Turkey in the mediterranean during the interwar era

In the Aegean, the Greek government had already discussed measures to counter the Turkish naval modernization program. During the discussions, the head of the British naval mission to Athens, Captain Turle, suggested expansion of the naval air power and reinforcement of the fleet by light naval units.³⁷⁷ However, to the Greek public, the prospects of Yavuz’s return to active duty warranted a far more credible response. In search of a publicly acceptable match for the Yavuz, the Greek government turned to a battlecruiser, Salamis that had lain incomplete in the German shipyard Vulcan Works in Kiel since 1914.³⁷⁸ The Times reported that the Salamis dispute was finally settled with no further obstacles standing in the way of her delivery to the Greek navy.³⁷⁹ Pointing to the poor shape of the country’s finances, the British naval mission in Greece and the British government tried to dissuade the Greek government from such an expensive venture.³⁸⁰ Amidst a heated debate in the Greek press, the Venizelos government decided to order two destroyers as an emergency measure to preserve the naval balance in the Aegean.³⁸¹ After this decision, a new naval arms race looked inevitable between Turkey and Greece.³⁸²The British knew that Greece’s choice of supplier for new destroyers would be a political one. In spite of strong British naval influence in Greece, from the onset British shipbuilders were aware that winning the Greek contract was not foregone conclusion. They were informed that Greek Prime Minister Venizelos ”will use the order for destroyers as a means of securing Italian, French or British diplomatic support in the conference at The Hague with a view to revising German Reparation Schemes which sacrifice Greek interests.”³⁸³ In October 1929, it was evident that Venizelos favored Italy as the supplier for new naval units.³⁸⁴ In addition to closer naval relations with Italy, the period of ‘warmth’ in Italian-Turkish relations witnessed intensified military, political and social contacts. In June 1929, four Italian destroyers visited Istanbul. On board the destroyers were 20 Italian journalists.³⁸⁵ This visit was meant to serve logistical purposes for a bolder and politically significant venture. A squadron of 35 Italian seaplanes was to make a stopover at Büyükdere Bay in İstanbul en route to the Soviet Union. This venture itself highlighted contradictions in Turkish attitude towards Italy. Ankara turned down the Italian request to fly to İzmir which was then a most restricted zone for air traffic. Instead, İstanbul was offered as an alternative anchorage to the Italians.³⁸⁶ The squadron of giant Savoia S-55 seaplanes was led by Italy’s famous aviation hero, Air Minister Italo Balbo. When they arrived in Istanbul, Balbo and his aviators were received exceptionally warmly.³⁸⁷ Around the same time, the Turkish Ambassador to Rome, Suat [Davaz], was in Turkey. In his comments to Cumhuriyet, he stated that a large number of Turkish civil servants were being trained in Italy. He also announced that a group of Turkish scouts was to visit Italy in September. Last, but not the least, Italian-Turkish relations would soon be intensified by a credit agreement.³⁸⁸ The dramatic turn in Italian-Turkish relations since 1928 was evident in many aspects of their relations. The ‘warmth’ also unleashed vocal expressions of admiration of Italian Fascism by the Turks.³⁸⁹ For instance, the Chairman of the Turkish Association of Journalists, Hakkı Tarık Us, praised Italian aviators highly in his speech during the dinner organized for twenty Italian journalists. He went so far as to refer to them as ‘heirs to the victorious Carthaginians’ so as to endorse the Italian Fascists’ claim for imperial heritage in the Mediterranean.³⁹⁰ After the 1929 visit, Turkish public maintained its interest in and admiration for the Fascist Italy’s aviation exploits, particularly Air Marshal Balbo’s crossing of the Atlantic with a fleet of 24 giant flying boats.³⁹¹ Turkish naval building did not seem to have major implications on the naval balance in the Mediterranean. It had a more direct and profound impact on the Black Sea and the Aegean. Turkey’s neighbors moved to adjust their shipbuilding and deployment plans in response, to the reports that the Yavuz’s re-conditioning and other additions to the Turkish fleet were imminent in 1930.³⁹² Ankara’s closest international partner, the Soviet Union, was concerned about the Black Sea naval balance after Turkish naval modernization. Hence, the Soviets deployed one battleship (Parizhskaya Communa) and one cruiser (Profintern) from the Baltic Sea to augment the fleet in the Black Sea in January 1930.³⁹³ The Soviets, however, did not bother to make the proper notification in advance to the International Straits Commission on the passage of these two warships. Their unannounced appearance at the Turkish Straits was regarded as a clear-cut violation of the Treaty of Lausanne. The Soviet move infuriated some Balkan countries. A Black Sea littoral, Romania, announced its intention to bring up the issue in the upcoming London Naval Conference. Romania and Greece were also disturbed by what they perceived as “demonstration of Russo-Turkish friendship in the shape of welcome salvoes fired by Turkish forts.” ³⁹⁴ Many international observers reached similar conclusions on the Soviet move and Turkish positive reception at that time. In other words, the Soviets meant to convey a message of protest before the London Naval Conference regarding the status of the Turkish straits. And the Turks appeared to have willingly and wholeheartedly approved of it.³⁹⁵Despite the appearance of Turkish approval of the Soviet move, there is evidence to suggest that the Turkish government merely put a brave face on the incident which most probably caught them unguarded as well. First, the addition of a powerful dreadnought battleship and a cruiser to the Black Sea Fleet altered naval balance in favor of the Soviets. Moreover, Cable regards the Soviet deployment as an exercise of gunboat diplomacy against Turkey.³⁹⁶ And it must have been perceived as such in Ankara. In other words, the welcome salvoes from the forts concealed the sense of resentment among the Turkish leaders. It is possible to locate at least two indications of the Turkish resentment. First, the war games of 1930 conducted at the Turkish War College was based on a threat from “the North,” implying a shift of focus onto the Soviets from “the usual suspect,” Italy.³⁹⁷ Second, Ankara sought to augment its naval power as quickly as possible. As a matter of fact, Prime Minister İnönü himself made a note in his daybook regarding the need for destroyers specifically for the Black Sea.³⁹⁸Two months after the unannounced passage of the two Soviet warships into the Black Sea Undersecretary of the Turkish Navy, Captain Mehmet Ali Dalay, visited Italy in March 1930. The visit coincided with the London Naval Conference.³⁹⁹ Delegates from the major naval powers convened to discuss, and agree, if possible, on, the extension of naval limitations to lighter units such as cruisers, submarines and destroyers,⁴⁰⁰ The conference was marked by France’s refusal to accept the Italian demand for parity with France in lighter naval units. The failure of the Conference resulted from the unbridgeable differences of opinion between France and Italy. The Italian-Turkish naval connection figured disproportionately prominently in some press coverage of the conference. Some newspapers even reported rumors of varying versions of a smartly concluded secret commercial arrangement between Rome and Ankara. For instance, it was first reported that Turkey had ordered three 10,000-ton cruisers from an Italian yard. Chicago Daily Tribune‘s report went on:
“Italy retains the right to take over these cruisers any time they are needed. This right was secured by a clever commercial agreement, under which the cruisers are to be paid to Italian commercial builders in six installments. Only five installments are to be collected, however, the sixth being allowed to stand indefinitely… [As long as the installments are not fully paid, the builders have the right to take back the ships.” ⁴⁰¹
Two weeks later, Chicago Daily Tribune published a revised version of the so-called secret Italian-Turkish deal. The new version mentioned an Italian proposal to build five 6.000-ton cruisers for the Turkish Navy within three years. Turkey would be extended a 10-year loan for the cruisers, which would be underwritten by the Italian government in return for Turkish agreement to lend them to Italy whenever it might need them.⁴⁰² For all intents and purposes, it was an inaccurate reporting, since no such orders materialized, or did Turkey ever acquire cruisers from any source. However, even from the advantage of hindsight, it is difficult to ascertain its purpose. It may be speculated that such news were deliberately leaked to the press by any party to influence the negotiations in one direction or another. As a matter of fact, Turkey ordered two destroyers, not cruisers, from Italy around that time.⁴⁰³ This order certainly featured a link with the international disarmament efforts, yet in a completely different context. In order to meet the Turkish demand for extremely short schedule, the Italians offered semi-completed hulls of two destroyers whose building was suspended to comply with the Treaty of Washington limitations earlier. In other words, these units were originally built for the Italian Navy.⁴⁰⁴ Turkish insistence on delivery within 12 months also reflected the Turkish desire to rectify swiftly the naval situation in the Black Sea.The Turkish press, for its part, immediately picked up Chicago Daily Tribune reports on the Italian-Turkish naval agreements on the overall naval balance in the Mediterranean. Cumhuriyet, for instance, based on those reports, argued that the Italian-Turkish cooperation accounted largely for the Italian-French rift at the London Naval Conference.⁴⁰⁵ Certainly, both Chicago Daily Tribune and Cumhuriyet substantially misread and misinterpreted the scope and limits of the Italian-Turkish rapprochement as well as its naval implications. It is questionable, at best, the centrality attributed to Turkey in explaining the Italian-French differences in naval conferences.On the other hand, Turkish and Greek orders for destroyers from Italy exacerbated the French apprehensions. Moreover, Athens ordered two more destroyers from Italy.⁴⁰⁶ It was disturbing to know that Italian shipyard would be building eight destroyers for Turkey and Greece. These orders represented a potential major naval asset that could have significant bearing on the Mediterranean naval balances. In the case of Italian-French confrontation in the Mediterranean, these eight destroyers could be commandeered to form a new flotilla to augment the Italian fleet.⁴⁰⁷The Italian success in securing contracts for war materials prompted British interest also.⁴⁰⁸ Italy's share in foreign markets had been consistently increasing. Italian naval arms exports accounted for 24 percent of submarines and 17.8 percent of warships in the interwar years. By 1939, in both categories Italy ranked second only to Britain.⁴⁰⁹ The Greek orders seemed to have caused more concern to London than the Turkish orders. The former placed orders in Italy in spite of a British naval mission being employed in Athens. The mission had access to classified details of the destroyer contact. To explain Italian willingness to build warships for foreign governments, the British naval intelligence report from Athens speculated thus:
“... The anxiety of the Italians to get tenders for destroyers unquestionably appears to be greater than that dictated by financial considerations… The self-imposed heavy penalties for delays in completion and failure to reach contract speed indicate either... extreme confidence in their ability, or ... a desire to commence building ships which could, in the event of hostilities breaking out between Italy and other countries, be commandeered, and added to the Italian Navy.”⁴¹⁰


For the British, Turkey ordered additional destroyers from Italy for purely political reasons. It was viewed as part and parcel of the deal for one million pounds sterling credit to Turkey by the Banca Commerciale.⁴¹¹ The overall financial magnitude of the new order (60 million lira or 645,000 pounds sterling) also surprised the British. Burdened with the Ottoman debts, Turkey was not expected to assume new financial liabilities. In hindsight, the timing of the Turkish 1930 order for destroyers suggests another connection with the London Disarmament Conference and with Turkish-Greek diplomatic negotiations on freezing naval arms in the Aegean. It may be argued that Ankara rushed to secure these destroyers before the London Naval Conference placed restrictions on the production and trade of lighter naval units, such as cruisers and destroyers. Secondly, a naval holiday in the Aegean had been on the agenda of Turkish-Greek diplomatic talks since January 1928.⁴¹² In 1930, the Turkish-Greek negotiations looked promising in resolving the post-Lausanne problems. It is possible that Ankara wanted to complete its fleet modernization before a Turkish-Greek naval protocol was concluded.⁴¹³ Since time was crucial, Ankara continued to favor Italian shipbuilders despite their poor performance with the previous Turkish order. Moreover, the new Turkish contract demanded an extremely short delivery period of 12 months.⁴¹⁴The prospective Turkish fleet expansion must have worried the Greeks more than the French. The Turkish orders could present Italy with a serious dilemma. The Italian policy was originally aimed at seeking simultaneous improvement in relations with Turkey and Greece. Moreover, the supply of new warships was meant to serve as an instrument to this end. In practice, it ran the risk of widening the Turkish-Greek rift. Rome needed to modify the means to meet the objective. New Greek shipbuilding program provided the opportunity for the Italians to overcome their dilemma.The Turkish naval order had put at risk the prospects for Italian-brokered Turkish-Greek reconciliation in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, the Greek order for destroyers in a way put Italian strategy back on track. Consequently, improved relations with Ankara and Athens were evident in the Italian Navy’s strategic war plans for 1929-1931. In the case of a war against Yugoslavia or against Yugoslavia and France, the Italian Navy could rest assured of both Turkish and Greek neutrality in the Eastern Mediterranean.⁴¹⁵In 1930, Rome seemed to have made significant progress towards the realization of its Eastern Mediterranean project. First, it emerged as the principal supplier naval units for Greece and Turkey. Two rounds of Turkish and Greek orders indeed marked consolidation of the Italian shipyards’ domination of the Turkish and Greek naval arms markets in the early 1930s. Particularly, the two countries did not bother to invite bids from other suppliers for additional. Instead, they placed contracts directly on the Italian. In regard to Italian-French rivalry in the Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, Rome could reasonably expect Ankara to adopt positions more in favor of Italy than France. Nevertheless, such positions were not likely to translate into any political or military commitment. In line with Ankara’s avoidance of attachment to any great power patron or bloc of powers, it could not be persuaded to take part in an anti-French bloc in the late 1920s either. However, Turkish leaders did not hide their frustration with France and its policies. For instance, in 1930, Turkish Foreign Minister Aras related to the British his conviction that ‘the root of uneasiness in Europe was fear of French hegemony.’⁴¹⁶ Although he discounted the formation of anti-French bloc or alliance, he granted that French policies might eventually produce such an outcome. At that time, Ankara had its own reasons to resent Paris which had been procrastinating with the ratification of the Treaty of Friendship, Reconciliation and Arbitration concluded between the two countries in February 1930.⁴¹⁷Also in 1930, Rome could claim credit for helping Turkey and Greece finally work out their differences. They signed a protocol to end the naval arms race in the Aegean. In his address to the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Turkish Foreign Minister Aras expressed Ankara’s gratitude to Signor Mussolini and Signor Grandi for their help over Turkish-Greek reconciliation.⁴¹⁸ In 1930, Rome could justifiably claim that it enjoyed some degree of political influence in Turkey and Greece.⁴¹⁹ The Turkish-Greek reconciliation looked like the reward for the Italian attempts to bring Ankara and Athens together into the Italian orbit. However, the reconciliation can not solely be explained in the context of Italian foreign policy. A mix of regional and local dynamics also contributed to this outcome. The exchange of population stretched the economies of the two war-torn countries to the limit. In other words, both were struggling with domestic consolidation problems when the World Economic Crisis of 1929 hit their economies hard.⁴²⁰

Venizelos’ return to premiership in Greece had already set in motion normalization of bi-lateral relations after 1928. In contrast to his predecessors like General Papagos, Venizelos was ready to renounce the Megali Idea. Thus, Greece appeared to be a country satisfied with the territorial status quo. It was then set apart from Turkey, another status quo power, by only the technical problems related to the exchange of populations. Greece under Venizelos and Turkey under Atatürk were pursuing significantly overlapping foreign policy objectives. For instance, Venizelos refused to commit Greece to a bi-lateral arrangement with any great power in Europe largely to avoid antagonizing other great powers. Moreover, his return to power included a bid to restructure Greece as a European state.⁴²¹ The successive Greek governments’ unqualified support to Turkey’s accommodation into the European states system was probably driven by their own pursuit of Europeanization. Finally, by 1929 it was evident that the two countries did not have resources to sustain a naval arms race in the Aegean.⁴²²

Besides political stability, as a new nation-state, Turkey like other Balkan countries, needed economic stability but lacked a strong economy to fight single- handed the repercussions of the 1929 crisis in the region. To find common solutions to the crisis, Turkey, together with Greece, initiated the Balkan conferences. The Turkish-Greek rapprochement not only led to the signing of the Balkan Entente but also opened the way for debates on the Balkan Union. In this process, the Greek political leader Papanastassiou even proposed that Istanbul become the capital of a possible Balkan Union.⁴²³ All in all, the Balkan Conferences contributed greatly to normalization of Turkey’s international status.

6. A MIDDLE POWER WITH EUROPEAN CREDENTIALS

Aftermath of a general war usually prompts secondary powers to fight for their causes together with their peers. This strategy sets them apart from great powers and minor powers. Turkey’s role in the Balkans in the first half of the 1930s illustrates quite well the position of middle powers after a general war. Turkish efforts in this period gradually evolved in the direction of the construction of a coalition of “like-minded” states in the Balkan Peninsula as a part of its “other-help” strategy.⁴²⁴

The Balkans offered an operating environment that significantly facilitated building coalitions among such like-minded actors in three respects. First, they were geographically contagious. Grouped together in a narrow peninsula, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania and Romania all had a frontier (continental or coastal) with at least one other Balkan country. Second, there were no significant power asymmetries in the Balkans in terms of size of territory and economic capacity. Majority of the Balkan states were in command of comparable territories and economic resources. Albania and Turkey were the two notable exceptions. While the former lagged seriously behind the rest in terms of resources, the latter possessed a huge territory by Balkan standards. Finally, the region did not belong in the sphere of influence of a specific great power in the first half of the 1930s. A power vacuum had already emerged after the First World War, and the World Economic Crisis of 1929 accentuated its effects.⁴²⁵

Among the Balkan states, Turkey enjoyed two distinct advantages to pursue a middle power agenda. First one was related to the size of its territory. This advantage of physical geography was, however, moderated demographically, as a result of Turkey’s modest population. Ankara’s true edge in the Balkans, therefore, lay in its diplomatic capacity rather than size of territory. In other words, Turkey’s middle power activism grew mostly out of its diplomatic capacity, occasionally backed by itsmodest, but credible naval power. At the time, Turkey already had in place a highly developed diplomatic tradition and establishment. In the first two years of the republic, diplomatic missions were operational in Athens, Berne, Brussels, Budapest, Bucharest, London, Madrid, Sofia, Stockholm, Tehran and Warsaw. In 1925, additional diplomatic missions were opened in Paris, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, Kabul, Vienna, Prague, Belgrade, Cairo, Tirana, Tokyo, The Hague and Copenhagen.⁴²⁶ By 1930, the new Republic of Turkey could count on 27 diplomatic and 48 consular missions abroad.⁴²⁷ Compared to other middle powers, such diplomatic network placed Turkey ahead of only Yugoslavia and on par with Hungary. In terms of diplomatic representation, Spain was well ahead of others in Smut's intermediate category of powers with 47 missions in 1925, while Poland followed it with 29 missions.⁴²⁸

Without the Ottoman heritage, the new republican regime would undoubtedly have taken longer to establish a comparable level of international presence. This indicated a significant degree of continuity between the Ottoman and Republican diplomacies. The Turkish ruling class in the interwar period inherited the administrative experience of the Ottoman Empire. They used the knowledge, the skill and the know-how that they had gained from the Ottoman experience to promote their diplomatic goals. In functional terms, the Ottoman heritage added an element of creativity to the new Republic’s diplomacy.⁴²⁹

Moreover, under circumstances that accorded primacy to economics after the World Economic Crisis, the traditional Turkish diplomatic apparatus was supplemented by other bureaucratic institutions in the 1930s. The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economics both began to develop parallel networks of international representation. An observer sees this diversification of actors involved in Turkey’s international relations as a natural outcome of a policy of statism (étatism) which was impossible to serve by means of traditional diplomacy only. Similarly, Türkofis was set up as an independent agency under the Ministry of Economics to manage Turkey’s international economic relations. In a very short span of time, it grew into a large network with offices in Turkey’s major iforeign trade partners. The Ministry of Finance’s rising profile in Turkey’s foreign relations during the same period stemmed principally from the need to handle the Ottoman debt. Interestingly Turkey’s major arms procurement programs through foreign loans provided another impetus for the Finance Ministry’s involvement in the economic diplomacy of Turkey in the 1930s.⁴³⁰