942. Chapter 907: The Strait of Constantinople Issue

Chapter 907 The Strait of Constantinople Issue

On the British and French side, in order to ease the pressure on the Balkan countries, it became very important to find new allies within the Balkan region.

After much deliberation, the British focused their attention on Turkey, which was once the most powerful country in the Balkan region and one of the great powers a hundred years ago.

After many Balkan wars, the current Turkey is no longer as strong as the Ottoman Turkey before, and the emerging republic is not welcomed by Britain and France.

Especially after the end of World War I, large tracts of land and sea, including Constantinople and the Strait of Constantinople, were forced to become demilitarized zones, just like the Rhineland in Germany.

What's worse for Turkey is that Turkey currently controls part of the European territory, which is the Edirne region that was snatched from Bulgaria after the end of the Balkan War.

Although the land area here is not vast, it is at least located around Constantinople, one of the most prosperous cities in Europe.

More importantly, this is a very scarce plain area in Turkey and one of the most important grain-producing areas in the entire Balkan Peninsula.

If the entire area is a demilitarized zone, it is equivalent to sending fat meat to the mouths of the Balkan countries. For the Republic of Turkey, which has completed the revolution, this is undoubtedly a national pain and a problem that the Turkish government wants to solve all the time.

But Constantinople and the Strait are not only very important to the Balkan countries, but also to the Black Sea countries.

Of course, there are not many countries along the Black Sea coast at present. Russia and Turkey have occupied more than two-thirds of the coastline, and the remaining coastline is divided by Romania and Bulgaria.

Why do the British attach so much importance to Turkey?

Turkey's strength is actually far from that strong, but Turkey's influence on Constantinople is definitely the strongest except for the great powers.

Once Turkey can be pulled into its arms, Britain will be able to achieve a comprehensive blockade of the Strait of Constantinople and block the route for the Allies headed by Germany and Italy to obtain resources.

You know, Romania and Bulgaria are both belligerents. As long as Turkey can join the British side, it means that Romanian and Bulgarian ships will never be able to leave the Black Sea.

If Romania and Bulgaria want to trade, they can only do so by land. But these two countries have few neighbors, and a considerable number of them are their enemies.

In this way, the only way for Romania and Bulgaria to obtain resources is to cooperate with the Germans and obtain resources through railways.

But the Germans themselves lack resources. In this way, except for Romania's oil, Romania and Bulgaria have become a burden to the Germans from other perspectives.

More importantly, if Turkey can join the Balkan war, the advantages occupied by Romania and Bulgaria will disappear.

Turkey has a small territory in the Balkans, but it owns the entire Anatolian Peninsula in Asia, with a total land area of ​​785,000 square kilometers and a total population of nearly 17 million.

Such strength is fully comparable to the two Balkan powers of Yugoslavia and Romania, and can pose a major threat to Bulgaria.

More importantly, Turkey is one of the countries that once participated in the division of the Bulgarian occupied areas. Although these lands were originally occupied by Bulgaria from Turkey, there are still some contradictions between the two countries.

As time entered 1937, the negotiations between many European countries and Turkey became the biggest news in the world.

Because of the war in Europe, the place of negotiation was chosen in Istanbul, which is Constantinople in the eyes of Europeans.

Historically, this meeting actually took place in Montreux, Switzerland, but Switzerland at that time was obviously not suitable for such a multinational high-level meeting, not to mention that it was biased towards the British side.

As the victor of the First World War and one of the four major powers of the Allied Powers, Australasia was naturally qualified to participate in this meeting, and as the protagonist, it became the final decision-making role together with the British and French representatives.

It is worth mentioning that Russia, one of the four major powers of the Allied Powers, also participated in this meeting, but it was obviously not welcomed by Britain, France and Australia.

However, Russia still participated in this meeting because they are also a country on the Black Sea coast, and Russia's Black Sea Fleet has always been one of Russia's three main fleets.

But Russia's three major fleets actually have certain problems, and even Russia today cannot solve the problems faced by the three major fleets.

Russia's three major fleets are the Baltic Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet and the Far East Fleet, and the Far East Fleet is also called the Pacific Fleet.

The Baltic Fleet was once one of the most important fleets of Tsarist Russia, and its annual military budget was the largest among the three fleets.

But since the current Russia came to power, the importance of the Baltic Fleet has obviously fallen behind other fleets.

Of course, this is not just the reason of the current Russian government.

During the changes in Russia, Russia lost a lot of territory, including half of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland.

This also reduced Russia's coastline in the Baltic Sea from thousands or even tens of thousands of kilometers to a pitiful less than 200 kilometers. The only remaining coastline has St. Petersburg, which was once the most important city of Tsarist Russia and also had the status of capital.

But since the current Russia came to power, the capital has not only been moved to Moscow, but St. Petersburg has also been forced to change its name.

Although the Baltic Fleet has not been removed from the list, the treatment of the Baltic Fleet is indeed not as good as that of the Black Sea Fleet and the Far East Fleet. It has become the tail of the three major fleets from the original head of the three major fleets of Russia.

The problem of the Black Sea Fleet is not much worse. The environment around the Black Sea is quite complex, and it is also an inland sea thousands of kilometers away from the ocean.

If you want to go to the Atlantic Ocean or the Indian Ocean from the Black Sea, you must pass through the Strait of Constantinople, the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar or the Suez Canal.

Since the Tsarist Empire, Russia has dreamed of Constantinople and the Strait of Constantinople. But unfortunately, looking at the hundreds of years of Russian history, the Strait of Constantinople has never been controlled by Russia, and the Black Sea Fleet has always faced the problem of difficulty in going to sea.

Compared with the Baltic Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet, the Russian Far East Fleet is actually in a much better situation.

Let’s not talk about how Vladivostok, the base of the Far East Fleet, came from, but Vladivostok is indeed the one with a relatively good environment among the three major ports in Russia.

But it can also be seen from the terrain that Vladivostok is located in the Lesser Sea of ​​Japan and is currently surrounded by almost all the territories of the island country.

This is also the reason why Russia and the island country have a bad relationship. Russia finally found an ice-free port in the Far East (actually a semi-ice-free port), but this port is almost blocked by the island country, and it still faces problems similar to the Black Sea Fleet if it wants to go to sea.

Fortunately, compared with Constantinople, the island country is undoubtedly the weakest side. Although the Russian Far East Fleet has been subject to certain restrictions, it is not difficult to go to sea.

It is precisely because of the difficulty of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to go out to sea that Russia attaches so much importance to Constantinople that it even attends this conference as the only two neutral countries at the conference, even though other countries are hostile.

On January 14, 1937, Britain, France, Australasia, Russia, Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Albania and other countries formally attended the conference in Constantinople and discussed how to deal with Constantinople and the Strait of Constantinople in wartime.

There is a fierce debate about the issue of warships of various countries passing through the Strait of Constantinople.

Of course, the most important debate is the issue of the blockade of the Strait of Constantinople between Britain and Russia.

Russia is certainly unwilling to be blocked by the Strait of Constantinople, but the British also want to firmly control the Strait of Constantinople, which is actually a certain contradiction.

However, looking around, except for Turkey, all the countries participating in the conference are allies of the British, which can actually show who is the decision maker of this conference.

The Russian representative advocated that the Strait of Constantinople should be blocked and warships of any belligerent country should not pass through it. Countries along the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea can pass through the Strait of Constantinople, but they are subject to restrictions.

The British naturally could not accept such a proposal.

Russia is also a country along the Black Sea, so there are almost no restrictions for the Russians to do so. On the contrary, Britain itself, as a belligerent country and a country not along the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, will be prohibited from entering the Strait of Constantinople by warships.

In order to prevent Russia from strengthening its position in the Mediterranean and the Balkans, the British put forward their own opinions, insisting on the equal rights of non-Black Sea coastal countries and Black Sea coastal countries on this issue.

In other words, the British representative directly stated that although Russia is a country along the Black Sea, Britain should also enjoy the same rights as Russia.

At the same time, the British proposed that during the war, all belligerent countries can freely pass through the Strait of Constantinople. If the strait needs to be blocked, it must be approved by more than 65% of the countries participating in the meeting.

Such a proposal by the British is a bit rogue to the Russians.

After all, except Turkey, all the countries participating in the meeting are allies of the British. Britain and its allies account for six votes, which is 75%.

This also means that it is very easy for the British to reach 65% of the votes, and Britain can also block the Strait of Constantinople unscrupulously.

But Russia is different. There are very few countries that Russia can win over, and there is a high probability that it only has one vote.

Isn't this equivalent to discussing for a long time, and the Strait of Constantinople still falls into the control of the British?

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