The Republic of Turkey is a transcontinental country located mainly in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is bordered by the Hellenic State and the Kingdom of Bulgaria to its west; Reichskommissariat Kaukasien to the north-east, the Imperial State of Iran to the east; the Governorate of the Levant and the Iraqi Republic to the south; and the Italian Empire to the south-west.
Ankara is the capital, but Istanbul is the country's largest city.
Turkey is ruled by the Kemalist Republican People's Party. The head of state is İsmet İnönü and the head of government is Fahri Korutürk.
History[]
Founded in 1923, the Turkish Republic has changed very much since the days of Atatürk, but it has remained very much the same in other ways. It began with Marshal İsmet İnönü being sworn in as president of the republic.
in 1938, by then a lifelong ally of Mustafa Kemal and an accomplished commander and statesman in his own right, winning his second name in commemoration of his two victories over Greek forces by the fields of İnönü in the Greco-Turkish Wars. After Turkey's Independence was won and proudly proclaimed, he distinguished himself as an able politician within the Republican People's Party (CHP), founded by Atatürk and İnönü among others soon after independence - the only party to ever rule the Turkish Republic and rising to the rank of prime minister numerous times as a supporter of statist economic policies and a hardline against dissent.
İnönü's career is filled with episodes ranging from a refusal to crack down severely on the Dersim revolt in 1937 reportedly losing him the post of prime minister; to personally presiding over the 'Report for Reform in the East' in 1925, a document which turned Kurdish provinces into military Inspectorate Generals and began the process of minority deportations; to signing into law the creation of a Turkish Grand Council of Fascism in 1938, closely modeled after Mussolini's in Italy - this being followed by Atatürk's immediate rejection. The president reportedly exclaimed that "It appears as if our prime minister signs without reading the reports he receives," and shot down the proposal while İnönü was on a diplomatic mission to Rome.
Nonetheless, İnönü's steady hand, humility, and genuine leadership were evident and agreed upon by all, and for good reason. Very few politicians could have capably responded to the winds of upheaval which arose following Germany's declaration of war against Poland in 1939, and the Republic is grateful that İnönü was one such politician. Initially neutral in the conflict due to bitter memories of the sacrifices made during the Independence Wars, İnönü nonetheless watched the situation in Europe with caution and interest.
As Germany and Italy won victory after victory the arguments for joining forces with Rome and Berlin became more and more sound. In the final stages of the conflict, following a tense three-way diplomatic incident between his government on one side and Hitler and Mussolini's ambassadors to Ankara on the other, the president issued out a declaration of war against the Allies and the Soviets both, and Turkish forces swept through the desert of Syria and the mountains of the Caucasus, claiming all of the territories of the Misak-ı Milli (National Pact) which the Republic was forced to concede in various treaties with Russia, Britain, and France soon after its inception. Great swathes of territory in the Levant, the Caucasus, and the Balkans were annexed directly into the Turkish state. Turkey had entered the war as a still-fledgling republic and left it as an empire.
All has not been well since then, and the many ills common to the old empires of the west soon caught up with the new Turkish hegemony. Cooperation with the Germans was so short-lived and outright disastrous that its two remaining landmarks are economic stagnation across Turkey due to investments that never came, and the cruel sight of the salt flats that now make up the majority of the Aegean. Relations between the two countries reached such high peaks of tension that Marshal Voroshilov of the WRRF was to receive a private letter from the Turkish president on the eve of his war against Germany, fondly recounting the time they had spent together in the 30s.
At first, it seemed like the friendships made in wartime would not survive the peace - then came the conference in Malta. Choosing to overlook the many, many border disputes and long-standing grievances between Turkey and Italy, İnönü agreed to enter the Republic into the Italian-led Triumvirate, a decision no doubt spurred by a personal friendship with the first Duce. The alliance offered a respite from the collapsing economic situation, and new friends across the Mediterranean, but it rested upon a long list of grievances that each state held against one another, ranging from the drawing of new borders over Syria and Lebanon, the Italian occupation of the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean, their unconditional support for a Greek Cyprus, and Italy's outright imperialist policies of exploiting Turkish and Spanish dependency on trade through the Suez for its own benefits.
At home, too, the Republic changed. The precedents of authoritarian rule being made in occupied Europe did indeed leave their mark on Ankara. Empires were made of vast tracts of territory, and the people over which Turkey now held dominion were firmly devoted to shaking off its influence by all means possible. The supposed benefits that came with the new territories and their natural resources subsided as German investments dried up with the shores of the Mediterranean. The CHP was left with ungrateful populations, open hostility in the provinces, and an uncertain grasp on power. It responded by rallying its allies, both in the military and in the form of nationalists that would otherwise pose a threat to the Party's rule. In a succession of laws, decrees, and proposals made by the president and various members of his cabinet over several years - some out of necessity and others out of fear - the Republic managed to retain its political structure...with some caveats.
A Grand Council of Fascism has been reintroduced as an institution of the Grand National Assembly that oversees the rejection of any laws that go against the principles of Kemalism. The military was empowered, with many of its loyal and popular members gaining seats in Parliament and on occasion in the president's cabinet. Minority rights were rolled back to the way they were in the 20s, and an expanded Report for Reform was upheld as official government policy, leading to greatly restricted rights for all non-military personnel in the minority provinces - all in an effort to "enshrine stability and create an opportunity for greater democratic participation in the future," if the president is to be believed. İnönü's regime survives propped up by three pillars: nationalism, statism, and militarism. It would appear that in this the CHP has found its winning formula; For the party has never lost an election in the past 20 years, maintaining a facade of true democracy. One movement which was defined by this trend towards authoritarianism was the Güven Partisi, or 'Trust Party' led by Turhan Feyzioğlu. Rampant nationalism influenced by the Italian school of fascism, they were instrumental in shaping the cast within which İnönü's new republic was molded.
Not all parts of the political establishment were happy with this arrangement, most notable among them are Celâl Bayar and his circle of acquaintances. Bayar was the man that replaced İnönü as prime minister after 1937. As an advocate of classical liberalism, both economic and political, and a political rival of the president, he was so opposed to the changes made following the war that he publically resigned from his post as a member of Parliament in 1948 alongside a small number of allies. This threat was met with careful maneuvering by the president, who allowed Bayar to found his own party, the Democrat Party, on the condition that he return to serve in Parliament as the leader of a loyal opposition. Having won his concessions, Bayar and his new party accepted, and have been engaged in a parliamentary stand-off with the CHP's majority ever since. In the meantime, the Güven Partisi and the Demokrat Parti led by Bayar formed the UDP (Ulusal Demokrat Parti/National Democratic Party) as a right-wing political movement. During the rally of the celebration and announcement of said alliance, Hikmet Kıvılcımlı (better known as the founder and main writer of Luminosity newspaper) commits to an act of the Propaganda of the Deed, shooting Celal Bayar yet missing him. The second bullet he fires hits Turhan Feyzioğlu, the founder of the GP, killing him instantly. This incident led to escalation by the right which eventually saw the Güven Partisi dissolved and their politicians banned at the hands of the CHP, as well as the suppression of leftist groups like TKP across the country.
Now much more moderate in their views, the UDP is slowly gaining grounds with the public with promises of a liberalized economy and political system - but never daring to undermine the regime directly, with fears of anarchy dominated by extreme wings of the political spectrum, or worse, the threat of minority revolts like those Bayar repressed in 1937 hanging in the air.
The Georgians, Thracians, Greeks, Armenians, and Arabs that taste oppression at the hands of local Turkish garrisons on a daily basis all have their grievances with the regime in Ankara; to them, it is no different to that of the fascists in Italy, especially as the economic resources of their provinces are exploited to keep the Turkish heartlands afloat with natives seeing very little of that gain. This situation was further exacerbated by Turkish intervention into Iraq in the 1950s, where Qasim's revolutionary regime found itself attacked by Italy. Rome called, and the eager nationalists of the Turkish Regime lobbied for intervention into Iraqi Kurdistan. While Italy's fortunes soon expired, earning Qasim a generous peace as long as he pledged to nominally align with Italian interests, Turkey successfully wrestled control of Kurdistan, assigning a clique of tribal leaders under Barzani aligned to Ankara as safe-keepers of the buffer provinces and beneficiaries of the oil wealth now flowing into Turkey. With that, the last of the Misak-ı Millî territories fell into Turkish control.
Minority unrest has become a common feature of political life, and the state turned to more oppressive methods to crush it every time. This heavy-handed militarism soon spread to other branches of government, supported by the military and the resurgent right. By 1962 the title "president" is rarely heard, most commonly substituted for the more formidable title of "Millî Şef."
Thus, the Millî Şef begins the year of 1962 with a long list of troubles: A stagnating economy, popular unrest rising against the CHP's 40-year rule after decades of landslide elections, and a deteriorating situation abroad.
Foreign relations[]
Turkey is a founding member of the Triumvirate. It's an international alliance and trading bloc between the Italian Empire, the Iberian Union, Turkey, the Iraqi Republic, the Hellenic State and the Independent State of Croatia. The alliance's primary purpose is to prevent Germany from truly dominating European affairs.
While Turkey was at least nominally allied to the Reich during WWII, relations have since soured and Turkey sits in their hatred of the Germans. After the war had ended, Germany rode high on its victory and saw little reason to care for the opinions of lesser nations. Turkish-German relations are abysmal due to the damming of the Mediterranean and the Dardanelles.
Because of this, alongside high military expenditure, the Turkish economy is in an extremely dire situation, with high unemployment rates alongside dissatisfaction from the people. On top of all this, tensions between Turkey and Italy are very high due to Italy owning Cyprus, Rhodes, Lebanon, and a portion of Syria, most of which Turkey considers to be rightful Turkish land.
