Chapter 970

The news of the German attack on the Middle East flew all over the world like wings. The most intense reaction was not the big men behind the Middle East. It is Turkey, a traditional power in the north of the Middle East. Compared with Italy's slogan of "let the Mediterranean become the inner lake of Italian Empire", the Turks play the great signboard of "march into the Middle East and restore the glory of the past".

However, Turkey has not yet started. On the contrary, the Allied forces of Germany and Italy from afar took the lead in occupying Egypt. Not long ago, it even quickly crossed the Suez Canal, and there was a tendency to swallow the Middle East alone... This is undoubtedly a very intolerable thing for Turkey.

Don't think that Italy is the most famous wallflower in the history of the world. In fact, Turkey is absolutely not inferior to Italy in this respect. It seems that it is determined not to let Italy specialize in beauty. Therefore, even in the two world wars, Italy can only be regarded as one of the top echelons. As can be seen from Turkey's wavering attitude towards China's arms purchase, this country seems to be naturally fickle.

"Of course, this kind of thing can't be ignored." It is precisely because of this character that at the meeting of the Turkish military, the Turkish General at the head looked at his subordinates, but he did not like the German military. Especially after the German army entered the Middle East, the Turkish high-level was deeply disturbed by the German expansion.

Since the Kemal revolution, Turkey's internal system has not been much better than that of the Ottoman Empire. However, the government successfully called up troops, concentrated the strong sense of nationality and discipline of the country's most farmers, so there are still some ruling forces in the country - but only God knows how many.

Originally, Turkey's foreign policy was closely related to Greece in the Balkans, but in the process of dividing up the Balkans, this good relationship between the two countries was completely destroyed by akkado's ingenious Balkan interest distribution. Turkey gave up Greece in exchange for almost all of Greece's territorial sovereignty.

After that, Haofan's work of ruling the Balkans exhausted the Turkish military. After the loss of tens of thousands of soldiers, Turkey still did not win any peace from the chaotic Balkans. But the Turkish government's emphasis on its traditional sphere of influence is still unprecedented.

After all, in terms of historical relations, the Turkish Empire has a certain influence on the Middle East, while Germany's march into the Middle East obviously provokes Turkey's peripheral sphere of influence. In face, at least, Germany has opened its troops to Turkey.

"Italians and Germans are the same. They are not satisfied with occupying Africa. They come here to show off their power... Who do they think they are?" Another Turkish General followed. After all, Turkey didn't do much in several partition wars with the German army, so they are used to the distribution model of axis interests in which Germany carries the gun and others share the spoils. At this time, they don't remember what they have paid, they are just angry about what they haven't got.

Most of the Turkish military and politicians believe that Turkey should let its troops go south to occupy those rich areas. The argument is very consistent: "instead of letting Germany's losers destroy the whole Middle East oil producing region, let Turkey replace it."

So under the influence of this argument, the Turkish army left their base and began to gather in the South on a large scale. These troops lacked equipment and supplies, and were not prepared for war at all. They were so muddled that they were pushed to the front line by the officers, ready to fight against the most powerful enemy.

Because Turkey was the latest to join the axis powers, and because Turkey has never done anything in the axis countries, the arms trade between Turkey and Germany is also the shortest and most perfunctory. In order to learn from the German army, Turkey "purchased a lot" of German weapons and equipment. As for how "huge" this amount is, we can only use the word "joke" to describe it.

Turkey purchased 40000 rifles, 1000 submachine guns and 500 old Markham heavy machine guns from Germany. These guns are about the weapons of a German infantry army, but also the infantry weapons of the second line infantry army! Of course, this does not include the artillery weapons and other equipment needed by the infantry.

Under the same procurement plan, Turkey bought 30 trucks, 4 armored reconnaissance vehicles and 19 tanks from the German army. At the request of Turkey, these 19 tanks were delivered with the cheapest booty seized from North Africa... In short, Turkey is very "stingy" in arms procurement.

First, Turkey's economic situation is not good. Unlike Romania, Turkey has rich oil resources in exchange for a large number of German military equipment. Unlike Italy, Turkey has developed industry and can export some things to Germany. Second, there are too many things that Turkey needs to buy, so it can't buy by itself.

New weapons that are changing the battlefield situation emerge in an endless stream in a short period of time, such as radar systems, anti-aircraft guns, anti tank guns, large caliber guns, armored vehicles and tanks. Turkey has never been in touch with all this. It's OK to sell things. The seller needs a lot of personnel training service and a series of after-sales problems.

The weapon manufacturers of the whole third empire are working overtime on the front line to produce arms. Who has the time to take care of such a troublesome customer? This is not a post-war marketing environment in which there is no market, and the army of our country is running out of ammunition. Who has the time to develop new customers? In such a state that the buyer has no money, no mind, and the seller has no time, no energy, it is conceivable how many original German weapons and equipment Turkey can get. In the best months of relations between Germany and Turkey, only eight me-109c fighters, the most popular export products of Germany, were transported to Turkey. Now everyone should understand why akado did not consider Turkey's plan to attack the Soviet Union or the Middle East at all, because in fact Turkey's military strength has nothing to expect. As soon as the war starts, Turkey's seemingly powerful army, let alone winning the war, will be in trouble even if it holds its position. Unfortunately, although akkado has an objective evaluation of the Turkish army, the Turks themselves are not so self-conscious. At the instigation of countless people, Turkey's top leaders finally can't bear the temptation and are determined to attack the Middle East. 100000 Turkish soldiers, with food in their pockets and a rifle on their back, received a few bullets and set off in a mighty direction towards the border area. The combat effectiveness of these soldiers is almost zero in the face of the great changes that have taken place in the British and American forces. However, the Turks are not very clear about these things. The idea of several Turkish generals is very simple: the enemy is trapped by the German army near the Suez Canal, and their army has to face some Arab armed forces who are also not very well equipped. With this idea, the Turkish military feels that it has a chance to seize a large area of the Middle East, and even, if it is lucky, touch the Persian Gulf. At 6:00 a.m. on May 20, 200000 Turkish Infantry began to cross the Syrian defense line and attack French Syria. This place was originally a French colony, but after the success of the German invasion of France, the colony chose to support the French government in exile. Now there are some French colonial troops, 7000 British troops and 4000 American soldiers stationed here. Of course, if you include the 80000 local Syrian troops temporarily armed, these troops are barely half of Turkey's southward troops. However, if you consider the combat effectiveness, these troops are obviously better than Turkey's troops. At least their equipment is much better than that of the Turkish army: the US Army has 40 obsolete m3 tanks here, and the British army has retained 70 mathildas that are useless here. Although these tanks are really difficult to deal with the German army, they are more than enough to fight against Turkey. The two sides fought without warning in the border area. The Turkish army's attempt to quickly break through the British and American defense line was completely defeated. The crude defense line in Syria made it difficult for the Turkish troops to move. The US and British troops had an overwhelming advantage in firepower. After the loss of about 10000 soldiers, Turkish forces were forced to stop the full-scale offensive. Later, those US fighters and bombers who were killed by the German air force and did not dare to take off to fight found self-esteem in the Turkish front line. They bombed and suppressed the ground targets of the Turkish army, making it an extravagant hope for the Turkish troops to gather to attack or retreat. In desperation, the Turkish army finally remembered that there were three German infantry divisions behind them who were kept in the dark, so the Turkish army contacted the German commander in a hurry, hoping that they could come forward to save the situation. The German commanders were not fools. They were sent all the way to Turkey not to fight, but to contain. What's the difference between a real fight and the death of the enemy by relying on three infantry divisions without heavy firepower and air superiority to attack the enemy's carefully arranged plan? Therefore, the German commander did not agree to the Turkish army's request for help, but only agreed that the Turkish army could provide some necessary training assistance for soldiers.