I think Turkey's industrial hub ittl would be in Cilicia more than anything else.
Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles
- Thread starter Lascaris
- Start date
Last time I looked at the map Cilicia proper is given back to Turkey/the Armenians there were betrayed but Alexandretta is French Syrian.
Not 100% accurate, I'm not good at map making but close enough for governments and artillery work.
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Wanted to note another possible demographic source for Turkey ITL. Remaining Balkan Muslims (Bosniaks and in Bulgaria), plus Turkmen from Mesopotamia. A weaker Turkey means that likely Bulgarian assimilationist policy will be implement fully leading to a mass migration, and a Yugoslav civil war may mean migration from Bosnia to Turkey as well (as in history)
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If anything, Turkey and Bulgaria will lack a direct border in this TL, unlike IRL, so any aspiring Bulgarian Muslims would have to get to Turkey through Greece, a hated third nation that has every reason to restrict their movement, to prevent Turkey benefitting from this immigration for one, as well as to ensure that it's northern neighbours remain unstable for another, while also, a weaker Turkey means that they have less of a reason to immigrate there, and could just as well pick other options, such as Albania for example. Bosnians are deeply tied to their land, so I'd say that immigration would again be limited in scale, just like IRL. And again, it's up to Greece's hand to restrict immigration flow to Turkey from the Balkans and turn them back, even at sea, as part of the Black Sea would be the Greek EEZ, and the Greek Navy has the capacity to enforce this.
Well, if I can make a prediction or more like a comparison, I feel like greece ittl will manage to boom quite a bit, I feel like their politics will go quite right with after the post war (likely) leftist purges.
Their more nationalist culture could definitely result in a temporary large birthrate. Further more, I would see them gaining swathes of Anatolian coast, not inland, but quite arable land where programs of settling poor families with land is possible.
For turkey, they will likely have a tough few decades, less of a Turkish supremacy is going to cause alot of problems with their Kurdish minority, unless they somehow form a common front, which is unlikely.
The fact that turkey managed to surpress the Kurds politically so much otl is also due to the economic strength turkey gained post ww2 and the general economic strength of the Asia minor coast and Istanbul. I would definitely see turkey become a stronger power by the 80s simply by population, but poverty will be large and greece will probably have a bit more of a modern economy.
I might be completely wrong, but this timeline is going to affect the butterfly effect to the max during the cold war( which is what I expect lascaris to do)
Crisises will be different, mindsets will be different, head of states will be different. Hell we have no idea who could end up being Stalin's succesor, for all we can see it could be beria of all people.
Their more nationalist culture could definitely result in a temporary large birthrate. Further more, I would see them gaining swathes of Anatolian coast, not inland, but quite arable land where programs of settling poor families with land is possible.
For turkey, they will likely have a tough few decades, less of a Turkish supremacy is going to cause alot of problems with their Kurdish minority, unless they somehow form a common front, which is unlikely.
The fact that turkey managed to surpress the Kurds politically so much otl is also due to the economic strength turkey gained post ww2 and the general economic strength of the Asia minor coast and Istanbul. I would definitely see turkey become a stronger power by the 80s simply by population, but poverty will be large and greece will probably have a bit more of a modern economy.
I might be completely wrong, but this timeline is going to affect the butterfly effect to the max during the cold war( which is what I expect lascaris to do)
Crisises will be different, mindsets will be different, head of states will be different. Hell we have no idea who could end up being Stalin's succesor, for all we can see it could be beria of all people.
Or he lives long enough to launch a Second Great Purge here, meaning someone like Suslov or Pervukhin could take over TTL's USSR.
If it's a Serbian WAllies allied Yugoslavia Vs a Croatian USSR allied Yugoslavia civil war Bosnia will be the battlefield where this takes place, and no one's going to be nice to the Bosnians.
Tbf I want to see him do a purge on the Jews to make communism connected to antisemitism.
Honestly, communism in the ussr was already quite antisemetic, at least Stalin was. The doctors plot for instance. I for one hope that the world at large ends up less xenophobic as much as it (arguably) is today otl
I know your position that is a yes and I agree. The 1980s- Kurdish War has been a significant blow to the turkish economy that could have had a 7-8% higher GDP. Not to mention that if there is not an independent Kurdistan in TTL, the kurdish population of Turkey will be an ever higher percentage. Only a federal state would work in the long run and I am not sure it such proposal would be very plausible. So, Turkey without Kurdistan will have less civil strife and will be richer.
I would very much like to read a bit of your sources. I'm interested in the value of the land where the Kurdish minorities reside in and how much value it brought in natural resources towards the modern gdp, but finding reliable sources about the Kurds in Turkey is quite tough
I think having communism be connected to antisemitism would help since it discredits any authoritarian regime which helps with being less racist and xenophobic.
Major source of resource is the Euphrates and Tigris rivers that Turkey could potentially lose access to in the post war status. Drastic changes in the Middle East with the rivers rights changing hands.
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Estimating the economic cost of Turkey’s PKK conflict
Turkey’s conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has had a deeply negative effect on the regions most affected by the violence. But what has the overall economic cost been to Turkey as a w…
blogs.lse.ac.uk
However, the loss of population would lower initially the GDP. So, I think it will be less than the 14% the paper claims.
Naturally, these are ball park figures at best. But the main point stands: a prolonged conflict is an expensive endeavor. Not to mention that in TTL, if Turkey kept Kurdistan, the Kurds would end up to be 1/3 -1/2 of the total population. If anything, in TTL the civil strife would have been much more brutal.
Having said that, a Turkey that will possibly lose the chrome ore of former Italian Caria, Kurdistan's chrome, copper and oil alongside with Artvin's copper, will be a much poorer Turkey compared to its TTL 1923 borders.
It will be tough to predict how turkey will stand, as above all else, turkey is one of the most unique nations in the world. How the first rulers of post war turkey decide to channel the unique Turkish culture will decide how they fare in the future. From An Afghanistan to a more liberal government is all possible. Of course, unless turkey is partitioned