WWII Participants

[Couvi]

This question has no equine relationship, but I was asked recently why Spain, Portugal and Turkey did not participate in WWII. I know that Spain had just ended it own Civil War, so, they were exhausted, but the other two both participated in WWI, but were remarkably absent in WWII.

I seek your opinions. That goes for lurkers, too.

[Sam Cox]

Maybe they went war sucks!

I think Turkey was under a lot of pressure to remain neutral (internal and external)

[wkambic]

I don’t know about Portugal and Turkey.

But Spain was active in supporting the Axis.

German military help put Gen. Franco into power during the Spanish Civil War. The Republican cause (probably more correctly called the People’s Republican cause) was supported by the Soviet Union. When the War began Spain offered to join the Axis in the summer of 1940 (probably to get a slice of So. France). Hitler was unwilling to share the spoils, so he refused the offer. By the fall of 1942, with the Russian offensive going badly, he invited Franco to join in but El Caudillo demurred.

Spain did provide economic, political, and intelligence service to the Axis. German ships, interned in neutral Spain, are believed to have provided material support to U-boats operating off the Spanish coast in the form of food and fuel. After the War it’s widely believed that Spain was a major route for Nazis escaping to South America.

[Couvi]

The Blue Division fought for the Germans in Russia, but they were mostly volunteers, if I recall correctly.

[Pat Holscher]

I don’t know about Portugal and Turkey.

But Spain was active in supporting the Axis.

German military help put Gen. Franco into power during the Spanish Civil War. The Republican cause (probably more correctly called the People’s Republican cause) was supported by the Soviet Union. When the War began Spain offered to join the Axis in the summer of 1940 (probably to get a slice of So. France). Hitler was unwilling to share the spoils, so he refused the offer. By the fall of 1942, with the Russian offensive going badly, he invited Franco to join in but El Caudillo demurred.

Spain did provide economic, political, and intelligence service to the Axis. German ships, interned in neutral Spain, are believed to have provided material support to U-boats operating off the Spanish coast in the form of food and fuel. After the War it’s widely believed that Spain was a major route for Nazis escaping to South America.

Spain's participation was even more extensive than that, it's just overlooked. Truth be known, Spain was in the category of quasi belligerent, or near belligerent, just like Ireland. Spain in particular was so active in the war that the Allies had a causi belli to declare war on it, but elected not to.

Spain allowed the Luftwaffe to use airfields in northern Spain early in the Battle of Britain. That is, the Luftwaffe flew air missions out of Spain directed towards bombing runs in the UK. That only ceased because the British made it known to the Spanish that they were aware of it, and would hit Spanish airfields if the Spanish didn't stop allowing it.

The Spanish did stop allowing it, but they did continue to allow Spanish territory to be used for long range Luftwaffe maritime patrolling. Those flights were used to spot British shipping and relay the positions.

The Spanish also allowed their ports to be used, on a clandestine basis, for German u-boats.

All of this, by the way, is covered in Preston's excellent book on Franco.

The Spanish Blue Division has been noted. As Couvi notes, they were Spanish volunteers, but more than a few were Spanish uniformed volunteers. That is, Spain allowed men serving in their army to take positions in the Blue Division. And at first it was a Spanish division on the Eastern front. It became a German SS division in name, when the English complained about it.

All of this was regarded as sufficient by Churchill's advisers to recommend him asking for a declaration of war. It's to Churchill's credit that he chose to disregard the advice, including making that known to FDR, who was generally in favor of it. Churchill was of the opinion that Spain would blow whichever way the wind was blowing, and ultimately he was proven right. After Torch, Spain started being a lot less friendly to the Germans.

So, of course, that still leaves the question, why didn't they throw in fully with the Germans? We'll never really know as Franco was exceedingly hard to read, and after all this time, he remains a mystery in a lot of ways. What we do know is that Franco was not a fascist, which is often misunderstood. He was a Spanish nationalist, and an arch conservative, but he was never in the falange party, and he never was a fascist. He was naturally allied to the Nazis and Italian fascists, in part through convenience. But he always hedged his bets. There are some who suspect that in one significant battle of the Spanish Civil War he actually operated to get a lot of Italian fascists volunteers killed, simply because he wanted to make sure that the message was sent that nobody had a hold over him. He wooed the Germans in the late 30s, but he also briefly wooed the Soviet Union as well, a fact that's completely forgotten. He used the falange as they had no where else to go, but he also jailed them from time to time as well. He's hard to figure.

He was also extremely smart, and extremely adept on how things were going. Spain was flat on its back after the Spanish Civil War, and Franco knew that Spain couldn't endure another war. He also knew that if he resisted Germany too much, he'd endure a German invasion. He probably was sympathetic to the German cause, but too shrewd to throw in with it. He was also receiving intelligence from Canaris as to what the Germans were up to, and was generally one step ahead of the Germans.

What would have made the difference for Franco was French Morocco. Had the Germans given Spain French Morocco, he would have thrown in with them. Spain basically indicated that. But Germany couldn't' do that, as that would have alienated Vichy France, which is some ways acted in a similar manner to Spain during its period (it also sent volunteers to the Eastern Front, etc.).

I think Turkey was under a lot of pressure to remain neutral (internal and external)

The Germans attempted to seduce Turkey into the war, but Turkey in the WWII time frame was a much different nation than it had been during World War One. Germany continually asked Turkey to come in, but it never seriously considered it. Germany even supplied the Turks with some arms, particularly in the form of incomplete Polish 98 rifles, which ended up being refinished as Turkish rifles.

The big difference was that Turkey ended World War One with a revolution which tossed out the Ottomans and caused Turkey to become an intensely nationalistic state, with a military government, bent on modernizing it. As such, it was really focused on the Turkic regions of the USSR as territory it wished to acquire for national regions, which it tried to do in the early 1920s. The German effort in WWII had very little to offer it. It had no designs on European territory, and it didn't wish to resume occupying any part of the Ottoman Empire in Arabia. Germany and Italy had neatly taken out its ancient enemy, Greece, with no Turkish participation. It probably did cast an envious eye on the Turkic regions of the USSR, but having fought their once already within the prior 20 years, Turkey seems to have had no illusions about the chances of German success. And Germany was allied with some Balkan nations that the Turks generally did not get along with.

Turkey actually was a WWII belligerent, however. It declared war on Germany during the last few days of the war.

. . .I was asked recently why Spain, Portugal and Turkey did not participate in WWII

Portugal was under the dictatorship of what would prove to be Europe's longest running single dictator. I've forgotten his name, but he came to control the country early, and his control lasted forever.

Portugal is an odd state anyway, in that it is really almost a part of Spain, but doesn't want to be, and the Spanish seem generally content with that. During WWII, Portugal was insulated from Germany by Spain, but probably spent a lot of that time worrying about Spain. If Spain had gone over to the Germans, there's every reason to believe that would have been it for Portugal. The German ethnic expansionist credo infected its allies and it would have been apparent to Portugal that the same odd belief that would allow the Italians to think that the Albanians wanted to be Italians, or maybe really were Italians. . .or that caused the Germans to feel that isolated populations of "Germans" all over Europe should be sent back to Germany, even if they didn't speak German, would cause a Spain allied to Germany to conclude that Portugal was Spanish. In short, there was never any advantage to Portugal really becoming a German ally.

Additionally, Portugal had been a British ally all the way back to the Napoleonic wars, and those old ties still were influential, after all those years.

This is an interesting topic, and I'd note that it doesn't really stop with these three nations. There's a lot of questions that are related that are very interesting, but rarely considered. For example, how is it that Algerians were so loyal to Free France during WWII that they comprised a very significant percentage of Free French forces by 1944, but then rebelled in the 1950s (I think I know the answer, but I'm throwing it out)? Why is it that some regard Ireland as disloyal to Western nations due to WWII, while in truth Ireland was to the UK what Spain was to Germany, a near belligerent? Was India a military asset or debt to the UK during the war? And so on.

[Sam Cox]

My brothers sister in law (??) is a Basque and lost family at Guernica,prior to that event her family was Nationalist
Anti royal but pro church and very suspicious of all politics,her dad (born in 1939) is a pretty interesting chap,his family took in refugees from France when ww2 opened up and then themselves (in 43 went over the border to France for shelter from Anti Basque militias

[Couvi]

There is some very interesting data coming out of this thread!

[Pat Holscher]

There is some very interesting data coming out of this thread!

I think I'll post the question in regards to Portugal on the WWII List and see what responses it gets. In thinking about it, there's a lot about Portugal in this period that really is murky.

On Spain, one thing that really occurs to me every time its role in World War Two comes up is that Spain's history from 1918 to 1970 is very heavily colored by our recollections of what occurred in World War Two. While Spain has a history in regards to World War Two, the moral history of World War Two is so dominant in regards to the 1930s and 1940s that it is imposed over the top of Spain's own history, which makes that history inaccurate. It's been popular since 1939 to claim that the Spanish Civil War was the "dress rehearsal" for World War Two, but that's only true in so far as that claim applies to the Germans, and not anyone else. Germany did send a lot of its newer equipment to the Spanish Civil War and learned lessons regarding its equipment, but it was really the only power for which that claim can be made. Italy sent a lot of its equipment too, which was actually more up to date and probably better than the German equipment at the time, but it's support was that, support, and it can't really be claimed that Italy learned a lot of lessons in Spain. In actuality, the most ardent Italian fascists of military age were killed in Spain, so Italy's decline probably began during the Spanish Civil War. The USSR sent a lot of stuff to the Spanish Republicans as well, but it can't be claimed that they learned anything, as they were still acting stupidly militarily in 1939-40 when they put in an anemic performance in Poland and a pathetic one in Finland, and then turned around to get nearly mowed over by the Germans.

Anyhow, the fact of WWII, and the use of Soviet. German, and Italian equipment in the Spanish Civil War tends to cause us to think that the Spanish Civil War was a contest between democrats and fascists, which it wasn't. There were Spanish democrats, but they'd lost their influence in the months leading up Communist and radical Socialist seizure of power in the Parliament, followed by the right wing Army revolt. When the civil war broke out, democrats rapidly disappeared as a serious force. The "Republican" side of the fight fairly rapidly fell to Communist domination, which is an uncomfortable fact for those who like to look back on it fondly. Indeed, when it appeared that the Republicans would win, the Communist controlled from Moscow, and there were some, including Soviet citizens sent to the war, started eliminating the other left wing principals, in the good old Bolshevik style. That helped doom their cause, as they were premature and were killing their own effectives by doing that. Only in the Basque region were those fighting Franco not really dominated by the Communist, but were independent given the long history of Basque independence. That leaves us with the uncomfortable truth that those foreign fighters who went to fight the Nationalist, who have been so lauded by people like Hemingway, were either Communist, near Communist, or dupes. That would include Hemmingway, who was in my view a dupe. World War Two allowed these people to escape the true meaning of their allegiance to the "Republican" cause.

The Spanish Nationalist, for their part, were not fascist controlled, although the Spanish falange party supported the Nationalist. The falange, to a degree, ended up being dupes, as they no doubt always hoped that supporting Franco would lead them into power, which it never did. That doesn't make Franco a sweetheart by any means, however. The Nationalist did not really fight the war very adeptly, but persevered due to having a united military command, which fell to Franco fairly early, the military resources of the former state, for the most part, and a willingness to really engage in massive bloodletting on the battlefield. Some Spanish Civil War battles won by the Nationalist seem to have been intentionally prolonged simply to kill a lot of Republicans. It was a nasty war, but to use the term already noted above by Bill, Franco was a traditional caudillo, and acted like one.

I suppose the question would be what that has to do with Couvi's original question, but it actually has quite a lot to do with it. Franco was a Spanish Nationalist. For him, the traditional Spanish state was of supreme importance, and Spain's traditional imperial interests in issue. Franco was basically a monarchist at heart, but of the view that there simply wasn't a crown that was strong enough to do what he thought had to be done. It's telling that, in the end, he turned power back over to the crown, something almost unimaginable at the time he did it in any other nation. Franco probably had a lot more in common with Bismark or Hindenberg than with Hitler. Indeed, some of what he was seeking to protect, traditional European conservatism, the Church, the monarchical idea, were things that were the Nazis were seeking to destroy in Germany. Had Franco been a German, he'd have much more likely been in the group of Germans who tried to kill Hitler during WWII who were of a similar mindset, and who were also not democrats, common to what we commonly like to imagine. Anyhow, given that, and Franco's world view, really getting into World War Two probably only made sense at first in 1940, when Spain might have been able to pick up a little territory in the Basque region, and also French Morocco, and then again in the 1940 to 1943 time frame if, but only if, Germany were to hand over French Morocco to it. But if it had joined the war under those conditions, what it really would have been doing is boosting Spanish imperialism, and not much else, something that the Germans had no reason to support. Otherwise, their support to Germany was probably a natural one for two extreme right wing nations, and probably a little cynical on Spain's part in knowing where its bread was buttered.

I'm straying way off topic, but one thing I'd also note is that Spain sort of oddly benefited from the Germans during and after the war in that it was constantly requesting military equipment from Germany with the vague suggestion that if only it had X more stuff, it would be ready for the war. Germany was never able to supply its own equipment needs but, none the less, it found itself sending military equipment to Spain. For years after WWII the Spanish armed forces made a great movie stand in for the German armed forces of WWII for that reason. Spain only supplied Germany with pistols, in terms of arms, although it did supply critical raw materials to Germany.

On that, the German vision for Spain was that it would be a rural economic colony of Germany, supplying raw materials and agricultural products to Germany post war, in the New World Order. Franco benefited from intelligence supplied to him by Canaris, and I've sometimes wondered if he knew that was supposed to be Spain's fate. He probably didn't, but if he had, he would certainly have had cause to hedge his bets.

Finally, post war, Spain not only became a conduit out for fleeing Germans, but it also picked up some German industry. Hecklar & Koch got its start in post war Spain, for example.

[Pat Holscher]

The Blue Division fought for the Germans in Russia, but they were mostly volunteers, if I recall correctly.

On the Blue Division, and keeping related to what I just noted in my long winded dissertation which mentions dupage, one thing to always keep in mind regarding Franco is that a lot of what occurred at any one time often seem to have served multiple purposes, which means that Franco can probably genuinely be regarded as a political genius, or extraordinary lucky. It's hard to tell which is which.

The reason that I mention this is that once Franco defeated the Republicans one of his early main concerns were the Falangist, that is the Spanish Fascists. People like to imagine that the Spanish Nationalist were Falangist, but in truth Falangist were nationalist, but many Spanish nationalist were not Falangist. Franco was not a Falangist, although he'd flirt with them when it served his purpose.

Anyhow, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union it provided Franco with the opportunity to show his sympathy with the Germans through the provision of a division. This would seem to have been designed out of genuine sympathy with a desire to help the Germans stamp out the USSR.

However, it has been noted that at the time that Franco did this, what he did was to allow Falangist Spanish army officer to raise the division out of the Spanish army. It really was a Spanish division. But it was a Spanish division that was made up of volunteers who leaned heavily towards the Falangist, who were the sort of folks enthusiastic about this sort of project. The division was also German equipped. Some have noted that that the raising of the division came at a point in time in which there was growing Falangist agitation in Spain, and Franco seems to have been concerned that the Falangist might be angling for power.

So, by raising the division in the way he did, he not only showed his support to the Germans, but he distracted the Falangist and gave them a project they liked, which incidentally also gave them something to do outside of Spain. And, of course, a lot of them got killed doing it. When the UK complained to Spain about a division being inconsistent with neutrality, Spain expressed surprise, but its' interesting action was to allow the division to go over to being a German one, as part of the SS, but still made up of Spaniards. So the net result of it was to support Germany, but to also funnel the most radial of young Spanish Falangist into the Eastern Front. By extension, the Falangist could hardly agitate in Spain, as they'd receive the natural reply "why aren't you off fighting in Russia".

Brilliant strategy or shear luck? Nobody will ever know.

[wkambic]

It might be worth noting that Franco would rule Spain until his death in 1975. Does a dictator get nearly 40 years "in the saddle" by luck or skill? Interesting question.

[Pat Holscher]

It might be worth noting that Franco would rule Spain until his death in 1975. Does a dictator get nearly 40 years "in the saddle" by luck or skill? Interesting question.

I finally looked it up and found that Portuguese strongman during this period was Antonio Salazar, although is authority over Portugal was not as absolute as Franco's over Spain. He ruled from 1932 to 1968, dying in 1970. The last two years of his life he was not in power as he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1968. He was expected to die at that time, but recovered lucidity and was simply not told that he'd been replaced.

In looking him up, I saw where Portugal had port rights to the British Navy and of course allowed the US to take over the Azores during the war, about as far as it could go without risking German invasion.

[Couvi]

I once tried to read a book on the Spanish Civil War and found it so confusing that I gave up after about a hundred pages. While there were major parties belligerent to each other, it seemed like each company-sized unit was its own commander. Units could, and did, change sides frequently. Additionally, the unions further complicated the mess. The names were so confusing and determining their allegiances practically impossible. The “Catholic Teachers Union” was actually Communist coal miners; the “Communist Coal Miners Union” was actually Lithuanian Gypsies, the “Monarchist Union” was actually Catholic coal miners, etc, and it went on like that with ever-bewildering complexity. As I said, I just gave up! I wonder if the major warring powers just looked at that and determined it was easier to leave it alone than to clear up that mess.

[Pat Holscher]

I once tried to read a book on the Spanish Civil War and found it so confusing that I gave up after about a hundred pages. While there were major parties belligerent to each other, it seemed like each company-sized unit was its own commander. Units could, and did, change sides frequently. Additionally, the unions further complicated the mess. The names were so confusing and determining their allegiances practically impossible. The “Catholic Teachers Union” was actually Communist coal miners; the “Communist Coal Miners Union” was actually Lithuanian Gypsies, the “Monarchist Union” was actually Catholic coal miners, etc, and it went on like that with ever-bewildering complexity. As I said, I just gave up! I wonder if the major warring powers just looked at that and determined it was easier to leave it alone than to clear up that mess.

Preston's biography of Franco gives a really good treatment of the Spanish Civil War. Preston isn't sympathetic to Franco, but he is very objective, and he explains what lead up to the Civil War, and its nature, very well.

The Russian Revolution and civil war is exceedingly complicated and reminds me of your description. We always hear about the Whites and the Reds, but there were also the Greens, who fought both the Whites and the Reds. Nationalist movements attempted to lead their areas out of Russian control, and in some instances managed to do it. In one of those examples, Finland, the country fell into its own civil war with the Finnish Whites fighting the Finnish Reds. The Whites never had a single leadership and in some instances local zones of control sprang up that were dominated by a White commander. During the initial stages of the revolution, the Reds were as dangerous to each others factions as they were to the Whites.

[wkambic]

We Americans have a tendency to view revolutions through a lens that only permits the passage of two colors: black and white.

This tendency is demonstrated in many histories of revolutions (including our own) and in the current media treatment of the so-called “Arab Spring.” Indeed this tendency drove some very bad decisions that caused us a lot of grief in the aftermath of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Very few revolutions have just two sides. Almost all are multi-lateral, literally, with currents, cross currents, and undercurrents of interests of virtually every member of society. In general, the side with the best organization wins. Sometimes this organizational success is political (“jawboning” folks by talking them into a more common cause). Sometimes the jawbone is used “Samson Style” to beat the opposition into submission to some central authority.

Spain, prior to the Revolution, was nominally a “democratic” country with a parliament. In reality it was less than that, with multiple factions vying for power and an increasingly ineffective government. Spain had also been a declining power for decades. I’ve read that their defeat in the Spanish-American War caused deep social unrest that had only been exacerbated by the Great Depression. It was at least as ripe for revolution as Russia had been in 1917. The leftist wave that swept over Europe and the Americas in the wake of the Great Depression spurred that side of the political equation to action, provoking a re-action from the right. And the game was on.

[Pat Holscher]

We Americans have a tendency to view revolutions through a lens that only permits the passage of two colors: black and white.

This tendency is demonstrated in many histories of revolutions (including our own) and in the current media treatment of the so-called “Arab Spring.” Indeed this tendency drove some very bad decisions that caused us a lot of grief in the aftermath of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Very few revolutions have just two sides. Almost all are multi-lateral, literally, with currents, cross currents, and undercurrents of interests of virtually every member of society. In general, the side with the best organization wins. Sometimes this organizational success is political (“jawboning” folks by talking them into a more common cause). Sometimes the jawbone is used “Samson Style” to beat the opposition into submission to some central authority.

Spain, prior to the Revolution, was nominally a “democratic” country with a parliament. In reality it was less than that, with multiple factions vying for power and an increasingly ineffective government. Spain had also been a declining power for decades. I’ve read that their defeat in the Spanish-American War caused deep social unrest that had only been exacerbated by the Great Depression. It was at least as ripe for revolution as Russia had been in 1917. The leftist wave that swept over Europe and the Americas in the wake of the Great Depression spurred that side of the political equation to action, provoking a re-action from the right. And the game was on.

Those are excellent points.

To add just slightly, one of the weird twists in modern history is what you mentioned about the Spanish American War. You are quite correct and, moreover, the Spain's defeat stripped away illusions about the Spanish monarchy and left an officer class, that was very loyal to it, loyal to the idea of a monarchy without having a monarch worth being loyal to. That reflected itself in the Spanish Civil War in that, at heart, officers like Franco were monarchist, but they didn't feel that they had monarch who could be trusted. It's telling that Franco eventually turned the government back over to a king.

Additionally, a really uncomfortable fact for us in long running Western democracies is that democratic behavior is not instinctive in people, but we often tend to think it is. Actually, human instinct runs counter to democracy, and democratic behavior has to be learned in order for it to be ingrained in a culture at a large level. People tend to be tribal, and perhaps democratic within that small loyalty. That matters here, as Spain did not have a developed democratic culture and was falling into sectarian strife. Spanish democracy was doomed as hardly anyone in Spain believed in democracy. Spain might have developed into a full parliamentary democracy given enough time (and of course it ultimately did) but when things went down the tubes in the Great Depression, people rushed to their basic economic or social tribes, with the left wanting a radical Spain for the "workers", the anarchist wanting a peasant Utopia, the Basques wanting out, and the right wanting the ideal of what they imagined a traditional Spain to be.

[Pat Holscher]

Regarding Turkey, I guess one of the natural questions here is why we would conceive of Turkey as a potential German ally? The answer to that seems to be because they were a German ally in World War One.

But that raises the question of why they threw in with Germany in WWI. They signed a secret treaty with the Germans literally days before the war started, but why? The only reason I can think of is that the Ottoman Empire was going down the tubes and they were hoping that forming an alliance with some European state would save them. Otherwise, I can't think of much that it would get them, other than into trouble. The though seems to have been that getting into an alliance with Germany would get them help from a powerful friend, as they were staring to loose territory everywhere.

[wkambic]

IIRC the Ottomans were traditional enemies of the Russian Empire. Since Germany would also be taking on the Russians the Ottomans may have been following the mantra of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

[hbtoday98]

Regarding Turkey, I guess one of the natural questions here is why we would conceive of Turkey as a potential German ally? The answer to that seems to be because they were a German ally in World War One.

But that raises the question of why they threw in with Germany in WWI. They signed a secret treaty with the Germans literally days before the war started, but why? The only reason I can think of is that the Ottoman Empire was going down the tubes and they were hoping that forming an alliance with some European state would save them. Otherwise, I can't think of much that it would get them, other than into trouble. The though seems to have been that getting into an alliance with Germany would get them help from a powerful friend, as they were staring to loose territory everywhere.

It is my understanding that German companys won contracts to build railways these railways threaten India and Suez. these railway took income off the caravans taking pilgrams to Mecca.The British also took two battleships with out paying for them that Turkey had being built in England.The war office made plans around these theats and Churchill instigited them pushing the Turks away.
Germans need artillary and arms and millitary training.
the caravans allied with the British
the very brief
ww2 the map of Turkey is much smaller and Churchill sends war materals[ we use for display a Vickers machine that was converted to 7.5 mm sent to Turkey ww2 1942]

Pat you can fill that up bit cheers mal

[Pat Holscher]

It is my understanding that German companys won contracts to build railways these railways threaten India and Suez. these railway took income off the caravans taking pilgrams to Mecca.The British also took two battleships with out paying for them that Turkey had being built in England.The war office made plans around these theats and Churchill instigited them pushing the Turks away.
Germans need artillary and arms and millitary training.
the caravans allied with the British
the very brief
ww2 the map of Turkey is much smaller and Churchill sends war materals[ we use for display a Vickers machine that was converted to 7.5 mm sent to Turkey ww2 1942]

Pat you can fill that up bit cheers mal

It's a bit more complicated than that, but all those elements are in there.

Turkey had fit into an uncomfortable place in Europe since almost day one. Indeed, it has from day one. The Turks are a Central Asian people originally who invaded what is now Turkey but which was the Byzantine Empire in its waning days. Prior to that, the land of Turkey was a heavily Hellenized state, and some Greeks people remain even today. As recently as the early days of modern Turkey, following World War One, the Turkish government looked east on the Turkic regions of the Soviet Union as their ancestral home, which they wished to unite into the new Turkish state. The commitment of British troops prevented that, which is an example of one of those weird historical twists of fate, as the British, intervening in Russia during the Russian Civil War, defeated the Turks, who were defeating the weakened Russians, thereby preserving this area for the Soviet Union.

Anyhow, as noted above, the Ottoman Turks expanded into Arabia, but they also expanded a bit into Europe, and they didn't get along at all well with the Russians, for the most part. There are a lot of elements of this but a significant one is that the spread of the Ottoman Empire was, by default, the spread of Islam, which was a threat in Central Europe. Additionally, the Ottoman occupation of Constantinople was of very significant consequence to the Russians, as Constantinople was the traditional seat of the Orthodox Church (although at the time of the fall of Constantinople the church in Constantinople had reconciled with Rome, so even this is more complicated than it would seem). The fact of Ottoman occupation of Constantinople meant that the Russian Orthodox Church was the most significant Orthodox church, and that Russia saw itself as the only powerful state capable of defending the Orthodox. A muted goal of Russian policy for eons was the ejection of the Turks from Constantinople.

Even here, however, ironies about. During Peter the Great's time in office, Peter found himself somewhat occasionally at odds with Imperial France, whose crown insisted on supporting the Ottomans mostly because the Ottomans opposed the Russians, and the French saw it in their interest to block that. During the reign of Alexander 1, I believe, the Russians had the opportunity to actually intervene in the Ottoman Empire and achieve its goal, but it failed to do so as that particular Russian Czar (if I have the right one, and I might not) supported the Ottoman crown as it couldn't see its way to supporting a revolution in Turkey that was led by folks who were anti crown, if only anti Ottoman crown. That whole weird episode actually preserved the Ottoman Empire, weakened though it was, for another day, although ironically had Russia acted according to its traditional interest, it could have done the Ottoman's in, ejected them from Constantinople, and there'd be some sort of expanded Greek state there today.

Anyhow, I'm going to skip the entire history after that, including the Crimean War, and go up to World War One. I think at that point the items pointed out above are all excellent points. The Ottoman Empire was rotting away and wasn't going to be able to control the Arabian states it occupied. The British were already occupying some of their territory in Egypt, and other theoretically Ottoman regions were falling to European states that took them, such as Egypt, but then allowed them to remain under technical Ottoman control. There was no way that was going to last, and the Ottoman's knew it.

Immediately prior to WWI the Turks fought two wars against Europeans and didn't do very well in either. They fought one in the Balkans, and in 1912 they fought another against Italy. In both instances they fared poorly.

Those wars also serve, I think, to illustrate the frequent claim that Europe had been at peace since 1870 is complete baloney.

Anyhow, how that leads up to the Germans I'm not clear. But Germany, much like the US in later years, or the Soviet Union during the Cold War, had a policy of encouraging alliances through the provision of nifty stuff. In the case of the Germans, that meant principally arms, and the Turks were good customers. It also meant railroads, however. As you note, the railroads had multiple purposes, or at least it was worrisome that they did. A German railway through Iraq looked like it might be useful for ferrying troops, German or Ottoman, through Iraq to the Indian frontier, perhaps. And so on. To the Ottomans, however, the railroads also had the hopeful purpose of uniting their empire in the same what that the trans Pacific railways in North America had seemed to unite the US and Canada, or the Trans Siberian Railway had united Imperial Russia. It made good sense. Ironically again, the railways mostly served to be liabilities to the Turks during WWI as they couldn't be seen to abandon them, to it committed them to fight over territory that they couldn't really hold, and which had no other strategic value.

As for British blundering leading the Turks into war, that point has often been made and there is some truth to it. But, taking the long view, it's sort of hard to see how the Turks could have avoided the war due to the situation they found themselves in, and had gotten themselves into, by 1914. In 1912 they'd fought the Italians already. They were always at knife's edge with the Greeks. They'd fought the Balkan states prior to the Italians, and it was clear that the Balkan states didn't care for the German ally of Austria. The Russians were always there, as already noted, probably hoping to push the Turks out of Constantinople and hand it over to the Greeks, while getting free Dardanelles rights. The British were in Egypt already. The Italians were probably looking to put the finishing touch on Libya, which they'd only just acquired. The Germans probably just occupied their position cynically, on the same basis that the French had earlier, thinking that a country that was the enemy of so many of their potential enemies, was a good one to encourage to get into the spat.

As also earlier noted, WWI changed everything for Turkey, and probably ironically for the better. Most areas of the Ottoman Empire were a big pain to govern, and it's telling that the European states that took parts of the Ottoman Empire didn't hold on to them long. Some parts of the former Ottoman Empire have gone on to be big pains even unto the present day. They were a drain on the Ottomans, and loosing those areas helped Turkey become a real state. By WWII, it was much better off than it had been, and perhaps the big difference between WWI and WWII as they didn't have to get into the war, as they didn't have any territory they had to hold on to and were in danger of loosing.

An interesting historical what if is what would have occurred had the Turks achieved their goal of taking the neighboring Turkic regions of the Russian Empire during the Russian Civil War. It would have more than doubled their territory, and they no doubt would have exploited their acquisition a great deal in the 20s and 30s. There was never any chance of that occuring, given the British presence and opposition in the region, but there were other parts of the Russian Empire that succeeded in breaking away in that period, including the Baltic States and Finland (and briefly Ukraine). That would have made Turkey a much larger, important, state, but it would also have made it an undoubtedly Central Asian nation, and one which couldn't have avoided WWII, I suspect, as the Soviet Union attacked all of the countries it had lost territory from by 1939.

[Pat Holscher]

Let me reverse the question a bit, and put a spin on it. We've been looking at three countries that sat the war out, in varying degrees, and asking why they did that, or how them managed to that.

But there's a few that you can look at and wonder what the heck they were thinking at the time. We probably all have our ideas on those questions, but I'll toss those out.

That Germany, Italy and Japan ended up doing what they did is simple enough to discuss, but what about Romania and Hungary? Romania and Hungary threw in with the Germans and not in the same way that Finland did, with a clear very limited goal that made some sense. Why did Hungary and Romania choose to participate in the invasion of their massive neighbor, at a time in which the Germans had already shown that they couldn't figure out how to finish the war with the UK, and truth be known, it wasn't powerful enough to defeat the UK (in my opinion, one of the great myths of WWII is that the British were flat on their backs in 1940. . .they were a formidable force in 1940 and were outproducing the Germans in stuff that mattered).

Likewise, what were the Thais thinking when they threw in with the Japanese?

And what were the Iraqis thinking when they threw in with the Germans? Not a very smart move.