The only thing that's certain is that greece would increase the defence budget even more
Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles
- Thread starter Lascaris
- Start date
And of course the big change is the tts metaxa's line does not stop at the yugoslav border thus Thessaloniki is less exposed
The referendum will take place at fall of 1936, the latest. When I say that Turkey will make its move on Asiatic Greece shortly after the referendum, I mean in 1937 or 1938,. It is also certain that Turkey will make this move with the participation of at least one ally.
I don't think that Italy will move against greece while France and Britain are not distracted sο any Turkish move in Asia minor will most likely take part in the wider context of world war 2 instead but of course a war scare is not out of the question since kemal might have to flex a bit in order to expand his support base in turkey or to silence his critics...
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Right now, the strategic position of Greece with an alliance between Italy and Turkey and Yugoslavia distancing itself, seems precarious. The terms of the alliance may not be known to the public, but doubtless Venizelos will see it for what it is.
I can see a few potential butterflies:
a) Venizelos is doing his best for a rapid rearmament, with special focus on the domestic industry. Greece can now produce rifles, light machine guns, mortars and ammunition. I expect the factories to work with double shifts. Bodosakis seems to have money or more accurately to be able to borrow money, since he bought the Ford factory. The german economy is in full re-armament mode and Hjalmar Schacht needs hard currency. If Bodosakis can pay in pounds, francs or dollars, he can get more machine tools for his factories. The end result might be greek infantry to be well equipped by 1940. Artillery and tank orders would be increased as well.
b) Venizelos understood very well the need for coalitions and protection by the dominant naval power. I expect him to raise pressure against Bulgaria in order to forestall an actual bulgarian participation. Likewise, the Spanish Civil War is about to start. Between exhaustion of the Abyssinian Campaign and participation in the SCW, Italy would stay out of a conflict that may bring war with Britain. Then, war can be postponed, until Schleswig-Holstein bombards Westerplatte.
I can see a few potential butterflies:
a) Venizelos is doing his best for a rapid rearmament, with special focus on the domestic industry. Greece can now produce rifles, light machine guns, mortars and ammunition. I expect the factories to work with double shifts. Bodosakis seems to have money or more accurately to be able to borrow money, since he bought the Ford factory. The german economy is in full re-armament mode and Hjalmar Schacht needs hard currency. If Bodosakis can pay in pounds, francs or dollars, he can get more machine tools for his factories. The end result might be greek infantry to be well equipped by 1940. Artillery and tank orders would be increased as well.
b) Venizelos understood very well the need for coalitions and protection by the dominant naval power. I expect him to raise pressure against Bulgaria in order to forestall an actual bulgarian participation. Likewise, the Spanish Civil War is about to start. Between exhaustion of the Abyssinian Campaign and participation in the SCW, Italy would stay out of a conflict that may bring war with Britain. Then, war can be postponed, until Schleswig-Holstein bombards Westerplatte.
Yes i think you are right i think greece should be able to properly equip the 600,000 troops under the current mobilization plan hell i expect the army to expand to 700,000ish men in 1940 and of course the standing army would increase as well with service time increasing soon form 12 months to 24 months..on a side note could greece manufacture anti-tank rifles?
No with 4.8m pounds equaling to 1.36b drachmas the exchange rate is 283.3 drachmas per pound sterling so the with the Extra forts to cover the yugoslav greece is paying about 7m pounds and with the current army budget at 1b drachmas greece is spending about 3.5m pounds.. so greece in this timeline is a economic beast when compared to otl
Oops, calculation error, my bad. But still, that remains relatively stable regarding rates in the 1920s.
Taking machine tools in guise of war reparation is one thing, helping the Germans rearm with inflow of cash is very different.
It's extremely dubious Venizelos or any other Greek politician, including industrialists such as Bodosakis, is going to help the Germans, especially since Germany has been mostly investing in Turkey and by extension, into all potential Greek ennemies down the list.
Besides, Venizelos being quite prescient about the war, I'm sure he would be anticipating Italo-German alliance, with the Tripartite pact on its way. If a war erupts, it's going to be Germany vs France and the British Empire at the very least, and since Greece is bound to support these two.
As for the Spanish civil war, it remains to be seen. The butterflies about the Asturias strike and the Catalan attempted secession in 1934 has led the government to be more suspicious of Franco because of the concessions he has extorted from them as written in the TL. It could mean that security services are more closely monitoring Franco and other potential rebels, and like in 1932, move to suppress the coup attempt in its cradle. A surviving Spanish republic could then get into WW2 on the Allies' side.
Oh you don't know what a bastard Bodosakis was. A briliant businessman but a bastard (I think that is the case with most brilliant businessmen).
In OTL he was selling the Spanish Republicans ammunition. He was demanding to be paid in hard currency beforehand. Then he was buying machine tools from Germany. He was using the machine tools to produce more ammunition for the Republicans. The Germans had no qualm about providing tools for producing ammo for the Republicans, as long as they got paid. In the end, I think he was also demanding payment from the Fascists to let them now where to interecept his ships with republican ammo. Basically, he managed to get paid twice - once by the Republicans, once by the Fascists- for the same cargo.
In any case, the size of greek industry is so miniscule that any german machine tools would be a drop in the bucket when it comes to the german economy. The hard currency would be welcome, but it will be of no particular importance. The same applies to the jugoslavian, romanian even polish and czech economies. Trade was a normal thing at the time in question, even under the post-depression tariffs. Hell, lorraine iron was used in the german industry both in 1913 and 1938,
It could, then it could end into a communist Greece for all you know.
In the Turkish case the communist party had its leadership killed off in 1920, and then remained mostly illegal for the next century. So there is a question who'd actually be there to run a communist Turkey.I see you and raise you this. 100 billion drachmas banknote, November 1944.
OTL the drachma was at 25 per pound in 1919. Then it start sliding down till stabilizing at 375 to the pound in 1927. After 1932 it shot up to 596 before finally stabilizing at 550 in 1934. TTL the drachma initially stabilizes at 240 and after leaving the gold standard stabilizes at an average ~284 fluctuating between 273 and 300.
TTL the National Liberals are still part of the Liberal party. Then you have AV voting instead of FPTP.
OTL there was actually some limited car making, or at least assembling/modification of cars even in OTL. TTL the Ford factory built in Constantinople OTL, after Ford tried and failed to have it built in Greece was actually built in Greece.
There might had been an opening in late 1934- early 1935 with France and Britain needing to make concessions to Italy in hopes of securing her support against Germany. Might because I'm not convinced that if Italy invaded either Greece or Yugoslavia France and Britain would not intervene. Italy instead used the window of opportunity to invade Ethiopia and gain concessions in Constantinople... although the whole assassination attempt against Alexander both OTL and TTL was most likely Mussolini hoping to meddle in the Balkans.
At the moment if Bulgaria invades along with Turkey, Yugoslavia and Romania are bound by treaty to jump in. Yugoslavia under Stojadinovic might stay neutral but he'd be facing strong internal opposition if he tried to push his own ideas of actually attacking the Greeks, not much different to the Greek national schism ironically. But the Romanians at the moment would join in and could likely smash Bulgaria by their own. Of course then Hungary could attack Romania, which in turn brings in the Czechs and makes Yugoslav neutrality very difficult. Which brings the question what the Germans and Italians do...
It does not need the diplomatic abilities of Venizelos to see that Turkey just like Bulgaria and Hungary is in the Italian sphere of influence.
Bodosalis TTL start in 1922 with a net worth of several million pounds for the obvious reason he has suffered no economic loss from the Asia minor defeat. Just the Pera Palace in Constantinople was worth some 5 million pounds. Post that OTL Greece was exporting something in the order of 20,000t of tobacco per year to Germany. German exports to Greece were fare lower in value. As long as Germany is not willing to export arms to Greece, nor Greece to buy German arms, something else needs to be exported.
Of course the Greek tobacco exports to Germany are a problem for the Greek economy as well, even with much more prominent Greek tobacco exports to the United States (the Turkish exports pre 1922 were nearly exclusively coming from the Smyrna region). Germany will be preferring to import from Turkey and Greece would not want to be dependent to Germany...
TTL service time was never reduced to 12 months. Industry wise a reasonable role model may be if not Poland then Romania for what should be possible. After all Greek per capital industrialization in OTL was slightly ahead of Poland, a third higher than Yugoslavia and more than twice that of Romania (source Bairoch), while in the 1930s per LoN data Greek industrial output had had the third highest growth... worldwide behind only the Soviet Union and Japan. The weak point of Greek industry OTL was lack of steel production with the first Siemens Martin furnace set up only in 1937 or 38. TTL this has happened in the 1920s.
Shorta kinda. There is an obvious difference in a much better exchange rate compared to OTL which very much helps for arms imports in addition to a larger economy overall. Compared to OTL Greek GDP in 1936 was 46.7 billion drachmas which equalled 86.8 million pounds and 2.31 billion in constant 1914 prices. TTL it is 3.58 billion in constant 1914 prices and 249.4 million pounds (72.4 billion at current prices)
That said OTL Greek military spending went up from 2 billion in 1934, to 2.4 in 1935, over 4.5 billion in 1936, ~5 billion in 1937, 3.76 billion in 1938 and 4.37 in 1939. TTL it is 3.1 billion in 1934, goes up to 4.2 billion in 1935 and then jumps to 7.5 billion in 1936. As a % of GDP you have something like this:
| Year | OTL | TTL |
1932 | 5,38% | 5,86% |
1933 | 4,96% | 5,59% |
1934 | 4,84% | 4,72% |
1935 | 5,47% | 6,07% |
1936 | 9,73% | 10,39% |
1937 | 8,81% | 9,15% |
1938 | 6,75% | 7,40% |
1939 | 7,96% | 8,42% |
Help the Germans? Definitely not. Buy stuff from Germany? That is a different question. The prime export of Greece to Germany is tobacco. If Greece is exporting tobacco and getting machine tools the German war effort is not gaining anything. The Greek is...
That's pretty much a given, unlike WW1 there was clear consensus in the years leading to WW2 on which side Greece had to be.
If anything tensions in Spain are even higher than OTL, both the left and the right have suffered setbacks so far. We shall see how things evolve. Frex when we say surviving Spanish republic... who's going to be leading said Spanish republic? A republic along the lines of Salazar's Portugal, a Stalinish republic and an actual real republic would be all possible.
One must note the Greek government was fully involved here. They happily sold both older munitions and older weapons from Greek army stocks to replace them with fresh munitions and get hard currency, with Bodosakis playing the deniable middleman/front (and hugely gaining as well). For just a pair of examples they discarded for sale Terni AA guns and torpedoes bought in the 1920s at prices higher than new Bofors guns and modern torpedoes which replaced then... and Bodosakis sold them of at even higher prices. Plus of course things like exchanging tens of millions of older rifle rounds for newly built ones on an one to one basis at zero cost supposedly in order to recycle their material... recycling a bullet can't gain more value than the cost of a new one...
The Czechs where actually 10.75% of Germany's industry in 1938 and the Poles 8.9%. Greece was about 1.87%, the Yugoslavs 3.27% and the Romanians 2.34%. Of course qualitive differences, call me Skoda, applied.
And Greek bauxite exported to Japan of all places.
Well it doesn't have to be a communist turkey per say maybe it the Kurdish ssr stretching from the shores of lake van to let's to idk Mersin or some other port in the med will do hell even a stretch of undeveloped land in the med will do a long it's flat...
So the greek economy is about 55% larger that in otl not bad but of course the great difference the greater industrial development i expect growth about 300% or more by 1939
More likely in my eyes would be substantial expansion of the Armenian and/or Georgian ASSRs - both had substantial claims in Turkey, and expanding to the Pontic coast would provide a very profound benefit to the USSR in giving them a number of good warm-water port sites on the Black Sea (Trabzon/Trebizond and Giresun/Kerasous, in addition to a number of smaller locations). This is even believed to have played a part in the OTL Soviet deportation of the Turkish population in Georgia.
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@Sphenodon what use is a port in the black sea if the straits are not controled by Moscow? Sure the allies will try anything to prevent the Soviets from having sea access in the med but Stalin will not miss this opportunity especially if Turkey attacks the soviets along with the Germans
You know, the real warm water port the Russians need... is Calcutta
so basically in pounds greece from 1932 to 1939 is spending about double on the military? And also the the drop in % of gdp is due to less money spent overall or is that the greek economy is growing?
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Lets note that the brown line is the 1914 border between Russia and Turkey, which the Soviets retained TTL. So any Soviet territorial demands against Turkey war or no war under any circumstances by default will be to the west of thisMore likely in my eyes would be substantial expansion of the Armenian and/or Georgian ASSRs - both had substantial claims in Turkey, and expanding to the Pontic coast would provide a very profound benefit to the USSR in giving them a number of good warm-water port sites on the Black Sea (Trabzon/Trebizond and Giresun/Kerasous, in addition to a number of smaller locations). This is even believed to have played a part in the OTL Soviet deportation of the Turkish population in Georgia.
Of course, depending on how poorly a belligerent Turkey fares against the USSR + Allies, Turkey could well end up having a Kurdish state carved out of its eastern territories in addition to this form of expansion. Given the proximity of Allied forces in the Near East, whether this would end up being part of the future Communist sphere or a protectorate in the vein of British Iraq is harder to tell. It could potentially have sea access at Cicilia, though I'd say its more likely that a victorious Allied+USSR peace would see the region given over to French control.
In the previous war Britain was ready to concede Constantinople and the straits to Russia although it was lucky enough from her point of view to be able to renege on this. And certainly the Soviets made claims on the straits in OTL even with Turkey neutral and ostensibly pro-allied, although I short of doubt the Soviets took the pro-allied part that seriously with Turkish chrome going to Germany and German arms going to Turkey all the way to late 1943...
Better not tell the British since they seemed to fear a Russian invasion of India by way of Kazakhstan.You know, the real warm water port the Russians need... is Calcutta
Two to three times, in effect the exchange rate between drachma and pound roughly matches GDP growth between not taking the forced loan of 1922 and the retaining of the war credits of 1918. In OTL if you count in pounds Greek GDP goes from 157 million pounds in 1920 to 56 million in 1923 to 103 million in 1937. In constant 1914 drachmas though you go from 1.41 billion in 1920, to 1.31 in 1923 to 2.62 in 1937.
He became a second lieutenant in 1919 under Venizelos and promoted to lieutenant and captain in 1923 and 1926 again under the Venizelists. The man was most definately an anti-communist and probably royalist personally but there are no signs of any strong anti-Venizelism, in the late 1950s after the EOKA struggle there was a serious attempt to draft him to lead what became the Centre Union, which was practically the old Venizelists at this time. Then ironically enough given what ended happening afterwards in 1967-1972 he was definitely and actively anti-junta... So I'll not commit myself to anything but tentatively say he's in the army.
I'd also like to point for no apparent reason at all that this gentleman was not heavily wounded in the battle of Sakarya in August 1921 because there was no battle of Sakarya in August. No reason.
