill and various Turkish leaders immediately after the Teheran conference in December 1943.
Possibly. Churchill wrote in his memoirs, regarding a discussion with Roosevelt and Stalin at the Teheran conference:
The Second World War, Volume 5, page 346. (1952 edition)
Some sort of offer for Turkey was apparently discussed at Teheran in 1943. I'm unclear if that was indeed subsequently offered to Turkey, but there were a number of meetings in Cairo between Churchill and various Turkish leaders immediately after the Teheran conference in December 1943.
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That's very interesting. Do you know more?
A seat at the peace table could mean as a middle power. Like Australia, Canada, India, the Netherlands, the New Zealands and the Philipines getting to judge Japanese war criminals along with French, Russian, Ammerican British and Chinese ones?
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yourworstnightmare
Banned
Wait, what? So the Ottomans magically help the Axis to victory? And the Axis for some reason institute the UN, even though that was something the Axis nations were staunchly against?
No.
I don't know if they'd be against a UN. They just wanted to be dominant powers in it. The way many people in the "have not countries" saw it, the British and French weren't interested in peace. They were interested in peace on their terms. They'd carved out massive Empires and were trying to keep the "have not nations" from getting the land and respurces that would allow them to move up in the world.
This is a strange list, and the idea that the Axis powers would create anything remotely like OTL's UN is probably more ASB than having them win the war in the first place. However to play along, I offer this a possible five member World Order Compact:
- German Reich (with in effect dominates most of eastern Europe and the western Soviet Union as a colonial empire)
-Japanese Empire (which dominates SE Asia, the NEI, much of China, and much of Siberia)
-Italian Empire (which dominates the Mediterranean and East Africa)
-British Empire (A neutral/Vichyesque empire that pretty much is OTLs 1940 British Empire, minus any Dominions that go it alone or defect to a US-lead coalition)
-French Empire (a Vichy regime that controls all of France and its colonial empire)
The US or any New World nation would probably not be a part of this "UN Security Council". The Nazis were completely Eurocentric, and a World Order Compact that included only European Aryan empires(and honorary Japanese Aryans) and that excluded the Americas would suit them just fine.
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This is tall order. Pretty much requires a MUCH stronger Turkey to begin with.
The Allies went out their way to get the Turks, because Turkey's strategic position was extremely valuable to them, particularly to Churchill silly plans for a Balkan campaign. Turkey remained neutral for a reason though, that is, they were militarily weak and they knew it (also, they had little love for either the Brits or the Soviets or anybody else really, but they were also scared shitless by the Germans). Neutrality was their best bet in their POV.
In case Turkey picks the Ally side, under OTL conditions they won't be able to put up the sort of fight that warrants a SC seat.
Now, if we assume neutral OE in WWI and a really odd butterfly net (it's unlikely that the Soviet Union as we know it would exist in the same TL of a neutral Ottoman Empire post-WWI, for instance), with the Ottomans joining the Allies against the Nazis... that is conceivable. In ASB I mean.
The Allies went out their way to get the Turks, because Turkey's strategic position was extremely valuable to them, particularly to Churchill silly plans for a Balkan campaign. Turkey remained neutral for a reason though, that is, they were militarily weak and they knew it (also, they had little love for either the Brits or the Soviets or anybody else really, but they were also scared shitless by the Germans). Neutrality was their best bet in their POV.
In case Turkey picks the Ally side, under OTL conditions they won't be able to put up the sort of fight that warrants a SC seat.
Now, if we assume neutral OE in WWI and a really odd butterfly net (it's unlikely that the Soviet Union as we know it would exist in the same TL of a neutral Ottoman Empire post-WWI, for instance), with the Ottomans joining the Allies against the Nazis... that is conceivable. In ASB I mean.
Look More Closely Later
Gone Fishin'
Cairo 1943
Churchill then goes on to outline the basics of 'Operation "Saturn"' which was a plan of 'policy and action' for what to do immediately if Turkey had decided to come in at that point. (Basically it seems to have consisted of moving British bombers and fighters into Turkey, a British naval action and amphibious landing against Rhodes before the end of February if landing craft can be found, bombing Bulgaria if they declare war on Turkey, and British submarines going through the Dardanelles to hit Axis shipping in the Black Sea and help the Russians apply pressure to Roumania. Meanwhile, Turkey is to continue to re-equip its armies.)
He concludes with:
Churchill seems to have been enthusiastic about the possibilities of Turkey coming in during those meetings in Cairo. However:
By late December, 1943, Churchill seems resigned to Turkey's remaining neutral; at that time he starts to think in terms of an amphibious landing at Anzio, to try and get the Italian front moving, instead of any operation against Rhodes.
I'm afraid Churchill's rather vague about the talks in Cairo (presumably because Turkey ended up sitting on the sidelines until February, 1945, as things turned out). What he has is:That's very interesting. Do you know more?
A seat at the peace table could mean as a middle power. Like Australia, Canada, India, the Netherlands, the New Zealands and the Philipines getting to judge Japanese war criminals along with French, Russian, Ammerican British and Chinese ones?
The Second World War, Volume 5, page 367. (1952 edition)
Churchill then goes on to outline the basics of 'Operation "Saturn"' which was a plan of 'policy and action' for what to do immediately if Turkey had decided to come in at that point. (Basically it seems to have consisted of moving British bombers and fighters into Turkey, a British naval action and amphibious landing against Rhodes before the end of February if landing craft can be found, bombing Bulgaria if they declare war on Turkey, and British submarines going through the Dardanelles to hit Axis shipping in the Black Sea and help the Russians apply pressure to Roumania. Meanwhile, Turkey is to continue to re-equip its armies.)
He concludes with:
The Second World War, Volume 5, page 369. (1952 edition)
Churchill seems to have been enthusiastic about the possibilities of Turkey coming in during those meetings in Cairo. However:
The Second World War, Volume 5, page 381. (1952 edition)
By late December, 1943, Churchill seems resigned to Turkey's remaining neutral; at that time he starts to think in terms of an amphibious landing at Anzio, to try and get the Italian front moving, instead of any operation against Rhodes.
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Thanks. What could have been. I have a lot of respect for Ataturk and Inonu for not dragging their country down with Adolf, but if a UN Security Council permanent seat was on the table, I'd have to say it was a missed oppurtunity.
The Allies did not live in the same globalized world we do now. Otherwise the P5 would not include three European powers. If Turkey was somehow a more important ally and had greater leverage over the Arab world and the Maghreb then UK and France would be like, "whoa look at all those Mohammedans" and then maybe Turkey would be part of the council because of their perceived overlordship of the hordes that used to be perched upon the borders of Europa.
And that negates what I said how exactly?
No. What I'm saying is that even IF Turkey ruled over the ENITIRE Muslim world they would be weaker than Italy ALONE. There is no reason to think the Allies would give them a seat for any reason unless Turkey is actually somewhere near as powerful as anyone else with a permanent seat. It's not, and there is almost no way it ever could be without a POD so far back it butterflies the United Nations.
Well... it's ASB, but the entire Muslim world includes places as far west as Morrocco and as far ast as Indonesia. If they were somehow able to keep an Empire like that together, they'd pobably be let in on potential alone.