What if Turkey Lost World War II?
The main point of divergence in this alternate timeline is that in September 1943, Turkish President İsmet İnönü accepts the Axis powers’ and Italy’s offer of Rhodes and the Dodecanese Islands, intended to bring Turkey into the war, due to pressure from Prime Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu and several high-ranking bureaucrats who believed Germany had a greater chance of winning the war.
Entering the conflict unprepared and unwillingly, Turkey achieves limited initial successes on the Caucasus and Syrian fronts. However, as the war progresses, it begins to suffer heavy losses, defeats, and occupations. As Germany views Turkey merely as a tool to advance toward Baku and as a means of distracting Allied forces in the Caucasus and the Middle East, while providing insufficient support, the Turkish fronts quickly collapse.
Believing disaster to be inevitable, İnönü attempts to seek negotiations with the Allies. However, fearing political elimination, Prime Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu, Recep Peker, and Chief of the General Staff Fevzi Çakmak organize a coup against him with the aim of preventing a change in leadership.
Nevertheless, this does not change Turkey’s fate. The Turkish army collapses in a short period, and the country is forced to surrender. By 1946, Turkey is divided between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies, similarly to Germany; the eastern regions fall under Soviet occupation, while the western regions come under the control of occupation forces led by Britain and Greece.
Western Turkey, being a densely populated region with an almost entirely Turkish majority, does not lose territory. However, the loss of Eastern Turkey’s territories where Soviet policies lead to the incorporation of Kurdistan into Soviet socialist republics and the northeastern regions into the Armenian SSR creates an advantage for Western Turkey from the very beginning.
By 1990, following the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Eastern Europe, East and West Turkey reunify with the approval of Western Europe. I tried to make this map with the early 2010s in mind.