World War II: How Turkey Stayed Out of the War, 1939-1945

Why Turkey never fired a shot in World War II

World War II began on 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Turkey had lost Atatürk on 10 November 1938. His successor, İsmet İnönü, kept the country out of the fighting to the end. Britannica credits his “skillful leadership” for that result.

If you walk down Atatürk Boulevard in Ankara or ride a ferry across the Bosphorus, you are crossing the stage of that balancing act. A bomb went off on that boulevard in 1942. Warships were barred from that strait for the whole war.

World War II dates and where it took place

The war in Europe ended on 8 May 1945 with Germany’s unconditional surrender. Japan accepted a ceasefire on 14 August 1945 and signed the surrender document on 2 September 1945. Estimates of the dead run from 70 to 85 million; the English Wikipedia entry gives 60 to 75 million. Most were civilians. Some historians date the start to Japan’s move into Manchuria on 19 September 1931 or the Sino-Japanese War of 7 July 1937, but 1 September 1939 is the accepted date.

Standard accounts blame the revanchism Versailles bred in Germany, the expansionism of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Western appeasement, Japan’s 1931 occupation of Manchuria, and the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of August 1939. The fighting opened in Poland and spread across Europe and Asia. Turkey sat between Axis-controlled Greece and Bulgaria on one side and the Soviet Caucasus on the other. Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, it closed the Straits to the warships of belligerent powers for the entire war. Axis ships could not enter the Black Sea. The Soviet navy could not reach the Mediterranean.

Two pacts, one for each side

In 1939 Turkey signed a defense pact with Britain and France. The agreement included credits for war materiel. Germany’s early victories meant it was never put into effect.

On 18 June 1941, German ambassador Franz von Papen and Foreign Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu signed a three-article, ten-year Turkish-German Non-Aggression Pact in Ankara. Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began four days later. Under the Clodius Agreement of October 1941, Turkey agreed to sell Germany 45,000 tons of chromium in 1941-42 and up to 90,000 tons a year in 1943 and 1944. Germany promised military equipment in return.

Selling chromium to both sides

Germany fell behind on its side of the deal. US State Department records show Foreign Minister Numan Menemencioğlu reporting in 1942 that Germany had delivered no war materiel at all under the Clodius Agreement. Total German deliveries came to only 19.8 million Turkish lira.

The United States and Britain bought Turkish chromium they did not need, simply to keep it from Germany. A “package deal” added Turkish dried fruit and tobacco. Prices roughly doubled. In 1944, chromium sales to Germany stopped. A Bozok University study concludes that Turkey sold its chromium at good prices and used the proceeds to modernize its army.

1942: the most dangerous year

In the summer of 1942 Germany drafted Operation Gertrud. Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, and Axis-controlled Greece would invade and partition Turkey in about five weeks. The plan was dropped because of the Soviet advance in the Caucasus, the Allied landing in Sicily, and the defeat at El Alamein.

Ankara had ambitions of its own that summer. In July 1942 the magazine Bozkurt printed a “Greater Turkey” map that took in Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics. The Turkish general staff judged war with the Soviets nearly unavoidable and considered Baku as the first target.

On 24 February 1942 a bomb exploded near von Papen and his wife as they walked along Atatürk Boulevard. It went off early and killed the attacker, Ömer Tokat. The Papens were unhurt. Turkish police traced the plot to the Soviet consulate in Istanbul and put Soviet nationals on trial. A Berlin-sourced intelligence claim said Himmler staged the attack to blame the Soviets. That claim was never verified.

Churchill’s railway carriage

Churchill met İnönü on 30-31 January 1943 in a railway carriage at Yenice station near Adana. He offered arms under the “Adana lists,” known as Operation Hardihood, and asked for Turkish air bases to bomb the Romanian oil fields at Ploieşti. He warned that if Turkey refused, he would not stop the Soviets from taking the Straits. Even the venue was a compromise: the British wanted Cyprus, the Turks wanted Ankara.

In April 1943 Britain asked for access to Turkish airfields for 25 RAF fighter squadrons. The Turkish side stalled through what the record calls “tortuous and interminable negotiations.” When airfield construction ran ahead of schedule, İnönü was warned that things were moving too fast.

Roosevelt, Churchill, and İnönü met at the Second Cairo Conference on 4-6 December 1943. İnönü cited the losses of the wars of 1911-1922 and asked for financial and military aid plus a guarantee against the Soviets. Roosevelt judged Turkish entry risky and a Turkish defeat “disastrous” for the Allies. Churchill wanted a Balkan front and left disappointed. The conference agreed that Turkey would stay neutral.

The home front: ration cards and the Wealth Tax

On 18 January 1940 the Grand National Assembly passed the National Protection Law. It let the government requisition goods, fix prices, and control distribution. Bread rationing began in Istanbul on 14 January 1942 and in Ankara on 17 January 1942. By September 1942 it covered 41 cities. Next time you buy a loaf from an Istanbul bakery, picture it handed over against a ration card. About one million young men were under arms, farm output fell, and a rising share of the budget went to defense.

The Wealth Tax, or Varlık Vergisi, passed on 11 November 1942. It taxed non-Muslims up to ten times more heavily than Muslims: Armenians at 232 percent, Jews at 179 percent, Greeks at 156 percent, Muslims at 4.94 percent. About 5,000 non-Muslims who could not pay were sent to the Aşkale labor camp. At least 21 died there. The law was repealed on 15 March 1944.

Two ships that never arrived

On 23 June 1941 the Refah, sailing from Mersin to Alexandria, was torpedoed off Cyprus. Aboard were Turkish officers on their way to Britain to collect aircraft and submarines. 168 people died and 32 survived. A parliamentary inquiry concluded that a Vichy French submarine fired by mistake. An Italian officer later claimed the Italian navy sank it. The question is still open.

The Struma carried Jewish refugees out of Constanța. It was towed into Istanbul on 15 December 1941. Britain refused to admit the passengers to Palestine. On 23 February 1942 the ship was towed into the Black Sea and cast adrift. On 24 February the Soviet submarine Shch-213 sank it. 781 refugees and 10 crew died. The only survivor was 19-year-old David Stoliar.

A declaration of war without a battle

Turkey cut diplomatic and commercial ties with Germany on 2 August 1944. The Yalta Conference then ruled that only states that had declared war on Germany and Japan by 1 March 1945 could join the United Nations. On 23 February 1945, on Prime Minister Saracoğlu’s proposal in a closed session, the Assembly declared war on both by unanimous vote. No Turkish unit ever fought. The same day, Turkey signed its first military aid agreement with the United States. On 24 October 1945 it signed the UN Charter as one of 51 founding members, and the 1941 pact with Germany was annulled.

Why did İnönü hold out? One reading sees a survival policy for a young state, aimed above all at the Soviets. Another sees an army that was not ready to fight. The Bozok University study adds the economic outcome: good chromium prices and a modernized army.

Timeline

1. 1936 Montreux Convention
2. 10 November 1938 Atatürk dies; İnönü becomes president
3. 1 September 1939 Germany invades Poland; World War II begins
4. 1939 Defense pact with Britain and France (never applied)
5. 18 January 1940 National Protection Law passed
6. 18 June 1941 Turkish-German Non-Aggression Pact, four days before Barbarossa
7. 23 June 1941 Refah sunk, 168 dead
8. October 1941 Clodius chromium agreement
9. 14 January 1942 Bread rationing begins in Istanbul
10. 24 February 1942 Struma sunk, 781 refugees and 10 crew dead; attempt on von Papen in Ankara the same day
11. Summer 1942 Germany drafts, then drops, Operation Gertrud
12. 11 November 1942 Wealth Tax passed
13. 30-31 January 1943 Adana (Yenice) Conference, Churchill and İnönü
14. 4-6 December 1943 Second Cairo Conference; neutrality continues
15. 15 March 1944 Wealth Tax repealed
16. 2 August 1944 Relations with Germany cut
17. 23 February 1945 War declared on Germany and Japan; military aid agreement with the US
18. 8 May 1945 Germany surrenders
19. 2 September 1945 Japan signs the surrender document
20. 24 October 1945 Turkey signs the UN Charter as one of 51 founding members

Details you won’t find in guidebooks

• When the Struma’s engine failed on leaving Constanța, the refugees paid the Romanian tug crew for repairs with their wedding rings.
• By 1942 Germany had shipped Turkey no weapons under the chromium deal, only goods worth 19.8 million lira.
• Turkish officials slowed the RAF airfield program so well that İnönü had to be warned when construction ran ahead of schedule.
• The 1941 pact with Germany was formally annulled on 24 October 1945, the same day Turkey signed the UN Charter.

FAQ

Sources

1. Wikipedia (TR): II. Dünya Savaşı tr.wikipedia.org
2. Wikipedia: World War II en.wikipedia.org
3. Britannica: İsmet İnönü britannica.com
4. Britannica: History of Turkey britannica.com
5. Wikipedia: German–Turkish Treaty of Friendship en.wikipedia.org
6. US Office of the Historian, FRUS 1942 Vol. IV, document 864 history.state.gov
7. US Office of the Historian, FRUS 1942 Vol. IV, chapter 54 history.state.gov
8. US Office of the Historian, FRUS 1942 Vol. IV, document 940 history.state.gov
9. Wikipedia (TR): Refah Faciası tr.wikipedia.org
10. Wikipedia: Struma disaster en.wikipedia.org
11. Wikipedia: Operation Gertrud en.wikipedia.org
12. Wikipedia: Turkey during World War II en.wikipedia.org
13. Kırıkkale University Open Access: Milli Korunma Kanunu acikerisim.kku.edu.tr
14. Dicle University Open Access: İkinci Dünya Savaşı konjonktüründe Türkiye ekonomisi (1940-1945) acikerisim.dicle.edu.tr
15. Wikipedia: Varlık Vergisi en.wikipedia.org
16. Wikipedia: Adana Conference en.wikipedia.org
17. Wikipedia: Second Cairo Conference en.wikipedia.org
18. SDÜ Avesis: İkinci Dünya Savaşında Müttefik Konferansları ve Türkiye İçin Önemi avesis.sdu.edu.tr
19. Wikipedia: Turkish declaration of war on Germany and Japan en.wikipedia.org
20. Atatürk Ansiklopedisi: Türk-Amerikan Askeri Yardım Antlaşması (23 Şubat 1945) ataturkansiklopedisi.gov.tr
21. Bozok University: Türk-Alman krom ticareti bozok.edu.tr

Image: Roosevelt Inönü and Churchill in Cairo cph.3b15312.jpg — U.S. Army Signal Corps, Public domain