Turco-British relations on the eve of the Second World War

Abstract

The First World War failed to resolve the basic conflicts among the European powers. Injustices inherent in the Versailles peace settlement only aggravated the complicated national questions which bedevilled the whole of Europe. The military, political and economic developments that followed 1918 drove the European world towards a new grouping of powers. At the beginning of the 1930s the countries of the Balkan Peninsula once more became the stage for an acute struggle among the largest nations in the world. The interests of Britain, France, Germany and Italy clashed, as the Balkan countries occupied a crucial position on the East-West route. The conflicts among the greater European states, sharpened on the eve of the Second World War, aggravated the political situation in the Balkans and impeded the realization of the regional diplomatic plans of both Western countries and of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Hence a closer scrutiny of the distribution of power in south-eastern Europe and the Near East during the late 1930s, as well as the policy of the great powers vis-a-vis this area may help to grasp better the complex international configuration prevailing in Europe on the brink of war.