F I r s t d r a f t

Coudenhove-Kalergi’s view of Turkey came around completely from 1923 to 1934. Interestingly, he used Turkey’s admission to Aristide Briand’s project as justification for the change in Turkey’s status into a European country in his own project.⁴⁸¹ Moreover, in the first half of the 1930s, Coudenhove-Kalergi visited Ankara in pursuit of allies for his struggle against Nazism. His second book, Europa Erwacht! (Europe Awake!), published in 1934, expressed his firm opposition to Nazi theories of race.⁴⁸²

Coudenhove-Kalergi‘s visit to Turkey obviously compelled him revise his thinking about. In contrast to his first book, Paneuropa, Europa Erwacht! counted Turkey among the members of the political Europe he imagined. Its domestic transformation in the 1920s and 1930s accounted for his change of mind and heart about Turkey’s place in Europe. ⁴⁸³ However, Turkish inclusion was hardly devoid of geopolitical considerations or his usual anti-Soviet motives. Although Turkey had yet recovered full sovereignty over the Straits, he claimed that Paneuropa’s expansion into southeastern Europe was crucial as the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were now in the hands of a European power, namely Turkey.⁴⁸⁴

For his project, the Turkey of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1930s offered also a compensation for what Europe had lost in the north and in the east as a result of the First World War. This compensation resulted from Turkey’s detachment from its imperial past. The Turkish reforms consolidated this process which eventually transformed Turkey into a member of the European civilization.⁴⁸⁵ In his autobiography, he later reflected on:

“The most important step toward … a new understanding between Europe and the Near East has been accomplished by Modern Turkey, that recently under its leader Kemal Atatürk, embraced without any European pressure all the vital elements of Western civilization. This Turkish Revolution is paving the way for a complete reconciliation between Europe and the Near East.”⁴⁸⁶
Furthermore, Coudenhove-Kalergi was now convinced that Turkey belonged organically to Paneuropa.⁴⁸⁷ He gave a huge credit to Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos for persuading him that Turkey under the rule of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had become an integral part of Western civilization and that, whatever the future of Pan-Europe, Turkey should be made a part of it. Coudenhove-Kalergi wrote: “He [Venizelos] assured me that Greece could only cooperate with our movement if Turkey were also included.”⁴⁸⁸ He also expressed admiringly that the peace had been concluded between Turkey and Greece thanks to the two far-sighted and energetic statesmen, Atatürk and Venizelos. These two statesmen had concluded an alliance and hence provided the groundwork for a Balkan union.⁴⁸⁹

According to Coudenhove-Kalergi, the reconciliation between Greece and Turkey was the only bright spot in the dark picture of continued European strife was. He argued that while Franco-German reconciliation had stalled, the reconciliation between Greece and Turkey constituted a major success in the East in that respect. The old arch-enemies, Greece and Turkey, had consolidated their reconciliation which provided the core for the Balkan Entente.⁴⁹⁰ Later, he maintained his positive view on Turkey and Greece. For instance, he pointed out: “Since then I had often thought of the inspiring example Greece and Turkey had given their sister nations by securing national peace and prosperity at the price of a generous compromise. I thought of them now. I compared their attitude with that of France and Germany.”⁴⁹¹ For the prospects of reconciliation between them, he hoped: “If France … recognizes that it cannot destroy Germany without putting itself in danger of annihilation, it must … resolutely take the path of reconciliation.”⁴⁹²As Turkey was gradually brought into the European fold, the ‘warmth’ in Italian-Turkish relations drew to a close. Their views of the Balkans and the Mediterranean issues evolved in increasingly divergent directions in the first half of the 1930s. To begin with, Turkish-Greek cooperation went out of Rome’s control. Leaning on each other, Ankara and Athens promoted political and economic cooperation among the Balkan states to preserve the status quo rather than to serve as Italian proxies in the Peninsula. Such an independent line of action in the region would not be approved by the Italians, as Greek Prime Minister Venizelos confided to French diplomats in 1933.⁴⁹³Moreover, Italy’s bid to gain influence in Turkey through supply of naval arms was running out of steam as well. First and foremost, Italy’s modest finances seriously compromised its position in Turkey. The World Economic Crisis in 1929 aggravated the Italian financial situation and had ramifications on Italian’s suppliers’ deals with Turkey. In 1931, for instance, the Del Tirreno shipyard that was building the destroyers Zafer and Tınaztepe demanded an adjustment of the payment basis in view of changes in the exchange rates.⁴⁹⁴ Even if the financial issues could be worked out, the Italian shipbuilding industry had other problems with the Turkish orders.

Without exception, all Italian-built naval units of the Turkish Navy were marred by one or another design or building flaw. The three submarine chasers were first to be completed. However, they were initially rejected due to their failure to reach the contract speed.⁴⁹⁵ Under enormous Italian political and diplomatic pressures on Ankara, the Turkish Navy finally relented and accepted them in İstanbul in September 1931, reportedly at lower prices than the contract.⁴⁹⁶ The first two destroyers ordered from Italy, Kocatepe and Adatepe, were originally scheduled to be delivered in the spring of 1931. Their trials revealed serious stability problems which delayed their delivery until October 1931.⁴⁹⁷ The two submarines, Sakarya and Dumlupınar, were also rejected at first. The Turkish Navy requested that the builder replace their torpedo tubes to accommodate Vickers torpedoes rather than Italian torpedoes. Although Turkish flag was hoisted on them in November 1931,⁴⁹⁸ they would not be commissioned until their deficiencies were rectified.⁴⁹⁹

The last to arrive were the two additional destroyers, Zafer and Tınaztepe. They were ordered as an urgent answer the increased Soviet naval power in the Black Sea. Since the Italian Navy allowed the Turkey Navy to take over the hulls of two semi-build destroyers, the contract called for their expedited delivery within 12 months. Likethe two destroyers of the previous order, they had design flaws that compromised their seaworthiness.⁵⁰⁰ When they finally arrived in İstanbul in June 1932, the delivery had been delayed over one year.⁵⁰¹ They could be delivered only after Turkish Prime Minister İsmet İnönü’s official visit to Rome in May 1932. This visit resulted in the renewal of the Italian-Turkish Treaty of 1928 and a new 300 million Lira credit agreement between Italy and Turkey.However, the cash portion of this new credit, itself became a source of discord between the two countries. The Italian government withheld the payment to Ankara obviously to appease the Italian shipyards, the union of Italian shipyards requested the Italian Foreign Ministry to reserve one third of this credit against payments for the Turkish naval units constructed in Italian shipyards.⁵⁰² Another one-third was suggested to be spared for the additional Turkish naval units and naval aircraft under construction in Italy. The protracted negotiations on the conditions for the release of the credit frustrated both the Italians and the Turks. Italian diplomats in Turkey accused the Turkish government of acting with a ‘Balkan mentality’ in dealing with the great powers on economic issues. However, the Ottoman debts experience was casting its shadow over Ankara’s attitude in the negotiations. Turkish diplomats stood firmly against attachment of political conditions to foreign loans that might compromise their independence.⁵⁰³

Failure to clear the credit agreement with Italy prompted Ankara to approach Paris for fresh foreign loans in December 1932. This was, the British argued, just another manifestation of continuity in Turkish diplomatic practices. Ankara’s move was seen as playing off the great powers against one another. This was simply a tactic to secure maximum benefits from France while exerting pressure on Italy.⁵⁰⁴ For Rome, it meant Turkey turning its back on old friends. The Italians were disappointed with Ankara’s choice of credit terms over its old friendship with Rome.⁵⁰⁵

In short, Italian efforts failed to bring Turkey into the Italian orbit to serve as a proxy to Rome’s revisionist policies in the Balkans and the Mediterranean. The Italian connection with the Turkish navy was already in decline. The Italian naval arms suppliers began to face a number of bureaucratic troubles with their deliveries to Turkey. For instance, Turkish authorities insisted on charging customs fees on the ammunition and fire control devices for the Italian-built destroyers.⁵⁰⁶ The last Italian engineer assigned to help the Turkish navy put the Zafer (Turbine) class destroyers into operational status returned home in January 1934.⁵⁰⁷ His departure ended the Italian connection with the Turkish navy. Notwithstanding delays in their deliveries, these units, however, meant strengthened naval power and provided Ankara with another functional leverage to back its diplomatic efforts.

Shortly after final deliveries made to the Turkish Navy, Italy had begun to appear as a potential threat to Turkey in the Aegean and the Mediterranean.⁵⁰⁸ Mussolini’s opposition to Turkish membership in the League of Nations marked the end of period of warmth in bilateral relations. Through participation in international disarmament conferences and in the works of Commission of Inquiry for European Union, Ankara developed a more positive understanding of the League of Nations. It was gradually realized that membership could provide Turkey with a means to transcend the limits of bilateral diplomacy in finding and working with other like-minded and comparably-placed states for common objectives.

In this frame of mind, Ankara was ready to respond positively to any hint that might be construed as a call on Turkey to join the League. And the opportunity arose at the meeting of the General Commission of the Disarmament Conference on 13 April 1932. There, Turkish Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüştü Aras replied to what he thought to be an invitation made by Spanish delegate Don Salvador de Madariaga a month ago and expressed Turkey’s readiness to join the League. When the Assembly was discussing the issue, de Madriaga said:

“I was, I will confess, somewhat surprised by the importance attached by the Turkish delegate to my humble effort, for I never imagined that the Spanish delegation possessed sufficient authority to invite anyone to enter the League… We can to-day contemplate the early entry of a nation which is neither strictly European nor strictly non-European, of a people that is rather a Mediterranean people, for the seas unite more than divide… I will venture to express the hope that Turkey’s impending entry into the League may banish forever from the men’s minds the idea that the League is passing through a crisis that the League is passing thorough any kind of crisis. It is precisely because the world is passing through a crisis that the League has need of added strength. ”⁵⁰⁹

On 18 July 1932, Turkey joined the League which unequivocally ended its international “outcast” status.⁵¹⁰ In other words, it clearly meant that Turkey had been endorsed unquestionably as a power committed to the international status quo.⁵¹¹ The significance of this endorsement was not missed by careful observers at Geneva. Reporting the occasion, Manley O. Hundson, commented:

“It is notable that Turkey was not called upon to give any special ‘guarantee of its sincere intention to observe its international obligations,’ nor to accept any special regulations with respect to its armaments; the Assembly resolution merely recited that ‘it is established that the Turkish Republic fulfils the conditions laid down in Article 1 of the Covenant.’ This procedure is unlike that followed when Germany was admitted.”⁵¹²

Two weeks after Turkey’s admission to the League, the French Parliament hailed Turkey’s entry as “a moral and political event of extraordinary significance … to Europe’s interest.”⁵¹³ Greece, on the other hand, continued to promote Turkey’s appointment to positions of influence within the League bodies. Shortly after Turkey had been admitted to League membership, Greek Delegate Nicolas Politis was elected as the new Chairman of the Assembly in September 1932. In turn, he nominated Turkish Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüştü Aras for the membership in Agenda Committee. Upon approval of Politis’ nominations, Aras was subsequently elected as chair of that committee. On his first appearance at Geneva, Aras was, thus, catapulted into a sort of executive post at the League Assembly due mostly to his nomination by Politis.⁵¹⁴

As for a seat in the League Council, Ankara would have to wait another two years. As a matter of fact, in 1933, another non-permanent seat to the Council was added by the Assembly for states that stood no chance of being elected. Turkey was one of the stronger contenders for the additional seat, but lost it to Portugal who received 30 votes against Turkey’s twenty.⁵¹⁵ Next year, Turkey was elected to succeed China on the League Council. Although this election was regarded as recognition of Turkey’s international prominence, most Turkish commentators were careful to emphasize that the League had made an exception to its established practices by allowing Turkey, a European country, to succeed China, an Asian country, on the Council. For them, to take the place of an Asian country on the Council was acceptable as long as it did not compromise Turkey’s European credentials.⁵¹⁶


7. A MIDDLE POWER AT WORK: THE BALKAN ENTENTE
The new rulers of Turkey remained jealous guardians of their country’s legal and formal equality with other states. Rather than seeking a primus inter pares status as the heir to the former imperial ruler, their persistent emphasis on the equality of states profoundly turned their image around in the Balkans. Therefore, when Turkey embarked on diplomatic initiatives in the Balkans, it was able to convince other nations that it was working towards creating a coalition of like-minded states in the Balkans rather than reviving Ottoman domination.

Balkan cooperation took root initially as a response to the emergence of revisionist powers, in particular Italy. After the First World War, Italy had made a number of aggressive moves in the region. Italian forces first bombarded Corfu in Greece and took over Fiume from the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Against this background, Ankara already probed for a new Balkan entente in various capitals. For instance, a Turkish diplomat, Hüseyin Ragıp Baydur brought up the idea in his conversation with the Romanian Foreign Minister, I. G. Duca, in 1926.⁵¹⁷ It should be granted that the idea of a Balkan entente or union had a long history⁵¹⁸ and had other champions ⁵¹⁹ Despite its nearly ancient roots and contested intellectual origins, Turkey’s commitment to the idea could not be matched by any other Balkan state in the interwar period.

The World Economic Crisis in 1929 provided another incentive for Turkey’s sustained leadership in Balkan cooperation. The Crisis unleashed a transitional process where rival forces competed to shape the terms of the new world order Prospects for a change of such magnitude in the short term empowered Turkey which displayed increasing levels of activism and initiative-taking in the international arena. Furthermore, the inability of the European great powers to agree on responses to the crisis enhanced Turkey’s capacity to influence Balkan diplomacy. With each regional conference convened to overcome in concert the economic and political effects of the crisis, Turkey’s role and position in the Balkans grew.
The Balkan Predicaments
Balkan unity or union had stood been easier said than done as the Peninsula had been home to contending and competing claims of regional as well as extra-regional powers. Greece and its awkward relations with Italy and Bulgaria was a good case in point. In the first half of the 1920s, Greece was both a victim of aggression and an aggressor. Earlier it had had to face Italian aggression over Corfu; yet, in 1925, Greece itself committed an act of aggressing against its northern neighbor, Bulgaria. When two Greek soldiers were killed in a border incident, Greek troops invaded parts of Bulgaria. In reaction, Sofia appealed to the League of Nations. The Bulgarian appeal resulted in Council President Aristide Briand’s call for the Greek government to withdraw its troops.

The Council of the League endorsed and backed Briand’s action. Moreover, it appointed a military commission to oversee the withdrawal of Greek troops from Bulgaria. Finally, a commission of inquiry was set up and it found Greece at fault. Then the Council decided that Greece had to pay an indemnity because its invasion of Bulgaria constituted a clear violation of the League Covenant. In effect, Greece was subjected to a punitive sanction. On the surface, the whole venture seemed to have been handled fairly smoothly and successfully under the League framework and the League was credited with having settled a border dispute between the two Balkan neighbors. However, O’Connor argues “there were no public threats; but behind the scenes there was talk of a naval demonstration and even the sanctions of Article 16 of the Covenant... Though hailed at the time as a victory for the League... the decisive action was more reminiscent of the Concert of Europe, for the Great Powers were united, none of their interests were at stake and the disputants were small nations.”⁵²⁰

Compared to the confrontation with Bulgaria, however, the great power aggression towards Greece left a deeper and much more lasting influence on Greek thinking about Italy between the two World Wars. What reinforced the lessons learned from the debacle with Bulgaria was the fact that Mussolini could get away with what he had done in and on Corfu. The whole venture “left Greece continually looking over her shoulder to make sure that her actions in no way disturbed the Italian state, particularly its bellicose leader”.⁵²¹

At first, the situation on the ground, marked as it was by mutual suspicions and rivalries did not look very promising for regional cooperation. During his visit to Sofia on 10 December 1930, Turkish Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüştü Aras stated that the formation of opposing camps was the pre-war method of conducting foreign relations. According to him, in the post-war period there was a need for new methods in the conduct of foreign relations. The new class of states wished to be on good terms with all, especially with their neighbors. This new class of states had been signing neutrality treaties which contributed to regional rapprochements.⁵²² All these efforts, in fact, would facilitate general rapprochements. Aras’ “new class of states” and the behavior he attributed to them are very much reminiscent of a “middlepowermanship” approach that defines middle powers primarily by their pursuit of multilateral solutions to international problems, their adherence to compromise positions in international disputes and last, but not least, their adherence to the notion of “good international citizenship” to guide their foreign policy.⁵²³

Nevertheless, some people, such as the Polish Minister in Bulgaria, misinterpreted the visit of Aras to Sofia as a further step in the creation of a revisionist group. The American Minister in Sofia, Henry W. Shoemaker, also wrote that the Italian Minister in Sofia was aware of Aras’s interest in a Greek-Bulgarian rapprochement. Later he pointed out that Aras could work in the interests of a Greek-Bulgarian understanding without having as an aim the creation of a revisionist bloc. According to the American Minister, Turkey was trying to prevent Serbian hegemony over the Southern-Slavs.⁵²⁴

Suspicion of Yugoslavia existed for a while among certain Balkan states, most prominently in Greece. When President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk suggested that İstanbul become the center of an eventual Balkan Union, some Greek officials brought up the role of Yugoslavia. The most striking comment was made by Spyros Polychroniadis, Greek Minister in Turkey. He stated that so long as Yugoslavia nourished imperialistic views and a desire for Balkan hegemony, it would not consent to any genuine rapprochement with the other Balkan states. Such rapprochement, on the other hand, would be possible only on the basis of perfect equality. ⁵²⁵

Polychroniadis was not very optimistic about Romania involvement either. He said: “Rumania is so hypnotized by her fear of the Bolsheviks that she can not think of anything else and shows a polite indifference towards the Balkan conference”.⁵²⁶ In contrast, his Romanian colleague, Viorel Virgil Tilea, argued, in 1930-31 Romanian Prime Minister Iuliu Maniu had improved the relations of his country with its neighbors. Tilea said: “He and his Foreign Minister must have their full share of credit for the Conference of Balkan states which Romania has just been attending in Athens.”⁵²⁷ For its part, Yugoslavia was apprehensive about foreign policy of Romania which Belgrade considered the weak link in the Little Entente. The Yugoslav government was concerned that Romania might extend its bilateral pact of friendship with Italy. However, after Mussolini’s declaration of the Four Power Pact, the Little Entente states sought to strengthen their own alliance.⁵²⁸
Turkish Diplomatic Activism and Leadership
By 1932, signs of renewed Italian interest in the Balkans were emerging. Grandi’s departure from the portfolio of Foreign Affairs was followed by a major reshuffling of the Italian diplomatic service which reflected a reorientation towards the Adriatic and the Balkans. Two key appointments revealed this reorientation. Fulvio Suvich assumed the post of Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs due to his background and experience in the Danubian and Balkan affairs. Baron Pompeio Alosi became Mussolini’s chef de cabinet. This change of guard and reshuffling in the diplomatic service were regarded as signs of two contradictory strands in Italian foreign policy.

“On the one hand, the elevation of experts in Balkan affairs, such as Suvich, a native of Trieste, and Alosi,, seemed to confirm the pre-eminence of the Adriatic wing in the Italian Foreign Office and suggested a continued emphasis on East European affairs; on the other hand, the dismissal of Grandi, impatience with the machinery of the League of Nations and the resurgence of fascist influence at Plazza Chigi led one to anticipate a more bellicose mood in Italy”.⁵²⁹