The Ill-Made Alliance: Anglo-Turkish Relations, 1939-1940

531 Pages·1999·31.22 MB·English

by  Brock Millman

a
Anglo-Turkish Relations 1934-1940
In 1939, faced with the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and a
growing Italian threat in the Balkans, Turkey and Britain (and later
France) signed an alliance in which Turkey linked itself politically and
militarily with Britain and France in exchange for financial assistance
for its rearmament program. Despite the agreement, however, when the
war came to the Mediterranean, Turkey did not become involved. Pre-
senting a new interpretation of why the alliance failed, Brock Millman
explores Anglo-Turkish relations leading up to the alliance of 1939,
taking into account the broader economic, military, and strategic
issues.
While previous accounts suggest that Turkey entered into the
alliance reluctantly, Millman contends that it not only wanted an
alliance but sought as close a relationship as Britain would concede in
the prewar years. He attributes the failure of the alliance mainly to
Britain's lack of support, namely its inability to fit Turkey into its strat-
egy in the Mediterranean, its failure to produce a coherent operational
plan that could encompass Turkish military co-operation, and its
unwillingness to provide Turkey with timely and much-needed finan-
cial, material, and industrial assistance.
Divided into three parts, The Ill-Made Alliance examines the roots
and course of the Anglo-Turkish rapprochement in the years 1934-38;
the economic, military, and politic factors in 1938-39 that inhibited
development of the emerging alliance to the point where it might have
been fully functional; and the collapse of the alliance in 1939-40.
BROCK MILLMAN is a sessional lecturer in history, University of British
Columbia.
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The Ill-Made Alliance
Anglo-Turkish Relations,
I934-I940
BROCK MILLMAN
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Buffalo
© McGill-Queen's University Press 1998
ISBN 0-7735-1603-4
Legal deposit first quarter 1998
Bibliotheque Rationale du Quebec
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a
grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences
Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada. Funding has also been received from the
Faculty of Arts of the University of Windsor.
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the
support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our
publishing program.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Millman, Brock, 1963-
The ill-made alliance: Anglo-Turkish relations,
1934-1940
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7735-1603-4
i. Great Britain—Relations-Turkey, z. Turkey—
Relations-Great Britain. I. Title.
DA47-9.T8M54 1998 317.410561 097-901050-0
Typeset in 10/12. Sabon by True to Type
For my parents, Bill and Delores Millman, most of all,
and for my sisters, Eronwyn and Carole, for their constant
encouragement, and for the late Professor Robert Vogel,
a demanding (if forgiving) Ph.D. supervisor
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Contents
Abbreviations / ix
Introduction / 3
PART ONE: PARADISO 1934-38
i Inheritance and Context / 15
2. Atatiirk's Gambit, 1934 / 35
3 The Abyssinian Crisis, 1935 / 44
4 Montreaux, 1936 / 69
5 The Search for Accommodation, 1936-38 / 86
PART TWO: PURGATORIO 1938-39
6 The Politics of Dependency / 105
7 The Doldrums, 1938-39 / 143
8 Paradox Postponed: the Joint Guarantee, May 1939 / 162.
9 The Military Convention, October 1939 / 187
10 The Tripartite Treaty, October 1939 / 202
viii Contents
PART THREE: INFERNO 1939-40
ii Point d'Armes, point de Turques, 1939-40 / 229
12. Point d'Argent, point d'Armes, 1939-40 / 2,47
13 The Problem With Germany: the Search for a Strategy,
1939-1940 / 2.72
14 Dilemmas in Operational Planning / 294
15 Salvaging the Treaty, 1939-40 / 340
16 The Debacle, 1940 / 361
Conclusion / 374
Appendices / 383
Notes / 395
Bibliography / 499
Index / 513
Abbreviations
AAA Air Attache Ankara
AA Anti-Aircraft
AFC Anglo-French Committee
AOC Air Officer Commanding
AOCME Air Officer Commanding Middle East
Adm Admiralty
ASW Anti-Submarine Warfare
AT Anti-Tank
C in C
Med Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean
CAB Cabinet
CAS Chief of Air Staff
CCB Control of Contraband
CDS Chief of Defence Staff
CFS Central Flying School
cm Committee of Imperial Defence
CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff
CNS Chief of Naval Staff
Zimmern, A. "The Testing of the League." Foreign Affairs 14 (Apr
cos Chiefs of Staff Subcommittee of the Committee of
Imperial Defence
D Plans Director of [Naval] Plans
DCDS Deputy Chief of Defence Staff
DCIGS Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff
DCOS Deputy Chiefs of Staff
DCNS Deputy Chief of Naval Staff