Great Britain, the Balkans, and Turkey in the Autumn of 1939

Abstract

policy in south-eastern Europe in the first months of the Second World War has been virtually ignored by historians, 1 largely because the war did not spread to the region until the end of 1940. Even historians primarily concerned with British policy in the Balkans have presented the period through 1940 as mere prelude to the real war, and French proposals to re-create the Balkan front of the First World War have been dismissed as the height of folly. The opening of the archives led to no revision of earlier impressions, mainly because no action in the Balkans was possible without the active assistance of Turkey, and Turkey's later behaviour has led to the assumption that her active assistance could never have been obtained. Certainly the Turks had never shown any desire to go to war with Germany, being interested only in war with Italy, and war with Italy was ruled out. The value to the Allies of Mussolini's nonbelligerence was taken for granted.1