In London Cadogan worried about Turkey. He and the COS, reading Turkey-related BJs, believed Turkey to be the northern bastion of the British position in the Middle East.6 These considerations and German success in Norway ruled out the French project of an attack on the Caucasian oilfields.
None the less neither the Axis nor the Allies could keep their hands off Turkey. The Russians, then uneasy allies of both Germany and Italy, thought they could incapacitate Turkey and thus safeguard their southern flank: Molotov proposed this.7 Meanwhile in April 1940 three plans had been made by the British COS to thwart three possible German moves: an attack on Turkey from Bulgaria, the seizure of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles and a crossing into Asia Minor. The first, codenamed ‘Leopold’, was the setting up of thirty British observer groups in European Turkey and Anatolia. The second, ‘Tiger’, was for three British fighter squadrons to operate in Asia Minor. The third, ‘Bear’, was for an expanded air defence programme if German pressure on Turkey mounted: the despatch to Turkey of five squadrons of ten aircraft each, capable of attacking German air bases, lines of communication in Bulgaria, southern Romania and southern Yugoslavia.8 Churchill pushed through ‘Leopold’ within a fortnight of becoming prime minister.9 Further plans in case of a German attack on Turkey were completed by 20 July but not implemented as the Turks refused the proffered help. Churchill told the Defence Committee on 31 October that the Germans might seek to drive through Turkey to the Suez canal and a Turkish resistance ‘might greatly delay the German advance’. He speculated on deploying as many as fifty-five Turkish divisions by the end of 1941, showing how Turkey stirred his imagination.10 The COS wanted Britain to do all in its power to encourage and assist the Turks to resist any German advance. But if this was not enough, plans were to be made for the demolition of Turkish communications. Moreover an intelligence centre was contemplated at Ankara, and a plan to use the Polish navy to stop the Germans shipping oil across the Black Sea from Batumi to Burgas was canvassed because Poland was not a signatory of the Montreux Convention which bound its signatories not to undertake aggressive action in the Black Sea on pain of Turkish counter-aggression.
Before the fall of France, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud tried to rush Turkey on to the Allied side, as Orme Sargent wrote to Hugessen on 26 March 1940, the object being to strike at Soviet interests in the Caucasus.11 Although the sequence of events remains a murky affair, it seems fairly clear that Turkey was sounded out as to her likely intentions if the French initiative was activated. Turkey’s traditional enmity with Russia was thought to facilitate an approach by the Allies, and Gp Capt R.A. George, the assistant military attaché in Ankara promoted a plan for joint Turco-Franco-British action if Turkey was threatened either from the west by Germany and Italy or from the east by Russia. But George noted there was no asphalt on Turkish runways so air strikes from Turkey to the Caucasus would be hazardous if not impossible.12 The FO thought Turkey would not fight against Russia unless directly threatened but if Russia realised Turkey would work with the Allies this would not provoke but deter them. In the FO Sargent and his friend the recently appointed ambassador in Ankara, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, agreed that anything we did do against the USSR depended on Turkey. Hugessen responded by speculating that Russia’s recent poor fighting performance in Finland might decide Turkey to attack the Baku and Batumi oblasti, whose populations were largely Turkish-speaking.13 Speculation about possible Turkish moves ceased on 9 April when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. On 10 May, the day Churchill became prime minister, Hitler commenced the offensive against France and Belgium.14 Dunkirk followed less than three weeks later. A German-Norwegian armistice was signed on 9 June and by 22 June France too had signed an armistice. On 9 June Italy declared war on the Allies. ‘This rendered operational Turkey’s obligation under Clause 1 of the second article of the Treaty with Britain.’15 But the Turks had decided well in advance that they would try by all means at their disposal to stay out before admitting any obligations.
The Turks were both alarmed and impressed by the scale and speed of the German advance. They were even more alarmed when at the end of June 1940 the USSR had acquired the whole of Bessarabia and Bukhovina. Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria were soon to fall within the Axis orbit. Turkey found itself with its former partners, Britain and France, in a state of near paralysis. Meanwhile the Germans were openly planning an assault on the Suez canal and the empire trade route by further invasions of countries certainly including Turkey. And the Russian foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, having recently snubbed the Turkish foreign minister in Moscow as well as signed up with Germany, was talking about revising the Montreux agreement. There was little chance of Churchill putting his reading of diplomatic intercepts to good use in Turkey, which in July had signed an agreement to supply the Axis with chrome. In August the USSR declared the Baltic states socialist republics, the RAF triumphed in the Battle of Britain and Hitler started doubting the wisdom of invading England. In the eastern Mediterranean any further thoughts of getting Turkey into the war were muted by Field Marshal Wavell’s perception that Turkey would be more a liability than an asset, given the poverty of equipment and training of the soldiery and the passivity of most of the generals.16 Hugessen, Halifax and George Rendel (recently promoted from the FO to be Minister Plenipotentiary in Bucharest) corresponded about the Turkish situation. In August Rendel wrote: ‘I don’t think the Turks have a Balkan policy, except being nice to Greece.’17 On 20 August Sargent minuted that ‘we are not in a position to dictate to Turkey’ and the latter had made it quite clear that ‘she does not intend to make the attempt at buying-off Russia.’18 Yet on 5 September Halifax wrote: ‘Turkey will remain the keystone of our policy in the near East.’19
The FO was responsible for Turkey, but no one there, not the Secretary of State, nor the permanent under-secretary or his senior aides, nor the British ambassador, could bring together a coherent policy which took the realities of the Turkish economy and the daunting facts of German expansionism into the Balkans into proper account. This had to wait until Churchill took over Turkey personally, still some months off. To what extent the Turkish diplomatic intercepts acted as a spur to keep Turkey high on the priority list of the FO in this period is difficult to assess, but given the pace of world events and the imminent possibility of a further German victory in the west – one that might send the whole FO off to Canada – it is unlikely that the intercepts were given much weight.
Germany Triumphant
The Phoney War was over by April 1940 when the Germans invaded Norway. It was not until 27 September that the Axis partners signed the Tripartite Pact. At that point Turkish foreign policy was hardening up in the face of this alarming evidence of a German victory. Her intentions were not kept particularly secret and Gen Franz Halder, the German Army Chief of Staff, wrote in his diary on 26 October that ‘if anything conclusive is to be achieved, Bulgaria and Turkey have to be subdued, if necessary by force, especially in the case of the latter, to leave the way open through the Bosphorus to Syria’.20 And a month later: ‘If Turkey does not keep quiet in the event of an attack against Greece, she must be thrown out of Europe.’21 Halder was only repeating what Hitler had just said to him.
On 1 November 1940 President I·nönü of Turkey declared Turkey was out of the war, which precluded any use of her sea or air space by any of the belligerents. He wrote later: ‘The situation of the Allied front was clear. France had collapsed. Britain had gone into this war unprepared. According to Marshal Petain Britain would not last long. In this situation, to make a declaration implying commitment to the alliance would be a grave mistake. . . As far as I was concerned the alliance was annulled de facto. It was not necessary to explain this.’22 By the end of the year Hitler had decided against taking on Turkey and was turning towards ‘Barbarossa’. Halder noted on 24 November that ‘we have come to the considered decision to avoid conflict with Turkey at all costs’.23
The FO’s interest in Turkey
meant that Turkey became in effect the focal point of diplomatic pressure by all three belligerents: Germany, Italy and Britain. This became apparent when the Germans surged through the Balkans and occupied Bulgaria, Turkey’s ancestral foe, bringing their troops within firing distance of Thrace. By January 1941 the Luftwaffe was flying into Bulgaria in force. Churchill had sent Eden twice to Turkey. On his January 1941 visit to Ankara Eden wrote that his policy towards Turkey was ‘marked by a series of regressions’.24 Churchill had also requisitioned Lt-Gen Sir James Marshall-Cornwall, about to take up his command to defend the south-west sector of the Home Front, to ‘parley with the Turks’ – in Churchill’s own phrase. The general was the only high-ranking British officer with a certificate as a Turkish interpreter. He met the Turkish Chief of the General Staff, Gen Assim Gubnuz, on 15 January and spent a week fruitlessly trying to galvanise the somewhat torpid Turkish High Command, accustomed to easy soldiering in the long years of peace, and despite the state of emergency reluctant to learn about new methods of warfare or to retrain on the new equipment offered by the British.25 Marshall-Cornwall was so keen on greater British co-operation with the Turks that Eden nervously minuted that he wished the soldiery would keep out of politics. On 29 January 1941 Churchill offered RAF squadrons to President I·nönü of Turkey, who refused them.26
The month of January 1941 saw much ado about Turkey, involving the Russians, Greeks, Bulgarians and Italians, as well as Turks, British and Germans. Already by 6 January 1941 Churchill had written to Gen Ismay, ‘We must so act as to make it certain that if the enemy enters Bulgaria Turkey will come into the war’.27 It took four more years for Churchill’s hope to become reality. Two days later Ambassador Hugessen reported to the FO: ‘The Turks’ faith in ourselves and France, particularly France, was considerably shattered by our asking them to join in.’ The next day Halder recorded a major Hitler Conference on ‘Barbarossa’ and Bulgaria occupied by German troops.28 In Berlin the Foreign Ministry was plying Hitler with Turkish diplomatic intercepts similar, perhaps identical, to those circulating in the FO, including reports on possible British reactions to the entry of German troops into Bulgaria.29
Churchill thought Hitler would turn east. On 20 January the COS wondered whether, after Bulgaria, Germany would operate against Britain or drive into the Ukraine and the Caucasus.30 On 17 January the Soviets protested to Germany about the presence of German troops in Bulgaria. Two days later a German attack on Greece through Bulgaria was expected to be opposed by Turkey. On 21 January Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, British C-in-C Middle East, was ordered to build up a mobile force of four infantry and one armoured divisions for use in Greece and Italy. On 23 January the Turkish ambassador in London thought any German attack on Russia would be a deception to mask a German invasion of Turkey.31 On 26 January Churchill wrote to Wavell about ‘infiltration [into Turkey] . . . before any clear-cut issue of invasion has been presented to the Turks who will then be told [by the Germans] to keep out or have Constantinople bombed’.32 Three days later he offered I·nönü RAF aircraft: the offer was refused. Meanwhile Ribbentrop was writing to the German Foreign Office: ‘England will try to forestall German troops [in Bulgaria] to occupy the Straits to start military operations against Bulgaria in alliance with Turkey.’33 On 30 January Military Intelligence predicted that Germany would attack Turkey.34
Finally, on 31 January, Churchill wrote to the Turkish President: ‘Germany is preparing to repeat on the frontiers of Turkey the same manoeuvre as she accomplished on the frontiers of France in April and May 1940 . . . You and I, Mr President, should repeat in defence of Turkey the same measures the Germans are taking over Bulgaria.’ Churchill went on to offer I·nönü 100 AA guns and crews, a major commitment during the Blitz yet proof of the slenderness of British resources. He also asked to be allowed to station 100 RAF squadrons on Turkish soil.35 The same day Churchill wrote to the COS that ‘Air support promised to Turkey cannot be delayed.’ The Graeco-Turkish operation takes precedence, replied the COS.36 On 1 February a British military mission inspected the only three Turkish tank regiments while the Germans invaded Romania with 680,000 troops, monitored at Bletchley Park by the readers of Luftwaffe Enigma. Thus Churchill and the COS were kept informed of German troop movements in the Balkans but had little scope for action to counter, still less forestall, them. On 7 February the War Office speculated that twenty-five [Turkish] divisions would be enough to hold off Russia if Germany attacked Turkey.37 Three days later Germany and Russia signed a treaty establishing the new German/Soviet borders in eastern Europe. On 14 February British war planners speculated on Germany’s aggressive approach to Turkey, and (three days later) that Germany’s entry into Bulgaria would be matched by Turkey’s into Greece.38 On 16 February Turkey signed a non-aggression pact with Bulgaria, the French urged bombing raids on the Baku-Batumi oblasti to eliminate the oil wells, not realising the offence that would cause in Turkey; the CIGS and Foreign Secretary went to talk to the Turks – without getting far – and Rommel became C-in-C of all German forces in North Africa.39
In Britain, the FO could do nothing to stem the German menace except to attempt to stiffen resistance in Turkey. How this was achieved is outlined in the section which follows.
Different Views on Turkey
It can be seen that the War Office was looking at Turkey as a future battlefield while the FO still thought that the Anglo-Turkish Alliance could achieve the same results – safeguard the imperial sea-routes and contain German expansionism in the area without hazarding Turkish troops in aggressive forays beyond their own borders. This section attempts to show the confused British tactical response to the German threat in south-eastern Europe, using a variety of sources, including Enigma and diplomatic intercepts, plus valuable reports from a senior Czech intelligence officer working for the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence Organisation) in Prague who supplied the British with vital information on German plans in the east.40
The FO, Ministry of Economic Warfare and the War Office appreciated the Turkish situation differently. On 3 February the Minister for Economic Warfare, Dr Hugh Dalton, noted ‘some gloom over Turkey’. His comment suggested some government ministers were dissatisfied with Hugessen’s presence in Ankara.41 To put such an important and delicate problem into the hands of any diplomat would worry both politicians and military men, and Hugessen as a diplomat did not carry the weight of people like Loraine in Rome or Samuel Hoare in Madrid. The military establishment turned its mind to other Turkish options. On 6 February a War Office appreciation noted the possibility of Germany attacking Turkey, then Egypt:
It is probable that Germany might defeat the Turks in Thrace and reach the Straits in not more than six weeks after the occupation of Salonika – say by the middle of May. But a further advance through Anatolia would be a big undertaking from the point of view of communications and the establishment of landing grounds; and although it might be possible for a German force to establish itself south of the Taurus by the end of July – this depending on the degree of Turkish resistance – it is estimated that eight divisions (increasing to 12 after two months) could be maintained through Anatolia for an advance via Syria on Egypt, and with Turkey hostile a considerable additional force would be required for protection of her lines of communication . . . A German invasion of Turkey would not aid her main thrust which is the invasion of Great Britain. Turkey would take action against any German force from Greece which crossed the Turkish border. But Turkey would take no action against German forces advancing further to the west against Greece.42
Where did Churchill stand, between these two ways of playing the Turkish hand? It is hard to say. Perhaps he was not alone in anticipating a poor Turkish military performance unless she was repelling an aggressor from within her own borders. Certainly, on 7 February, the day of Gen O’Connor’s destruction of the Italian Tenth Army in North Africa, Hugessen wrote to Eden:
I am convinced of extreme importance of increasing military supplies withou
t delay. The President [I·nönü], who spoke still more strongly on this, said to me that, if Turkey had all that we promised, we might have had a different answer.43
Two days later Churchill wrote to ACM Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff: ‘You proposed sending ten squadrons to Turkey, which the Turks have not yet accepted . . . I am in it with you up to the neck. But have we not in fact promised the same pig to two customers?’ [i.e. to Greece and Turkey].44 Three days after this he wrote to Wavell: ‘Both Greece and Turkey have hitherto refused our offer of technical units . . .’ and assessed ‘the chances of Turkish intervention . . . There will always remain the support of Turkey.’
On 12 February Pierson Dixon of the FO was told to be ready to leave for Ankara as part of the British diplomatic mission which would bring Turkey to the brink of war. The next day he reported on British foreign policy towards Turkey. Dixon told Eden later that ‘the first question to decide was whether our forces should be offered to Greece or to Turkey . . .’45 On 19 February Dalton noted worries about Eden’s visit to Turkey. The same day Hitler learned that Romania, now Germany’s ally, would no longer supply Turkey with oil. The Turkish minister re-stated Turkey’s position that she would only enter the war if her own borders were attacked.46 Two days later Churchill wrote to Smuts: ‘The Russian attitude has undermined the Turks’, and to Eden: ‘Commitments made to Ankara . . . would tie your hands about the Greeks.’47 Two days later the War Cabinet in London decided to support Greece, even without Turkey and Yugoslavia.
On 26 February Gen Sir John Dill, the CIGS, and Eden flew to Ankara for talks lasting well into March. Dill had gone out to Cairo firmly believing Wavell’s British Expeditionary Force should go to Turkey, not Greece. Two days later Eden wrote to Churchill:
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