Turkey In World War II: As I pointed out in my July scenario, there are two very tempting ways to the Middle East if you're a land-based power like Germany. The first is through Spain and then to Morocco and across North Africa. The second, more direct route is through Turkey. I've done a little more research on the role of Turkey in World War II, and I've come up with some additional scenarios. I'm going to outline several of them over the next couple of months, not going into as much depth in any one of them as I did with the one last month. 

New Information On Turkey's Role In World War II: The Turks had a dilemma as World War II approached. On the one hand, they had made a great deal of progress toward becoming a modern secular nation. Entering the war on either side would put that progress at risk. On the other hand, the Turks had lost a great deal of territory at the end of World War I. In the Middle East, they lost territory which today is Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and part of Saudi Arabia. In the Mediterranean, the Italians seized islands along the Turkish coast, some as close as 3 miles away from the mainland. A strong current of Turkish political thought said that World War II was an opportunity to take those territories back. The question was: which territories did they go for? The Italian-held islands were an affront to Turkey. On the other hand, England ran (directly or indirectly) former Turkish territory in Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. France held Syria and Lebanon. Turkey was also interested in regaining influence and/or territory in Turkish-speaking areas of the Soviet Union. Turkey could swing toward the allies and try to recover the Mediterranean islands, or it could swing toward the Axis and try to recover lost areas in the Middle East. After the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, Turkey also had the option of trying to exploit that war to reach its goals in the Soviet Union.

Throughout the war, the Allies and Axis were very aware of Turkey's potential role. At various times both sides offered fairly major incentives to bring the Turks in. A couple of times it looked like they were about to succeed. I'll look at a couple of those near-misses and construct scenarios based on them over the next few months. I'll go in chronological order, which means that this month:

Turkey Joins the Allies in 1939.

What actually happened: As war broke out, the Turks were primarily concerned about Italy's aggressive posture in the eastern Mediterranean. They actually signed up as allies of the French and English against the Italians. The Italians wisely stayed out of the first several months of World War II, and the English and French decided to try to get Mussolini to change sides rather than attacking him. The Turks urged the Allies to go after Italy while Germany was tied up in Poland. Italy entered the war on Germany's side when it became obvious that France was going to fall. The British asked Turkey to live up to their treaty commitments and come in against Italy. The Turks looked at the balance of power after a French collapse and wisely said no.

What might have happened: The English thought that Mussolini could be brought into the war on the Allied side with a little time and massaging. That wasn't entirely impossible. The Italians were actually selling aircraft engines and even rifles to the Allies in the period between September 1939 and May 1940. The Italians were pursuing an independent foreign policy which included selling fighter planes to Finland, which was fighting the Soviet Union, which in turn was theoretically allied to Germany. If the Allies had been convinced that Mussolini was going to join Hitler when the time was right, they might have decided to go after him before he got the opportunity. Maybe the Turks could even provoke an incident that would serve as a reason for doing that. In any case, the French, English, and Turks go after Italy in September 1939.

Short-term consequences: As Germany cleans up in Poland, England and France press the war against Italy. This is the kind of war they would do rather well at. The naval war in the Mediterranean would initially be a battleship war. Italy didn't have carriers, and pilots of their land-based aircraft weren't trained for naval operations. The English had carriers, but the carrier-based planes were obsolete and the concept of carriers unproven. Chances are that the Italians would get their heads handed to them by the combined French and English fleets--primarily in a war of battleships. The French and English would invade Italian-held Libya, while the English and Turks grabbed for Italian-held islands off the coast of Turkey. The Italian-held areas of East Africa would come under attack. The French would begin attacking across the Alps into Italy itself. Once the Allies had control of the seas, they might even try something amphibious against Sardinia, or even the Italian mainland. The air war would be fought initially with bi-planes and gull-winged monoplanes. The Italians had hordes of Fiat CR-32 and CR-42 bi-planes, along with a few under-powered monoplanes. The British would have used Gloster Gladiator bi-planes, keeping scarce Hurricanes and Spitfires for the home and French fronts.

If the Allies moved in the first week of September, September would be a very bad month for the Italians. In North Africa, French armor and firepower would simply roll over the Italians. The advance would be slowed more by logistics and French inexperience than by the Italian defense. That wouldn't necessarily be a matter of poor fighting qualities among the Italians. The Italians might actually fight harder under this scenario because they would perceive themselves as victims of aggression. The sheer firepower that the French could call on would be the deciding factor.

The Italians would probably try to avoid battle at sea after the first skirmishes, which would leave Libya cut off, along with Italian-held Albania, Sardinia and the islands along the Turkish coast. The Italians would also undoubtedly scream for German help. German help would not come as quickly as the Italians would like. There are two reasons for that. First, the German system was set up for short wars. They didn't have the depth of logistics to fight in Poland, then immediately launch a full-scale attack on France, or a large-scale rescue effort for Italy. Also, the Germans would have the Italians over a barrel. They would want to make sure they got everything they could out of the Italians before they helped. Hitler was just that kind of guy. The Italians would probably be pretty much on their own except for some showy gestures--probably from the Luftwaffe--until at least the end of October 1939.

Even when Germany was ready to intervene, their options would be limited. Germany would not be ready to attack France. The French and English would own the Mediterranean, so sending the equivalent of Afrika Corp to North Africa would be a risky option. German troops could shore up the Italians in the Alps, but the Italians would be reluctant to let too many of them in , and the terrain was not good for a blitzkrieg--especially one coming from Italy toward France. German aircraft could intervene in the naval war in the Mediterranean, and that would have some impact.

The Germans could use cargo aircraft to deliver and support a limited German force in North Africa--probably less than a division. Under someone like Rommel, a motorized German force in North Africa could make a difference, but keeping it supplied would be a nightmare-far worse than in our time-line. Expect spectacular German tactical victories which slow down but don't stop the French and English advance into Libya. The Germans might even be able to pull off the equivalent of Kasserine Pass, where Rommel routed and humiliated green American troops in early 1943 but didn't have the strength to follow up on the victory. The Italians would be running out of supplies. They would also be running out of men willing to face the slow but heavily armored French and English tanks, and the much superior artillery of the French. The Germans could slow down the collapse, but not long enough to get ready for an attack on France.

Germany might decide on an airborne assault on Malta. Malta would be a thorn in Italy's side in this scenario, a threat to supply routes to North Africa. And the Germans have this neat new toy called an airborne division that they want to try out. Let's say the Germans do an airborne assault on Malta in the winter of 1939/40. The English and French have air and naval and ground resources they can pour into the battle, but the Germans have air superiority. I would guess that the Germans win after one heck of a battle, and after losing very heavily in transport planes and airborne troops. The English and French find out how vulnerable capital ships are to air power. The Germans find out how costly an airborne invasion can be. Neither side is anxious to repeat the experience.

As a result of the fall of Malta, England gets a new government. The Chamberlain government falls a few months early, and Churchill takes over. Allied strategy is about to get much more aggressive. The French also get a shake-up, with Reynaud replacing Daladier as prime minister a little ahead of schedule. The French also shake up their military command, though the changes don't go anywhere near far enough in terms of getting rid of the dead wood.

The fall of Malta makes headlines around the world. Newspapers and governments blow the threat of German airborne assaults entirely out of proportion. Every country which considers itself threatened by Germany scrambles to get defenses against that type of assault in order, strengthening anti-aircraft defenses and security forces around airports and other key installations.

In the North African fighting, French troops face competently led masses of enemy tanks for the first time. They also face German dive bombers for the first time. Some units collapse under those attacks, just as they did in the Battle for France in our time-line. The poor performance of the French army in the fight for Malta also shakes French confidence and leads to a major shake-up in the command. Gamelin is out as head of the French army. Weygand is in with a mandate to train French troops to withstand German tanks and dive bombers. The French put a very high priority on getting anti-aircraft guns to the troops.

Consequences by Spring 1940: As Hitler tries to get the attack on France off the ground in the face of repeated postponements due to weather, the Italian empire collapses. East Africa folds first, with Ethiopian rebels playing a major role in retaking their country, then Libya falls. Allies have landed on Sardinia, and it quickly falls. Part of the German force in North Africa is captured. The rest is able to withdraw. It joins the German garrison in Malta.

The islands off of Turkey also fall during this time-frame. The Italians simply can't keep their people supplied. After the transport plane losses in the battle for Malta, neither can the Germans. The fall of North Africa turns Italian public opinion against Mussolini, and he is overthrown in March or April by the King of Italy and the army. Oil shortages also play a major role in the overthrow. Italy has no oil resources of its own and Germany would have been very short of oil in the winter of 1939/40 even without trying to bail out the Italians. Hitler now has a choice. He can go for a knockout in France, or he can try to restore the situation in Italy.

Hitler has also been preparing an attack on Norway in response to English maneuvering there. His options in Norway are somewhat limited by the fact that vital cargo planes have been lost or have had the wings flown off of them in the battle for Malta and the war for North Africa. As a result, the planned invasion of Norway is less ambitious than in our time-line. Preparations for the attack on France are far advanced, but Hitler is very concerned about the possibility of French forces joining a hostile Italy on the Austrian border. He vacillates on the direction of the main attack, but goes forward with the invasion of Norway.

Churchill has pushed forward preparations for an Anglo/French invasion of Norway. The Allies actually beat the Germans to the punch, but not by much. There is wild, confused fighting all over Norway. The Norwegian government buys England's claim that they acted to pre-empt a German attack (not strictly true, but convenient). In our time-line German airborne attacks captured key Norwegian cities before the Norwegians could mobilize. In this time-line those airborne troops aren't available and Norway mobilizes its army--a small and poorly-equipped army by German or French standards, but large compared to the forces that either the Axis or the Allies can bring to bear in Norway once it is mobilized.

The British fleet decimates the German surface navy with a little help from Norway's coastal defenses--the same thing which happened in our time-line only more so. That puts the Northern two prongs of the German offensive in a world of hurt--cut off from reinforcements or supplies and surrounded by numerically superior forces. The northern-most prong has nowhere to go, and eventually either surrenders or flees to Sweden to be interned. That almost happened in our time-line. The other two prongs are greatly outnumbered and their supply lines are insecure. They can't inflict a total defeat on the Allies, but they do proceed to give the English and French a stinging lesson in how modern warfare is done. It isn't as bad as some of the English defeats at the hands of Rommel in North Africa. The terrain doesn't lend itself to blitzkrieg-style warfare like North Africa does. Also, the Germans would not have the intelligence advantage Rommel had in the early stages of our time-line's North Africa campaign. In spite of that it would become obvious that the Germans were far superior to any of the three Allies on a man-for-man basis. The Norwegian campaign becomes a battle of German speed and air power against superior Allied manpower and firepower. It isn't going to be decided early or easily.

Now it's decision time. Hitler has to decide whether to go for France or try to restore the situation in Italy. He decides to do a little of both. First, he will concentrate forces in Southern Austria in an effort to blackmail the Italians. The Germans still have ground forces in Malta, along with several hundred aircraft scattered between Malta and the mainland of Italy. If Mussolini can't be restored, at the very least the Germans want those people and planes out. The allies want those men and planes interned as part of the price for a peace treaty which leaves the Italians with some remnants of their empire. Hitler negotiates while moving forces into position and waiting for passes through the Alps to clear for the summer.

The Italians stall. They want peace with the Allies, but they are in no position to take on the Germans alone. The key to the Italian decision is oil. The allies can supply it. The Germans can't. The Italians have moved forces into position around the airbases where German planes are based in Southern Italy. There are both German and Italian forces on Malta. Both sides begin moving into defensible positions. The first half of May comes and goes with the Italians still stalling. Hitler loses patience. He decides to seize defensible positions in Italy, finish off the French, then go back and finish off Italy. The Germans do a quick grab for a small area of Italy which was on the Austrian side of the Alps. They also try to grab the rest of Malta from the Italians. Hitler figures that if those two offensives are successful, the rest of Italy can wait. He figures that if France falls, Italy will either switch sides again or be an easy conquest.

Along the Austrian border, the Italians are no match for the Germans, but they do have prepared defenses along the border, and the Italian Alpine divisions are the best force in the Italian army. The Germans make good headway at first, slicing through Italian lines and quickly capturing key Alpine passes. Just as the Germans are getting ready to mop up and send much of their force back into position against France, the Italians launch a counter-offensive. There is major fighting along the German/Italian border from mid-May to early June. French Alpine forces join in on the Italian side. The German and Italian air forces fight a desperate battle for control of the air over the battle-field. The Germans have sent nearly a thousand planes to support their efforts--the rest are still aimed at France. The Italian airforce is larger than the part of the German airforce which is attacking it, but the Italian planes are mostly obsolete and the Germans achieve kill ratios of three or four to one over the Italians.

On Malta, the Germans quickly seize the Italian-held part of the island. There is some bitter fighting. As he did in our time-line in 1943, Hitler orders that Italian soldier who resist be executed after they surrender. In southern Italy, Italian soldiers attack German-held airfields. The Germans get most of their aircraft and personnel out, flying them to Malta. The Germans are forced to destroy supplies (including aviation fuel), spare parts, and damaged but repairable aircraft. Several hundred ground personnel and base security people are also captured by the Italians.

By June 7, 1940 the Germans have reached their objectives on the Italian front. The entire process has taken three weeks. The Germans are now in a position to leave a relatively small force on the Italian border for a holding action while dealing with France. They leave twelve second-line divisions, along with three or four hundred combat aircraft to contain the Italians, while moving their main force into position to go after France.

Hitler has ordered the army to be ready to begin the Battle for France no later than June 14, 1940. The army is working feverishly to meet that deadline.

Turkey: The Turks have achieved their objectives in the war, and aren't particularly eager to do more. They do send a token force--a division or so--to fight in France, but only in exchange for a lot of captured Italian arms. The fact that Turkey is on the Allied side has given the Germans an opportunity to stir up trouble in the Arab world. They had to be careful about doing that in our time-line because the Turks had ambitions in the Arab areas and they didn't want to push Turkey into the Allied camp. In this time-line the Germans work hard to stir up nationalism among the Arabs. Allied control of the Mediterranean limits them in that area though.

Italy: The Italians have lost their empire. They are officially still at war with the Allies. They are actively at war with the Germans. Their economy is spiraling downward as the limited supply of oil the Germans have given them dries up. The new regime is working very hard to direct the anger of the people against Mussolini for losing the war against the Allies and against the Germans for not supplying needed oil and other materials. The German massacres on Malta makes anti-German propaganda in Italy much more effective. The Allies are trying to figure out how to help Italy change sides and become an effective ally.

Germany: The Germans are still powerful. Their army is man-for-man the best in Europe. Their air force has performed well. On the other hand, the Germans desperately need oil, Swedish iron ore, and more manpower for the factories. The German view of the French and British is divided. One faction sees German victories in North Africa, Norway, and Malta as evidence that the Allies have gone soft--that they will crumble quickly under German attack. Another faction sees those German victories in racial terms. Most of the French who fled in North Africa were Arabs from North Africa under French command. The other victories were nowhere near as decisive. The Nazis are very aware of that fact and over-estimate its importance.

The Germans are somewhat wary of the Soviets. True, the Soviet army humiliated itself in Finland. On the other hand, the shear amount of men and material the Soviets command keeps the Germans casting one wary eye back at them. It doesn't help that the Soviets have their hands on Germany's oil jugular. Hitler is very afraid that Stalin will turn off the spigot if Hitler bogs down in France.

France and England: The French and English feel that time is on their side. They have access to the raw materials, manpower. and manufacturing capacity of most of the world. It will take a little while to harness that to the Allied war effort, but the Allies are already seeing the fruits of that advantage, as US built warplanes start to flow into the French airforce. The Allies still fear the German airforce but both the French and the English are increasing aircraft production very rapidly. It takes a while for newly produced planes to be integrated into the airforce, but in late May and early June of 1940, relatively large numbers of new, more modern fighters and bombers start appearing among the French and English airforces. That's the start of a wave of production which the Allies hope will wash away German air superiority in the next few months. They are actually closer to that goal than they think because they have overestimated German aircraft numbers and production.

Place your bets here for the Battle for France: In our time-line, the Germans quickly crushed the French and British in the Battle for France. The Battle took a little over a month, starting on May 10, 1940. In this time-line the battle for France is slated to start a month later. What will the outcome be?

Let's look at the factors which led to an easy German victory in our time-line, and see if they are still there in this time-line:

• German air superiority: In our time-line, the Germans outclassed the Allies in the air. The Germans had around 2750 combat aircraft facing around 1200 for the French and 412 for the Brits in France. The Germans had a major superiority in quality too. That was especially true in single-engine fighters. The German Bf109 was far superior to the main French fighter--the Morraine-Saulner MS-406. Modern British fighters like the Hurricane and Spitfire were still in very short supply. The British did commit a few hundred Hurricanes in France, but most of their pilots had switched over from bi-plane fighters about a month before and were just beginning to get acquainted with their new fighters. In our time-line, German airpower played a major role in their success. German dive-bombers caused panic in the sections of the French line slated for a German breakthrough. German fighters kept French planes from assessing the strength and direction of German movements. The dive-bombers acted as airborne artillery for the panzer divisions, keeping them from being slowed down to the speed of their own heavy artillery. In this time-line, German air superiority would be eroded by several factors. First, several hundred German planes would be tied up elsewhere--the Italian front and Malta mostly. The Germans would have another month's production, but losses in Italy, Malta, and North Africa would have more than off-set that. Second, the Allies would have another month to strengthen their airforces. That makes a surprising amount of difference. The Allies started re-equipping their airforces too late, so the Germans grabbed a lead, but by the first half of 1940 France and Britain were out-producing the Germans nearly two to one. They also had 2500 planes on order from the United States. Allied production surged in the April-June 1940 time-frame, just a little too late to impact the crucial stages of the battle. The Brits built over a thousand modern single-engine fighters in those three months, up from less than 500 in the previous three months. In June 1940, Britain alone out-produced Germany almost three-to-one in single-engine fighters. The French airforce was just starting to accept modern Dewoitine 520 fighters in May 1940. They had 36 on May 10 in our time-line, and over 400 by the end of June--just barely too late to have an impact. German dive-bombers were very vulnerable to modern fighters, as they quickly found out in the Battle for Britain. Allied fighters would have had a major impact.
• German experience at war: In our time-line, the Germans had had several opportunities to try out the techniques of modern war, and to get the logistics of moving larger numbers of men fast down to a science. The French and the British had no such opportunity in our time-line until the Norway invasion--too late for any lessons to do any good. In this time-line, the French and British would have actually been fighting since September. A lot of the obvious mistakes they made in May 1940 in our time-line would have already been made. Neither the early World War II British or French strike me as particularly fast-learning institutions, but some lessons would have been learned, especially in the battles against the Germans. In our time-line the Germans noticed a major improvement in French performance between May and early June 1940.
• French morale: In our time-line already shaky French morale was sapped by the lack of action from September 1939 to May 1940. It then collapsed in several units under the impact of dive-bombers and German tanks. That collapse should not be exaggerated. It happened mainly among second-line divisions formed mainly from middle-aged reservists. Unfortunately, those second-line division were in a crucial place. Some French units fought very hard. In this time-line, French morale would probably start out higher. While most troops in northern France would not have seen action, they would at least be aware of fighting and victories on other fronts. They would know that the war was for real. The French army would also be aware of the possibility of a morale collapse under tank and aircraft attack, and would presumably take steps to stop it. Also, reduced German air superiority would have a major impact on French morale.
• French preparations to refight World War I: The French had a doctrine of "methodical battle", bringing enormous fire-power to bear in the battle while de-emphasizing maneuver. That doctrine was reflected in powerful tanks without much ability to maneuver together, and with limited range between refuelings, army headquarters with slow, inefficient communications, slow adoption of tank divisions, and emphasis on fixed fortifications like the Maginot line. The French infrastructure could not be changed in a major way in nine months. They might improve communications, put more tanks into concentrated armored divisions, and start to design new tanks more suited to mobile warfare, but for the most part they would be stuck with the structure of "methodical battle".
• The German plan to lure the French into Belgium and cut them off. In our time-line, Hitler switched from a rather lackluster plan to essentially replay World War I by wheeling through Belgium into Northern France to the war-winning strategy of luring the Allies into Belgium with a feint, then cutting them off. He made the switch because plans for the other strategy were compromised when a German officer carrying the plans had a plane crash just across the border in Holland. In this time-line events would already have been diverging for three or four months before that crash. It was an unlikely event anyway. Chances are it wouldn’t have happened in this time-line, and the Germans might well have stuck to their original plan.
• The Allies were not able to read German radio traffic: In our time-line, the French and Brits had made some progress on reading German Enigma codes by May 1940. They had read a smattering of messages--about 50--by that time. In the first part of May 1940, the Germans introduced some new complications to the Enigma machines, and the Allies didn't crack anything for the next three week, after which they gradually started reading the German codes again--starting with Luftwaffe codes. So, in this time-line presumably the Allies would be reading a small fraction of German radio traffic again by the time the German attack came. That might or might not make a difference, depending on what was decoded.

And that’s as far as time constraints allow me to go this month. Where would things go from here? Would the French and English learn enough from the campaigns they've fought in Norway, Italy, and North Africa to avoid the fiasco they suffered in May/June 1940 in our time-line? Would the fact that they have been fighting rather than sitting since September 1939 boost their morale? How would the Soviets react? In our time-line they were quietly sounding out the French and English to see if they could eventually come in on the Allied side without having to give up the booty they had seized in eastern Europe. On the other hand, the Soviet Union had unsettled issues with the Turks. They were also aware of and concerned about French plans to bomb Soviet oil fields in order to cut off Soviet oil flow to the Germans.

The Germans would need to do something decisive fast. An Allied presence in Norway cuts off the flow of vital Swedish iron ore to Germany throughout the winter because Swedish ports ice up. Germany is becoming very vulnerable to material shortages. Stalin has his hand around their oil jugular. If the Germans don't win in the west quickly, he will squeeze. The English have their hands around Germany's jugular in terms of iron ore, and they are already squeezing.

1. The weakest point in this scenario is the early Allied offensive against Italy. I'm not sure the Allies had it in them in 1939 to be aggressive against anyone--even the Italians.
2. The German decision to seal off the Alpine passes, then go after the French might also be a problem. Hitler might just as easily have gone on a full-fledged offensive into Italy, or gone ahead with his attack on France. I chose the alternative I did because I felt that Hitler would not see Italy as a place to win a decisive victory, but he would not want to leave the Italians in a position where they could give the French an easy jumping-off point for an offensive into Austria.
3. The Germans might decide to go after France earlier in this scenario. Part of the reason they hesitated was that many people in Germany were frankly a little afraid of the French army--and on paper they had every reason to be. Seeing the French in action might have reduced that fear and led to an earlier German attack in the west. So might the dire position the Italians found themselves in. On the other hand, I tend to think that the Germans attacked as soon as they prudently could. As I pointed out, the Germans were geared to a series of short wars, with time between those wars to let their supplies of bombs, ammunition, and hundreds of other mundane but necessary things build back up.

So, what do you think? Is this a plausible AH so far? Do you want me to see where it goes from here or go on to the next Turkish intervention scenario? Where do you think this scenario would go from here? I'm especially interested in reactions to the question of whether or not the Germans would still win a quick victory in France. There are several factors which lead me to think that they wouldn't, but frankly the French deserved to lose in this time-frame. Comments are very welcome.