TURKEY’S POSITION

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 October 1939, Page 12

TURKEY’S POSITION

HER VALUE TO THE ALLIES Turkey’s position in the Peace Prout is a topic of vital interest in Mediterranean strategy, says a writer in the Melbourne “Age.” Assuming her adherence to the Peace Front, what part can she play in an Anglo-French scheme of defence against a thrust, to the East by an Axis Power? Her real strength lies in her army, bred from incomparable fighting stock. Rut the chief advantage to the Peace Front is naval. The British Navy can use the harbours of Asia Minor, participate in the defetlce of the Dardanelles, and operate ’’rom an assured base in the Aegean- Sea. After an interval of nineteen years Turkey has linked herself by an alliance to Great Britain.and France. Such alliance has been possible not so much because of any subtelty in Western diplomacy as by reason of the logic of events. Turkey will not be fighting for this or that ideology, nor for the imperishable tradition of democracy. But Turkey needs years of peace for the reconstruction of Asia Minor and the restoration of Anatolia to its forgotten place as homeland of the Turkish race. To achieve this end Turkey requires the help of older industrialised countries, and, according to all available evidence, is resolutely determined not to be absorbed into the “Lebensraum” of a predatory empire. It was Italy which forced upon Turkey her changed diplomatic role. Despite the blandishments of Germany, British experts believe that she is now firmly knit into the Western alliance system. The bombardment of Corfu in 1923 was a warning to the Ottoman Power of the “Dynamism” at work in the Mediterranean. Taking her first, step away from isolation. Turkey concluded a ten-year pact of security with Great ♦Britain in 1926. Italy’s reaction was a series of conciliatory moves, which culminated, in a pact of friendship in 1930. The next phase in Turkey’s conversion opened with the Abyssinian war. Turkey (now a League of Nations member) joined in sanctions, and early in 1936 both she and Greece placed their harbours at the disposal of the British Navy. More recently the disquieting precedent, of intervention in Spain increased the Turks’ distrust. The Spanish War also Brought the forging of the Axis. Now, Turkey had grounds for fear on two fronts —in the Balkans from a predatory Germany; along her sea coasts. Finally, the successive annexations of Czecho-Slova-kia confirmed her course. Turkey- was gradually moving from her earlier position of national solitude. The Balkan Entente of 1931 followed the appearance of Nazis as a potential menace in the Danube basin. Three years later Turkey linked herself by treaty with the countries lying to the east —Irak, Iran, and Afghanistan. In 1938 came a special treaty of mutual assistance witn Greece, and, finally, the pact with Great Britain, followed by that, with France.

HER OWN CONDITIONS Still bent on the regeneration of Asia'Minor in a world of peace, Turkey has in some degree imposed her own conditions upon the West. • Her quid pro quo for supporting Great Britain during the sanctions period was the return of the Dardanelles to full Turkish sovereignty and their opening to the navies of the Black Sea Powers. The present treaty with Britain was preceded by a substantial credit of £16,000,000, and is to be followed by another, and possibly larger one’. France, on her part, has had to agree to the return of the Hatay, the old Sanjak of .Alexandretta. At the same time the safeguarding of peace and the status quo has not been lost sight of. Her independent negotiations with Egypt recall the ancient bonds uniting the two countries in the task of internal consolidation. Her Balkan problem is found in the recent rumours that Turkey was completing fortifications on the Bulgarian frontier. In war, the gain to the Peace Front is negative rather than positive, but significant in a very real sense. A German break through in Roumania to the Black Sea, or through Greece to the Aegean, would lose much of its terror when the Bosphorus, 'the Dardanelles, and the whole of Asia. Minor could be mobilised in the Allies’ plan of campaign. Anatolia would be practically impregnable. But the Turkish difficulties in any plan of co-operation are those of an un-industrialised country. Turkey’s vast -mineral resources have hardly been exploited. There are assembling plant: , but no native armament industry. The big iron works at Karabuk are to open this autumn, but the iron ore deposits are a thousand kilometres away along a singletrack railway. Turkish railways are mainly of single-track construction, and few roads exist for heavy military traffic.

About 250 machines represent the front-line strength of the Turkish air force. Turkey’s highly-trained army put into the field 30 to 40 divisions, well supplied with light equipment. British and Turkish missions have been deciding how best Turkey could be armed with heavy equipmenttanks, anti-tank guns, and artillery. Re-equipped, the Turks could hold the Thracian front alone, and immobilise in the Balkans a considerable proportion of the enemy’s forces. But from the naval point of view the chief advantage of the Anglo-Turk-ish alliance is the fact that the British Navy could use the harbours of Asia Minor and operate from an assured base in the Aegean. The Turkish navy could do little more than patrol its own coasts although Turkey’s submarines—which are still, ironically enough, being delivered by Germany — could do useful work around her own shores.