F I r s t d r a f t

Moreover, Ankara began to acquire muscles to back its diplomacy in the form of a growing military power, including its rejuvenated navy. The naval programs had come to fruition by the late 1920s and the early 1930s. The two submarines ordered in the Netherlands had been delivered in 1928. Their arrival marked the beginning of the growth trajectory for the Turkish Navy. The battlecruiser Yavuz was finally ready for re-commissioning in 1930. The contractor, Penhoët, completed the work satisfactorily but incurred a substantial financial loss.⁴³¹ To enhance Yavuz’s combat value, four destroyers were ordered for escort duties from Italy. Moreover, the Italian shipyards were also building two submarines and three submarine chasers which were due to be delivered to Turkish Navy in 1931.

Its new and growing navy and diplomatic heritage could have functioned either as a burden or an asset in Turkish efforts to promote regional cooperation in the 1930s. To start with, reorganization of its navy under German instruction and the acquisition of modern naval units were regarded as early indications of Turkey’s aggressive intentions or revisionist foreign policy. Turkey’s participation after 1928 in international disarmament conferences did not initially help Ankara turn its image around either. Indeed, its vocal support to Soviet views on disarmament produced just the opposite effect.⁴³²

For instance, in March 1928, at the fifth session of the Preparatory Commission, the Soviets submitted a proposal that called for universal disarmament. The proposal drew severe criticism from all but two delegates. Only the Germans and the Turks supported the Soviet proposal.⁴³³ On his return to Moscow, Litvinov, the Soviet delegate at the Geneva talks, singled out these two countries’ delegates in his oral report to the Soviet Central Executive Committee. While he assigned a “special place” to the German delegation, the Turkish delegation was commended for the “considerable support” they lent to the Soviet proposal.⁴³⁴

Turkish support to the Soviets proposal was merely tactically motivated. Turkish diplomats who studied it concluded that it did not stand any chance of approval. Ankara thus decided to pay lip-service to the Soviet proposal for the sake of Turkish-Soviet relations.

Ankara’s initial diplomatic position on the international disarmament was as unrealistic and untenable as the Soviet proposal itself. It was masterminded by Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüştü Aras with the possible approval of President Atatürk and Prime Minister İnönü. It was grounded in the belief that the principle of legal equality of states would eventually evolve into their political equality as well. Aras, hence, built Turkey’s position around the idea of equalization of armaments for all countries ⁴³⁵

The Soviet proposal for total disarmament was finally included in the agenda of the Preparatory Commission on 15 April 1929. Revised and amended in the meantime, the proposal in broad terms called for a) reduction, rather than limitation, of armaments; b) proportional reduction of all categories of armaments; and c) abolition of offensive armaments, i.e. primarily aircraft, tanks and long-range artillery. When a vote was about to be taken to kill the Soviet proposal, the Turkish representative tabled a resolution that added a new lease of life to it.⁴³⁶ It has been concluded that “The Turkish delegate apparently thought these principles were basically sound, but he was prepared to acquiesce in shelving the Soviet plan if the Turkish proposal [calling for equalizing armaments for all countries] was discussed”.⁴³⁷

Also in 1929, Turkey lent support to another Soviet initiative. It was meant to normalize rather than to complicate its international status. In view of the delays in the Kellogg-Briand Pact’s ratification by various signatories, Soviet Foreign Commissar Litvinov proposed a protocol to bring the pact into immediate operation. Such a special protocol was signed on 9 February 1929 by Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union. It was open to other countries’ accession too, and so Turkey, Persia and Danzig subsequently acquiesced to the Protocol and thus to the Kellogg-Briand Pact.⁴³⁸

Others step towards international normalization followed the signing of the Soviet-sponsored protocol. Until the early 1930s, Ankara did little, if any, faith in the principle of collective security or other types of comprehensive arrangements for international security. Regional arrangements were preferred over global ones. The former would incrementally prepare the groundwork for the latter.⁴³⁹ By the same token, Turkey had not yet been a party to any general disarmament or naval limitation treaty. However, it signed naval protocols with its two neighbors, Greece and the Soviet Union in 1930 and 1931 respectively. Those were regional protocols concluded in the spirit of international disarmament. They ushered in a period of naval holidays in the Aegean and the Black Sea. In other words, Turkey committed itself not to seek further expansion of its naval forces without notifying its two neighbors well in advance. Cable suggests that Soviet practice of gunboat diplomacy against Turkey in 1929 played a catalyst role in the conclusion of the Soviet-Turkish Naval Protocol of 1931.⁴⁴⁰ The Turkish-Soviet naval protocol was significant in that offensive plans or measures against the Soviets were dropped from the agenda until the second half of the 1930s.⁴⁴¹ The naval protocol with Greece was more significant than the protocol with the Soviets. It was a confirmation that they did not harbor aggressive or expansionist motives against each other. By extension, both countries were pro-status quo powers that refused to be locked in a costly naval arms race that could trigger a new war in and over the Aegean.⁴⁴² These protocols in a way helped Turkey reverse its previous image as a potential revisionist power due mostly to its efforts for naval building.

Similarly, the new Turkey managed to turn a potential burden or hindrance into a functional and activist advantage through the diplomatic tradition it had inherited from the Ottoman Empire. To put it in different terms, Turkey had inherited in the Balkans the negative public image of the Ottoman Empire that had resulted from nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule. Turkey’s relations with its Balkan neighbors, hence, remained burdened with this negative image. The Greeks felt particularly strongly about the Ottoman past. The resolution of Turkish-Greek problems that had defied solution since the Treaty of Lausanne generated an equally strong impact, this time in a positive direction in the early 1930s. Ankara’s mending fences with Athens helped Turkey drastically change its international image to that of a status quo power. Having rejected cross-border expansionism or irredentism, the new Turkey began to be perceived as a potential partner rather than a source of threat in the Peninsula.

Turkey’s rapprochement with Greece bore other benefits such as Athens’ unqualified support to Ankara’s pursuit of endorsement of its European credentials. From the onset, Turkey had sought international recognition as a European rather than an Asian country. For instance, in the 1920s, Turkish Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüştü Aras identified his country as a European power to which “the death of a peasant in the Balkans is of more importance than the death of a king in Afghanistan.”⁴⁴³ In the interwar years, Turkish decision-makers and intellectuals adamantly asserted the new republic’s European character. Such an emphasis (overemphasis at times) reflected definitely the Turkish desire for acceptance in the European states system.⁴⁴⁴ This aspiration met with mixed success initially. Turkey’s European credentials were not a foregone conclusion for many, even after Turkey was admitted on equal footing into various pan-European schemes.⁴⁴⁵
(Re)Admission into the European States System
Turkey was drawn closer to the European states system in the context of two proposals for establishing a European Union or United States of Europe in the first half of the 1930s. Its gradual accommodation into various European projects owed a great deal to the Italian sponsorship. A case in point is the Turkish participation in the works of the Preparatory Commission for European Union. The issue was profoundly linked to Italian-French rivalry in Europe, which took a new turn with French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand’s proposal in September 1929 to create a federal link between the European nations. In the introduction to his speech, he pointed out that the League had to fill a serious gap in order to reach a peaceful settlement. In fact, he believed that the League procedures were to too slow and too cumbersome.⁴⁴⁶ Other representatives, in turn, asked Briand to prepare a memorandum on European federation on 1 May 1930. Two weeks later, the Briand memorandum was transmitted to 26 European members of the League of Nations.⁴⁴⁷

The Briand proposal placed another hurdle before the Turkish pursuit of recognition as a European member of an international society in the early 1930s. Briand did not initially include Turkey among the European countries that were invited to discuss his memorandum on the European project. Turkey’s exclusion from the project was justified on two grounds. First, it was not a member of the League of Nations. Secondly, Turkey did not belong in Briand’s conception of geographical Europe.

Although it was initially denied a formal invitation to present its views on the proposed European Union, Ankara was profoundly interested in the Briand plan.⁴⁴⁸ According to a prominent Turkish jurist and a columnist, the first version of the Briand’s project amounted to just a new manifestation of the imperialist and chauvinistic aims of French Prime Minister Poincaré who was seeking to divide the European nations.⁴⁴⁹ Briand’s exclusion of Turkey from the proposed European Union reinforced suspicions the Turks had regarding France’s political motives. The Turkish press resented the way in which the French conceived the borders of Europe. It was argued that the French project had little viability because it was ill-conceived around subjective criteria, including some countries and excluding others arbitrarily. At any rate, Turkey was geographically in Europe, since it was bounded by two European seas: the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, even though the French ignored this.⁴⁵⁰

Finally, it was argued that the values and norms accepted by societies were more significant than the geographical criterion in defining European-ness which, in any case, was met by Turkey. Around that time, Turkey was adopting European institutions in both political and social spheres. For the ruling elite, to become part of a wider European project was a goal to be achieved. An influential member of the Turkish Parliament wrote that the European project would not be taken seriously, nor would it be successful, if it was based on the definition of its people as eastern, occidental or Balkanic. Instead, people should be distinguished from each other by their civilization, mentality and life-style.⁴⁵¹

It should be granted that it took time for Turkish politicians to articulate an official position in regard to the Briand project. Prime Minister İsmet İnönü admitted that Briand’s proposal caused confusion in Ankara. In the early 1930s Turkish diplomats were trying to prepare the ground for Turkey’s admission to the League of Nations. Ankara’s earlier reservations about the League gradually disappeared, as it became evident in time that the League was not a simply a tool for great power domination. In this respect, Briand’s proposal caught Ankara off guard and forced an abrupt shift of focus onto the European Union initiative from the League membership. The Turkish leaders believed that Turkey should be part of any international initiative. By excluding Turkey, the Briand proposal complicated Turkey’s admission to international councils on equal footing with others. Consequently, Turkish Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüştü Aras criticized the European Union project as being planned only for the continent. In his opinion, a harmonious international order could be established only if it embraced all nations which had already been interconnected to each other in this small world.⁴⁵²

In his memoirs, Tevfik Rüştü Aras later pointed to the diversity in the reactions of European countries to the Briand project. Not all European governments welcomed it. After the initial confusion was over, Ankara decided to lobby in some European capitals for the extension of an invitation to Turkey to be a participant in the deliberations on European Union.⁴⁵³ Turkish diplomatic lobbying paid off eventually. Italy, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Bulgaria expressed their support for Turkey’s inclusion in their official replies to Briand’s memorandum on the Organization System of European Federal Union.⁴⁵⁴ While Italy and Germany recommended that both Turkey and the Soviet Union be invited to the European Union project in their responses to Briand,⁴⁵⁵ Greece for its part advocated Turkey’s participation only.⁴⁵⁶

Mussolini’s Italy led the opposition to Briand’s project, arguing that it would serve only to deepen the disparity between the victorious and the defeated powers in the war. In other words, France was seeking a new method to solidify the existing European order with its inequalities.⁴⁵⁷ The fascist leader’s professed aim, on the other hand, was to put an end to such inequalities. In fact, the Turkish press carried comments along similar lines to that of Mussolini. For instance, a columnist in the Turkish daily newspaper, Cumhuriyet, wrote that France aimed to establish a European Union based on the division between the victorious and defeated powers of Europe.⁴⁵⁸ Naturally, Turkish opinion leaders could not help but sympathize with Italian criticism of Briand who excluded Turkey from the European project.

At the same time, Turkish political leadership was well aware of the ulterior motives behind the Italian opposition to Briand’s project. A major stumbling block in the way to a European Union was the rivalry between Italy and France. Turkish leaders and the press were not convinced that these two countries were ready to give up this rivalry for the sake of a European Union.⁴⁵⁹ According to Zeki Mesut Alsan, the minds of European leaders were not even clear on what Europe was. For instance, he argued that, for France, Europe meant Western Europe, while Germany and Austria focused on Central Europe and Italy was interested in creating an Italian-led bloc in Europe. ⁴⁶⁰

In fact, the Italians were quick to grasp the opportunity that the Briand proposal offered in terms of taking advantage of Turkey’s increased sense of isolation. As an alternative to the exclusivist union idea of France, Mussolini attempted to push his suggested Italian-Soviet-Turkish alliance.⁴⁶¹ He thought that the three countries could collaborate in the Black Sea against “French intrigues”.⁴⁶² Mussolini was also contemplating a different type of triangular collaboration against France elsewhere. The fascist leader was working for a Turkish-Greek reconciliation that would lead to a triple alliance with Italy in order to compete with France in the Mediterranean region. At the same time, Mussolini tried to appeal to the two countries with the motto “the Balkan pact in the same spirit as Locarno”.⁴⁶³ This spirit was supposed to bring together countries like Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Turkey around Italian leadership. Such a constellation of powers would compel Yugoslavia to bow to Italian pressures, and therefore, to neutralize the Little Entente.⁴⁶⁴

Like the Italians, Turkish political leaders thought that the root of uneasiness in Europe was French hegemony. Ankara particularly resented French foot-dragging in ratifying the French-Turkish Treaty of Friendship, Reconciliation and Arbitration of February 1930.⁴⁶⁵ However, Turkey’s suspicions of France did not necessarily prompt Ankara to rush into any alliance system, particularly an Italian-led one. The reserved Turkish attitude towards alliances of unequal strength found its expression in an interview in the Italian daily newspaper, Popolo d’Italia, with Turkish Foreign Minister Aras. As three separate treaties of friendship already bound Turkey, Greece, and Italy to each other, he saw no need for an additional tripartite pact.⁴⁶⁶

In fact, to throw its lot in with such a bloc would not facilitate Turkey’s membership of the League of Nations. Since Turkey pursued recognition as a legitimate actor, it carefully refrained from engagements or commitments that would lead to alienation of either Italy or France. In pursuit of striking a balanced position between the two countries, Prime Minister İsmet İnönü told the Italian ambassador that Ankara would weigh pros and cons of both the Briand proposal and the Italian response to it together.⁴⁶⁷ The Turkish press of the time mirrored İnönü’s mindset to a certain extent, the Briand proposal and the Italian reply merited comparable degree of attention in the Turkish press. Obviously, rather than Briand’s Ankara was more inclined towards Mussolini’s conception of Europe.⁴⁶⁸

The issue of extending invitations to the Soviet Union and Turkey came up during the first meeting of the second session of the Commission of Enquiry for European Union on 16 January 1931. German Foreign Minister Julius Curtius and Italian Foreign Ministers Dino Grandi figured prominently in the consequent debate. Both advocated strongly Soviet and Turkish participation.⁴⁶⁹ On the other hand, France, Yugoslavia and Romania led the opposition to their inclusion. For instance, Romanian Foreign Minister Titulescu said his country would welcome the participation of these two countries the moment it appeared expedient.⁴⁷⁰

For Italian Foreign Minister Grandi, the admission of Turkey and the Soviet Union was also meant to move Britain and Germany away from France.⁴⁷¹ Despite Briand’s reservations, the question of Turkish and Soviet incorporation into the Commission led to an agreement among the member states acting on different yet compatible motives. At the end of deliberations on 20 January 1931, the first resolution the Commission drafted was about inviting Iceland, Turkey and the Soviet Union to join the Union. This resolution was eventually adopted while Norway, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland maintained their reservations.⁴⁷² This resolution cleared the way for Turkey’s official involvement in the work of the Commission of Enquiry beginning with its third session in May. On 20 January, 1931, Briand in Geneva wrote to Paris that the French government hoped to see a positive response to this invitation from the Turkish government.⁴⁷³

This invitation can hardly be seen as a manifestation of a French change of heart towards Turkey less than a year since Briand aired his views at the League of Nations. Rather than a change of heart, it represented a pragmatic shift in the French policy in order not to lose Turkey to the Italian sphere of influence. The French were seriously concerned about Italian manipulation of Turkey, even within the framework of the Commission of Enquiry for European Union. Again, in January, French diplomats in Rome warned Paris about this possibility. They quoted an Italian daily, Giornale d’Itallia, which stated: “Turkey will accept the invitation of the powers to participate in the work of the conference [on the European Union] and will not forget the friendly attitude of Rome.”⁴⁷⁴

The Italian officials, for their part, never attempted to conceal what they expected of Turkey either. After his return to Rome from Geneva, Italian Foreign Minister Grandi explained to the Italian delegation that the presence of these two countries in the debates on the Briand project would serve the Italian interests. Later, Grandi hinted to the ambassadors of Turkey and the Soviet Union that Italy would support their participation if they declared their preliminary acceptance of the invitation.⁴⁷⁵

The Italian sponsorship for Turkish membership in various schemes for European initiatives was never devoid of ulterior motives.⁴⁷⁶ In 1931, various proposals and counter-proposals were made to eliminate tariffs and other barriers among the countries in Eastern Europe in response to the 1929 World Economic Crisis. Both Italy and France tried to modify the proposed schemes to suit their political interests in the region. When Paris came up with modifications to turn the whole scheme into an anti-German political coalition, Italy sought a way out in order not to lose its leverage over Berlin. One tactic Rome resorted to was to “attempt to enlarge the technical difficulties by pleading for the inclusion of Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Poland and Turkey, who could be counted on to make negotiations more complicated and lengthy and, if they none the less succeeded, to counterbalance the influence of the Little Entente.”⁴⁷⁷

Nevertheless, in the subsequent sessions of the Commission of Enquiry for European Union, Turkey strengthened its position through its participation in various committees. It was an active participant particularly in the committee that was assigned to deliberate on the Soviet proposal for an economic non-aggression pact.⁴⁷⁸ However, the death of Aristide Briand in March, 1932 led to a significant loss of momentum in the work of the Commission of Enquiry Union. Although Briand’s proposal could not be realized, his half-hearted inclusion of Turkey into the Commission of Enquiry for European Union facilitated Turkey’s admission to the League as a European rather than an Asian country.

Rome might have sponsored Turkey’s inclusion into the works of the Commission of Inquiry for European Union in order to undermine the whole venture. Devoid of similar ulterior motives, Greece played a profoundly positive role in the process by advocating strongly Turkey’s inclusion as well. When the Commission of Inquiry for European Union debated the issue on 16 January 1931, Greek Foreign Minister Andréa Michalakopoulus expressed in no uncertain terms where Turkey stood from the Greek perspective: “it is the opinion of the Greek government that, from an economic and even from the geographical point of view, Turkey belongs to Europe rather than Asia.”⁴⁷⁹

Similarly, Athens’ support seems to have been instrumental in the fundamental change of mind on the part of a prominent European intellectual regarding Turkey’s place in his European Union proposal. In his first major work, Paneropa, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi regarded the new Turkey as a source of risk rather than a full-fledged participant in his interwar conception of the European Union. His proposed union was devised, among other things, to permanently insure the existence of the Eastern European states which would be relieved of the crushing burden of arming themselves. The Little Entente would be secured against the Hapsburg danger; the prospect of Scandinavian countries uniting against the Russian; the Balkan countries against the Turkish.⁴⁸⁰