Turkey

Flag of the Republic of Turkey

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Head of State
İsmet İnönü

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Ruling Party
Republican People's Party
( Kemalism)

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Foreign Alignment
Triumverate Member Sphere of Influence
Triumverate Sphere Member

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Capital City
Ankara

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Population
33,790,000

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Economy
Free Market Capitalism

The Republic of Turkey is a country situated on the crossroads of Europe and Asia. It is mainly on Anatolia and the north of the Fertile Crescent in Asia, with a small portion called Thrace on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe. It borders the Black Sea and Bulgaria to the north; Germany to the northeast; Iran to the east; Iraq, Syria, Italy and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; and the Aegean Sea and Greece to the west. Most of the country's citizens are ethnic Turks, while Kurds and Arabs comprise significant Minorities. Ankara is Turkey's capital and second-largest city, while Istanbul is its largest city and center of commerce and culture.

History

Interwar Period

The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, following the Turkish National Movement's victory during War of Independence. The country became an Authoritarian One-Party state under the leadership of its founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. During his tenure, Atatürk enacted the modernization and secularization of the Turkish State, using the principles of Kemalism as a model, however resistance to the reforms manifested early on. Secular legal codes were established, the Turkish language was reformed, and Women's suffrage was realized - by the completion of the reforms, Turkish society had gone through a total transformation. In response to the abolition of the Caliphate and complaints of Turkish Maltreatment, a series of Kurdish rebellions began in the east, Southeast Anatolia was placed under martial law. The system of "Inspectorate Generals" were established to enact the Turkification process.

Following the death of Atatürk in 1938, his second in command İsmet İnönü was chosen to succeed him. İnönü would continue the statist policies of his predecessor and the one party rule. When the Second World War initially broke out, Turkey initially committed itself to neutrality, with the bitter sacrifices during the War of Independence and the First World War still in memory. Both the Axis and the Allied powers would attempt to curry Turkey's favor so that the nation would join on their side.

Second World War

As the war seemed turning increasingly in favor of the Axis Powers, arguments for joining forces with Rome and Berlin became increasingly persuasive, as pressure from the Germany and sympathetic ministers began holding sway. In the final stages of the conflict, following a tense three-way diplomatic incident between his government on one side and Hitler and Mussolini's ambassadors to Ankara on the other, the president issued out a declaration of war against the Allies and the Soviets both, and Turkish forces swept through the desert of Syria and the mountains of the Caucasus, claiming all of the territories of the Misak-ı Milli (National Pact) which the Republic was forced to concede in various treaties with Russia, Britain, and France soon after its inception. Great swathes of territory in the Levant, the Caucasus, and the Balkans were annexed directly into the Turkish state. Turkey had entered the war as a still-fledgling republic and left it as an empire.

Post War

Though initially it seemed alliances forged during the war would disintegrate during peacetime - the Malta conference established an alliance between the foremost Mediterranean powers and their satellites. Despite significant border disputes between Turkey and Italy over the newly captured land, İnönü agreed to enter the Republic into the Italian-led Triumvirate, a decision no doubt spurred by a personal friendship with the Duce along with increasing fear of german aggression by both parties. The Triumverate offered a respite from the collapsing economic situation, and new friends across the Mediterranean, but it rested upon a long list of grievances that each state held against one another, ranging from the drawing of new borders over Syria and Lebanon, the Italian occupation of the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean, their unconditional support for a Greek Cyprus, and Italy's outright imperialist policies of exploiting Turkish and Spanish dependency on trade through the Suez for its own benefits.

The Turkish entry and subsequent victory in the war led to massive upheaval domestically as the nation adapted to the changing situation. The precedents of authoritarian rule being made in occupied Europe did indeed left their mark on Ankara. Empires were made of vast tracts of territory, and the people over which Turkey now held dominion were firmly devoted to shaking off its influence by all means possible. The supposed benefits that came with the new territories and their natural resources subsided as German investments dried up as relations with Berlin deteriorated. The CHP was left with ungrateful populations, open hostility in the provinces, and an uncertain grasp on power. It responded by rallying its allies, both in the military and in the form of nationalists that would otherwise pose a threat to the Party's rule. In a succession of laws, decrees, and proposals made by the president and various members of his cabinet over several years - some out of necessity and others out of fear - the Republic managed to retain its political structure, but not without great transformation.

A Grand Council of Fascism has been reintroduced as an institution of the Grand National Assembly that oversees the rejection of any laws that go against the principles of Kemalism. The military was empowered, with many of its loyal and popular members gaining seats in Parliament and on occasion in the president's cabinet. Minority rights were eroded to their status during the rebellions of the 20s, and an expanded Report for Reform was upheld as official government policy, leading to greatly restricted rights for all non-military personnel in minority provinces - all in an effort to "enshrine stability and create an opportunity for greater democratic participation in the future," if the president is to be believed. İnönü's regime survives propped up by three pillars: nationalism, statism, and militarism. It would appear that in this the CHP has found its winning formula; For the party has never lost an election in the past 20 years, maintaining a facade of true democracy. One movement which was defined by this trend towards authoritarianism was the Güven Partisi, or 'Trust Party' led by Turhan Feyzioğlu. Rampant nationalism influenced by the Italian school of fascism, they were instrumental in shaping the cast within which İnönü's new republic was molded.

Not all parts of the political establishment were happy with this arrangement, most notable among them are Celâl Bayar and his circle of acquaintances. Bayar replaced İnönü as prime minister after 1937. As an advocate of classical liberalism, both economic and political, and a political rival of the president, opposed to the changes made following the war. Bayar's hostility with the government culminated in a public resignation from his post as a member of Parliament in 1948 alongside a small number of allies. This threat was met with careful maneuvering by the president, who allowed Bayar to found his own party, the Democrat Party, on the condition that he return to serve in Parliament as the leader of a loyal opposition. Having won his concessions, Bayar's new party accepted, and has been engaged in a parliamentary stand-off with the CHP's majority ever since. In the meantime, the Güven Partisi and the Demokrat Parti led by Bayar formed the UDP (Ulusal Demokrat Parti/National Democratic Party) as a right-wing political movement. During the rally of the celebration and announcement of said alliance, Celal Bayar was killed by gunmen associated with the fascist prime minister Recep Peker. This incident led to escalation by the right which eventually saw the Güven Partisi dissolved and their politicians banned at the hands of the CHP, as well as the suppression of leftist groups like TKP across the country.

Now much more moderate in their views, the UDP is slowly gaining grounds with the public with promises of a liberalized economy and political system - but never daring to undermine the regime directly, with fears of anarchy dominated by extreme wings of the political spectrum, or worse, the threat of minority revolts like those Bayar repressed in 1937 hanging in the air.

The Georgians, Thracians, Greeks, Armenians, and Arabs that taste oppression at the hands of local Turkish garrisons on a daily basis all have their grievances with the regime in Ankara; to them, it is no different to that of the fascists in Italy, especially as the economic resources of their provinces are exploited to keep the Turkish heartlands afloat with natives seeing very little of that gain. This situation was further exacerbated by Turkish intervention into Iraq in the 1950s, where Qasim's revolutionary regime found itself attacked by Italy. Rome called, and the eager nationalists of the Turkish Regime lobbied for intervention into Iraqi Kurdistan. While Italy's fortunes soon expired, earning Qasim a generous peace as long as he pledged to nominally align with Italian interests, Turkey successfully wrestled control of Kurdistan, assigning a clique of tribal leaders under Barzani aligned to Ankara as safe-keepers of the buffer provinces and beneficiaries of the oil wealth now flowing into Turkey. With that, the last of the Misak-ı Millî territories fell into Turkish control.

Minority unrest has become a common feature of political life, and the state turned to more oppressive methods to crush it every time. This heavy-handed militarism soon spread to other branches of government, supported by the military and the resurgent right. By 1962 the title "president" is rarely heard, most commonly substituted for the more formidable title of "Millî Şef."

Thus, the Millî Şef begins the year of 1962 with a long list of troubles: A stagnating economy, popular unrest rising against the CHP's 40-year rule after decades of landslide elections, and a deteriorating situation abroad.