I could make analogies with a lot of conflics, that was the point, Its not an exceptional situation, its a common tragedy product of the modern configuration on National States.
Who should Constantinople have been given to after WWI?
- Thread starter Hierosolyma
- Start date
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
The thing is that this is nothing new. I have the feeling that people honestly do not care or ignore facts on what was going to happen if Greece got Istanbul back. If it is the former then nobody today would speak of many Turks and Muslims being exterminated any more than the Yazidis are spoken off. And thr extermination of the Muslims/Turks of the Balkans after the Ottomans lost lands was a reality. But coming back to the topic... I feel double standard. If we were to ask who should have gotten Thessaloniki which did not have a clear majority. Nobody would say Turkey. And for good reasons. But I don't see any good reasons on why Istanbul should be Greek other than hurt feelings.
In order of preference/less harm done.
- Free city. The suggestion for it to become the League of Nations HQ is sound.
- Referendum (that Turkey would probably win)
- Turkey with autonomous provisions for Greeks and other peoples
- Newly formed state under British/American protection. In the first case it joins the Commonwealth and gets a referendum after 50 years . In the second case it gets a similar status as Puerto Rico also with a referendum after 50 years.
I have a feeling that in this case and if the US tries hard enough, the people of the city might actually stay with the US in this voting.
- Sweden/Switzerland/Netherlands/Portugal/Japan.
- If a decision can't be taken before the end of the Russian Civil War, put the Romanov pretender as a symbolic head of state of a free city.
- Free city. The suggestion for it to become the League of Nations HQ is sound.
- Referendum (that Turkey would probably win)
- Turkey with autonomous provisions for Greeks and other peoples
- Newly formed state under British/American protection. In the first case it joins the Commonwealth and gets a referendum after 50 years . In the second case it gets a similar status as Puerto Rico also with a referendum after 50 years.
I have a feeling that in this case and if the US tries hard enough, the people of the city might actually stay with the US in this voting.
- Sweden/Switzerland/Netherlands/Portugal/Japan.
- If a decision can't be taken before the end of the Russian Civil War, put the Romanov pretender as a symbolic head of state of a free city.
Constantinople at the time only had a population anywhere between 800,000 to 1,200,000 , and many of those were refugees displaced by the Armenian and Greek genocides. Compared to the roughly 5,000,000 that lived in the confines of Greece, it certainly not as big a jump as you make it out to be and could have been administrated by Athens. Taking the city itself would be a rather simple affair if the British allowed it, not because the Turks would do so willingly, but because the Turks were not allowed to maintain any sort of military force anywhere near Istanbul or on either side of the Straits. There would certainly be a war, but the occupation of the city should it be pursued would be a fait accompli.
That being said, Venizelos and his government would have needed to be re-elected in the 1920 elections, and therefore by extension the professionalism of the Greek Army maintained, to allow this to be possible.
That being said, Venizelos and his government would have needed to be re-elected in the 1920 elections, and therefore by extension the professionalism of the Greek Army maintained, to allow this to be possible.
I support Greece, because a Greek Constantinople and Thrace will create clear natural borders for roughly equitable population exchange. (For reference, I'm Chinese-American; have never been to Greece or Turkey)
OTL's population exchanges sent 1.22 million Orthodox Greeks from Turkey to Greece, and 350k Muslims from Greece to Turkey. This was a hugely one-sided exchange favoring Turkey by the absolute numbers, even after the genocidal death of ~500k Greeks and the exclusion of Greeks in Constantinople from the exchange. It built considerable resentment in Greece, led to the effective transfer of significant Greek wealth to Turkish hands (as governments would seize property that could not be transported), and let to the permanent depopulation of parts of Turkey (as they received far too few Muslims to make up for the lost Greek population.) Many of the multitudes of Greek refugees became radicalized and resentful, leading to a surge in support of the Communist party and the Metaxas regime seized power in response.
A population exchange is essentially inevitable. This was the common period solution to nationalistic disputes. No matter what happened, some people whose ancestors lived in the same place for centuries or millennia would have the misfortune of needing to be uprooted and moved for the crime of being on the wrong side of the borders. IOTL, they were ~80% Greek.
If we set the goals of setting vaguely natural/logical borders (i.e. no indefensible Greek Smyrna enclave) and having roughly equitable population exchange (make the number of people who need to move in each group roughly equal), I'm pretty sure you need to get a Greek Thrace and Constantinople.
Doing some back of the envelope calculations using the 1910 ottoman census in Wikipedia, Thrace ex-Constantinople (not subject to OTL transfer) -> 365k Greeks transferred iotl who would not be transferred in this proposal. Thrace including Constantinople has 744k Turks. So adjusting the OTL transfer numbers appropriately, we end up with 865k Greeks and 1094k Turks transferred in this proposal- roughly even and much more equitable than OTL. And that's using the ottoman census which is almost certainly biased/inaccurate (I.e. real numbers are likely more equitable.)
OTL's population exchanges sent 1.22 million Orthodox Greeks from Turkey to Greece, and 350k Muslims from Greece to Turkey. This was a hugely one-sided exchange favoring Turkey by the absolute numbers, even after the genocidal death of ~500k Greeks and the exclusion of Greeks in Constantinople from the exchange. It built considerable resentment in Greece, led to the effective transfer of significant Greek wealth to Turkish hands (as governments would seize property that could not be transported), and let to the permanent depopulation of parts of Turkey (as they received far too few Muslims to make up for the lost Greek population.) Many of the multitudes of Greek refugees became radicalized and resentful, leading to a surge in support of the Communist party and the Metaxas regime seized power in response.
A population exchange is essentially inevitable. This was the common period solution to nationalistic disputes. No matter what happened, some people whose ancestors lived in the same place for centuries or millennia would have the misfortune of needing to be uprooted and moved for the crime of being on the wrong side of the borders. IOTL, they were ~80% Greek.
If we set the goals of setting vaguely natural/logical borders (i.e. no indefensible Greek Smyrna enclave) and having roughly equitable population exchange (make the number of people who need to move in each group roughly equal), I'm pretty sure you need to get a Greek Thrace and Constantinople.
Doing some back of the envelope calculations using the 1910 ottoman census in Wikipedia, Thrace ex-Constantinople (not subject to OTL transfer) -> 365k Greeks transferred iotl who would not be transferred in this proposal. Thrace including Constantinople has 744k Turks. So adjusting the OTL transfer numbers appropriately, we end up with 865k Greeks and 1094k Turks transferred in this proposal- roughly even and much more equitable than OTL. And that's using the ottoman census which is almost certainly biased/inaccurate (I.e. real numbers are likely more equitable.)
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Scaevola
Banned
@Seleucus @Baby Kata you do realize that your plan results in hundreds of thousands MORE people undergoing population transfer, except that less Greeks and more Turks go through the harrowing ordeal? I'll make an assumption and say you didn't think the implications of your math too. The alternative doesn't belong on this forum.
By the same token one could say that my plan leads to no Greco-Turkish war (being a compromise relatively acceptable by both nations) and the early end of the Greek genocide saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
Or just add an obvious addendum: Turks in Constantinople are exempt (just like Greeks in Constantinople were exempt IOTL) - problem solved. With the addendum, that results in 865k Greeks and 639k Turks transferred [per Ottoman 1910 census] - 100k less than OTL.
Like I said, this was a back of the envelope sketch, not a concrete proposal but the principle remains the same.
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Scaevola
Banned
If Turkey stands the risk of losing Istanbul, there WILL be a Greco-Turkish War, that's part of what the Greco-Turkish War was fought for IOTL. To counterweight the Greek genocide, you can of course expect a Turkish genocide of similar caliber, if violence against Turks and Muslims during the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans is anything to go by.
Baby Kata
Banned
900k Greeks and 1.1m Turks yields the same total sum of dislocated people as RL's 500k Turks and 1.5m Greeks, and it's much closer to balanced
There have to be limits to rehashing historical grievances, or there'd be no end to the limits of historical trauma to consider. I take a presentist approach; it is extremely unreasonable to currently demand the expulsion of all Jews from Israel, just as in a hypothetical 1900 scenario it'd be extremely unreasonable to create OTL Israel by expelling the Palestinians and settling Jewish inhabitants.
This scenario is about making a decision post-WW1. I would have a very different answer if the decision were to be made in 1800s.
Dementor
Banned
During the wars and revolutions that gave the Balkan countries their independence they were frequent attacks against Muslims and resulting flight of many of these Muslims subsequently. Without excusing anything, one has to consider that Christian-Muslim relations in the Ottoman Empire did not start with those wars and that the Ottomans committed plenty of atrocities of their own (which are not being considered). But after those countries achieved their independence, there weren't as a rule mass expulsions. There was in some cases substantial immigration, especially from areas where Muslims were a minority, but one mostly can't blame those countries if the Muslims were mostly emigrating because they didn't want to live in Christian countries (in fact the Ottoman Empire encouraged such immigration).
In any case, there must be some limit to how far back one should go when considering fair borders. After all, why not go back even earlier and point out that the large Muslim population is the result of the Ottoman rule?
Baby Kata
Banned
The entire Muslim Turkish population in Asia Minor is the result of Ottoman Imperial rule. If the Ottomans and Seljuks hadn't invaded, that land would be Greek, Armenian, Assyrian, and Kurdish to this day. I did an interesting little thought experiment about Stalin forcing Asia Minor Turks to go back to Central Asia here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...urkestan-in-central-asia-and-sinkiang.462692/