TRAV44@UMUC.BITNET (Alexandros Polymenopoulos) (02/09/90)
To parakato keimeno tosteila prin ligo sto SCG.
British archives for June 1940:
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Rustu Aras, Former Foreign Minister and then Ambassador in London,
"reiterated the claim to the Dodecanese and expressed fresh interest
in Albania".
Foreign Office archives for 30 October 1940:
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(as Greece mobilised to deal with the attack on her by Mussolini's
troops)
"The Turks have brought to the forefront once again their claims for
territorial concessions in the Dodecanese, Bulgarian Thrace and Albania.
Indeed they expressed an interest in control of the Greek port of
Thessaloniki, which, provided that Turkey controls the Straits,
would assure them of domination of the Aegean".
Emmanouil Tsouderos, Greek Prime Minister-in-exile, from his book,
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Behind the Diplomatic Scenes, 1941-44, Athens 1950:
"In late April 1941 (when the Germans had already entered Athens and
the Battle of Crete was in preparation), the British Ambassador
warned me that it was thought in Turkey to be to the benefit of the
Allied fight if Turkey were to occupy the Greek islands of the
Aegean before the Germans could take them. I opposed this
immediately and described this possibility as pointless and
imprudent. Nonetheless, on 1 May 1941 Sir Michael Palairet
informed me on behalf of his Government that Turkey had requested
German consent to occupy the Aegean islands. Turkey claimed
that if she succeeded in doing it would be preferable for the
Allies to allowing the islands to be occupied by the Germans".
Was the general conflict of World War II treated by Turkey as
an opportunity to regain 'lost' territories once belonging
to Ottoman Empire?
As can be seen from German archives, and particularly from the
correspondence dated 16,29 and 30 September 1943 between the German
Ambassador in Ankara, Franz von Papen, and Foreign Minister
Ribbentrop, the Turkish Secret Service had issued von Papen with
an ultimatum. Invoking the possibility of a British landing
in the Dodecanese, they gave Germany a mere twenty-four hours
to reply positevely to a proposal for the occupation of the
islands bu Turkey. Ribbentrop, however, was not interested in
neutralising the eastern Mediterranean at such a price. He
invoked the legal rights of Mussolini and rejected the Turkish
ultimatum.
A Foreign Office memorandum dated 22 January 1941 referring to
the possible post War cession of Cyprus to Greece shows that
even as early as the start of the war "the chief difficulty
in handing over Cyprus to Greece is that this would meet with
the same problem" (that is, Turkish claims on the Dodecanese)
"only in a more acute form, which complicates the question of the
Dodecanese".
The revealing and eloquent stydy written by Professor Frank G.
Weber under the title
'The Evasive Neutral: Germany, Britain and the Quest for a
Turkish Alliance in the Second World War'
University of Missouri Press, Columbia and London 1979, makes
much use of hitherto unknown German and British source material
dating from this period.
As Weber concludes regarding Turkish policy during the war years:
"Turkish diplomacy during the War was a brilliant accomplishment
by all standards except those of honesty and integrity.
Only thirty years later, when they invaded Cyprus, did the
Turks reveal that after all they had been disatisfied with
what that diplomacy had gained for them".