WW1, Allies promise....

[Duque de Bragança]

Originally posted by Sokollu


In your dreams. Istanbul will always be Istanbul.


But you should consider Russians lucky, because if Koca Mustafa Pasha hadn't accepted the favors of Catherina, Moscow would be called Sultaniye.

Whatever... In Russian, Byzantium or Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, was called Tsarigrad " the city of the tsars or Caesars".
Russia would keep it as Constantinople but would refer to it as Tsarigrad.
As a matter of fact, Istanbul only gained recognition, as a toponym, with Atatürk. In the West i mean.

 

[unmerged(6657)]

Originally posted by PMLF
I have read somewhere that Constantinople would be some kind of International City instead of being given to Russia or Greece.

Would this be a city on line with Danzig in Germany?? The problem with making it in int'l city is that the treaties of 1918 said that all non-Turkish parts of the Ottoman Empire should be dismantled per the concept of national self-determination, so it would be tough to justify taking Istanbul away from the Turks since it is a Turkish city. The Allies could have had to come up with an entire new concept to rationalize the seizing of land from the defeated powers.

 

[Agelastus]

Originally posted by BRYCON316
Would this be a city on line with Danzig in Germany?? The problem with making it in int'l city is that the treaties of 1918 said that all non-Turkish parts of the Ottoman Empire should be dismantled per the concept of national self-determination, so it would be tough to justify taking Istanbul away from the Turks since it is a Turkish city. The Allies could have had to come up with an entire new concept to rationalize the seizing of land from the defeated powers.

The straits were supposed to become a "de-militarised" zone under international (read French and British) control, if I recall some of the schemes correctly-over a dozen were actually conceived during WWI by various treaties among the Allies!

"Free city" status wasn't exactly a new idea, and had been done before in international treaties.

 

[Jayavarman]

If I remember correctly, with Russia out of the war, in 1919, the land adjacent to the Straits including Constantinople were administered internationally and were to be later turned over to Greece along with parts of western Asia Minor. The rest of Asia Minor was to be partitioned into spheres of influence of other countries such as Italy. With the failure of the Greek army in Anatolia, these plans of a Constantinople returned to the Greeks never came to be.

 

[unmerged(4989)]

It seems to me after reading Niall Ferguson's _The Pity of War_ that the British Foriegn Minister Sir Edward Grey was so keen on keeping on the good side of France and France was so keen on keeping Russia solvent that there would have been (and was) support for a Russian Bosphorus. At the outbreak of the war, Grey accepted this as a ligitimate war aim of the Russians. I beleive that the Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov had announced it as a Russian claim prior to 1914. In remember that Ferguson equates Grey's actions in this regard to the appeasement of Hitler over Czechoslovakia.

BTW--I agree that this was just European politics. If the Turks rose up and kicked the Russians out, does anyone really think that the French, much less the Brits or US, would have fought to force Russian claims on a part of the world they probably shouldn't have been in to begin with? The Brits wouldn't even have send troops to Northern Ireland to force inclusion in the Free State on Ulster if that would have been the outcome of the Home Rule issue...

 

[Jayavarman]

Originally posted by Charles V
BTW--I agree that this was just European politics. If the Turks rose up and kicked the Russians out, does anyone really think that the French, much less the Brits or US, would have fought to force Russian claims on a part of the world they probably shouldn't have been in to begin with?

Obviously not. The British, French, and U.S. were fine with the newly created Turkey under Attaturk after the Greeks got their a**es wooped in Anatolia.

 

[unmerged(4989)]

I guess the only point I was trying to make was that the Europeans could politik all they wanted, but ultimately the Turks probably had the ultimate control of the situation if there was enough of a popular revolt...

 

[idomeneas]

Just a remark Greeks went to Anatolia and were kicked out of there by KEmal Ataturk who had great economic support from France and Italy. The Greek army protected mainly the English interests in the area.

BTW in 1922 Constantinople could have fallen to the Greek army of Thrace thus creating more problems.

 

[Jayavarman]

Originally posted by idomeneas
Just a remark Greeks went to Anatolia and were kicked out of there by KEmal Ataturk who had great economic support from France and Italy. The Greek army protected mainly the English interests in the area.

BTW in 1922 Constantinople could have fallen to the Greek army of Thrace thus creating more problems.

What English interests were the Greeks protecting? Weren't they also protecting mainly their own?

Also, why would the Greeks capture Constantinople and from whom? It was under international administration. Are you saying they would have violated the Treaty of Sevres and declare war on the League of Nations?

 

[unmerged(6657)]

Originally posted by Phillip V


What English interests were the Greeks protecting? Weren't they also protecting mainly their own?

Also, why would the Greeks capture Constantinople and from whom? It was under international administration. Are you saying they would have violated the Treaty of Sevres and declare war on the League of Nations?

I don't figure the Greeks would want to capture Constantinople. They had their eyes on traditional national boundaries. The Byzantines may have been Greek in some sense, but not ethnically as a modern Greek would be. I think that Greek interests lied more in making Cyprus a part of the nation, rather than bringing Constantinople to the fold.

 

[Jayavarman]

Originally posted by BRYCON316


I don't figure the Greeks would want to capture Constantinople. They had their eyes on traditional national boundaries. The Byzantines may have been Greek in some sense, but not ethnically as a modern Greek would be. I think that Greek interests lied more in making Cyprus a part of the nation, rather than bringing Constantinople to the fold.

I hardly think so. The Greeks revered Constantinople as their capital. It was their ultimate goal. The Greeks were fighting to reclaim the old lands of the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople fell on a Tuesday. Greeks still hold Tuesdays as days of bad luck. And the Byzantines were not an ethnic group as were not the Romans. When the inhabitants of Hellas, Pelloponesus, etc. began revolting in 1821, they were revolting as Romans. It only became a Greek Revolution after the inhabitants realized that they would not secure support from the West if they were trying to resurrect the Byzantine EMpire. Rather, they posed as the descendants of the ancient Greeks.

 

[Halibutt]

Originally posted by Lord xEnderx
I've recently read that during WW1 Russia was such a major player and so valuable in defeating Germany that France and Great Britain promised to give Russia the city of Constantinople! Is there any truth to this?

Well, shortly before the war (in 1909, let's say) the Brits and the Frenchmen had two choices: either to accept German "drang nach osten" meaning their "road to Bagdad" and Austro-Hungarian plans with "road to Saloniki" or to give support to Russian plans of seizing The Straits. As simple as it is. Giving Russia Constantinople and some influence in Turkey would not harm British and French colonies the way that the Central Powers plans would, so they were practically choiceless.
Cheers