WesWorld

Either it hasn't been posted or i can't seem to find it but there seems to be no list of german ships. What capital ships does germany retain in the sim? I'm interested because I have a few Idea's for the make up of a small Turkish fleet to co-inside with my Turkish storyline and I was hoping to add Moltke to the list of ships that Turkey has in its possesion and perhaps a few german built cruisers to make their fleet more uniform, and yes add yet even more BB's and cruisers to the sim. I'm hoping to use the turkish fleet as a bargaining chip in relations with Atlantis. Another sticky point will be the Atlantian mandates and what is to become of them.

I thought I'd posted it somewhere, but nonetheless:

BB Markgraf, Prinzregent Luitpold, Helgoland

PD Hannover, Schliesen, Schleswig-Holstein

CL Niobe, Nymphe, Thetis, Amazone, Medusa, Arcona, Hamburg, Berlin

DD: 24, various types but mostly new-ish


The idea of adding German ships might be a problem for a few reasons.

First, I'm skeptical that Germany would give more ships to Turkey when Turkey had trouble operating Goeben and Breslau. Unless you tinker with Turkish history, they're lacking the ability to maintain a modern navy of note.

Second, Germany might be loath to give up another BC if her historical opponents were supplemented by Nordmark and Atlantis for starters.

Finally, I believe the Allies seized Goeben historically; if things have gotten nastier for the Turks, to the point that chunks of their territory have been turned into mandates, I can't see them giving her back, let alone tolerating a larger fleet than historical.

J

I'm not sure if she was seized but she was retained by turkey up untill the 70's when she was Finnally scraped and Breslau was sunk in 1918. Historicaly the Moltke was scuttled at Scapa but seeing as we have Nordmark, the SAE and Atlantis with some involvement in the great war perhaps the scuttleing wasn't as large due to some ships being interned in their ports as war reparations.
Atlantis has somewhat warmed up to easing the restrictions on Germany so I see no reason why Atlantis and Germany could not work things out. I think it would be interesting personally if more germans ships survived and could be given some more interesting lives to spice up the sim.
Peng has already beefed up the ABC fleets in South America so why not inflate the others? Lets make the sea crawling with BB"s!!! thats what we all want....well at least me anyway, lol.

I've seen references to Goeben being interned from 1918 to 1926 before being returned to the Turks.

I acknowledge that Atlantis does seem to be agreeable to loosening restrictions on Germany, but don't think it has a lot of bearing on Turkey's situation. My comments from yesterday were personal comments, rather than an official stance from Germany.

Transfers of German warships prior to 1918 would've been a German decision; as I've indicated, I can't see Germany doing so when faced with a greater number of capital ships in its enemies' fleets than historical.

Transfers of interned German warships would be an Allied decision, not Germany's. While I could see the Allies deciding not to intern Goeben, I can't see them giving Turkey additional ships.

If you're looking to beef up the Turks, my suggestions would be:

-Addition of some defecting A-H units

-Post-war sale of Agincourt to Turkey

-Post-war sale of old American dreadnoughts to Turkey

I don't disagree that it would make the sim more eventful, I'm just not yet sure how you can do so at this time.

J

"under the terms of the Armistice, Turkey was not permitted to retain large warships and accordingly was obliged to surrender Yauz Sultan Selim. In fact the disabled vessel was permitted to reamin in Turkish waters, and later the Allied Powers notified Turkey that they had decided not to enforce the treaty terms in this case. With French assistance the ship was refitted between 1927 and 1930, was renamed Yavuz in 1936 and served as the Fleet flagship until 1950. This popular battlecruiser was finally decomissioned with great ceremony in June 1973 and broken up in Turkey in 1974."

A big reason why the turks got to keep the Goeben was because the treaty of Sevres, created after the end of the war became useless due to events after the war. Russia Historically was an Entente power but when the bolshiviks took over the rest of the Entente powers made moves to prevent the russians from gaining any further teritory's and Turkey had continuing problems with the greeks who had occupied the port of Smyrna (Izmir) which was home to a large greek population and a large ammount of turks were massacred. This stirred up Nationalist feelings already fermenting amongst the turks. Later the greeks sent their forces futher beyond the confines of Smyrna and in August 1921 were threatening Ankara and as a result Turkish forces under the command of General Mustafa Kemal first pushed the greeks back to Eskisehir and then finnally routed them, they then retook Smyrna and in turn massacred the Greek population.
After this Kemal pushed to retake eastern thrace which was also controled by the Greeks but the British attempted to draw the line. They were unsuccessfull and this led to the then Prime Minister Llyod George losing conservative support and was forced to resign.
A new Turkish treaty, the treaty of Lausanne was signed in july 1923 and recognized the Modern Turkish boundries. Unfortunately the minorities in Turkey suffered greatly under this treaty uncluding the Greeks, Kurds and Armenians.
There are several problems with our alternate timeline, the first and most important is the fact that greece was not involved in WW1 which would mean no greek influence in post war borders in Turkey. Secondly Russia pulls out of the war but has no Bolshevik revolt.
The support Turkey gets subdueing Armenians will not be there, so the chances of Armenia becoming an independant country are higher.
One possiblity is that the Molkte gets beached at Scapa instead of being sunk, raised and scrapped. One of the reasons Turkey entered the was was its growing isolation. Turkey had been consistantly trying to purchase ships from Britain without luck.

Hmm...

If Russia's no longer considered a threat (due to its lack of bolshevism) to the Entente, there'd be less motivation for the Entente to be generous with Turkey at the peace table. Unless Turkey also bails out of the war early...would they?

Regardless, I see no reason why Britain would want to give Turkey any capital ship, let alone a nasty battlecruiser like Moltke - they were only just at war. It'd be like Nordmark giving Germany a capital ship.

But...

Post-war, Italy's historically feeling pretty good about itself, and seems to have some issues with Greece. In the sim, the same appears to be true, and at the very least, Italy is not aligned with France and Russia. So 1919 Italy might, in this timeline, have been interested in seeing a stronger Turkish presence to keep the Greeks on their toes and conceivably run interference with Russia. In that case, Italy could have put pressure on the Entente to go easy on Turkey after the war. Turkey might thus be allowed to operate capital ships after all.

If that's the case, Italy has control of the Tegetthoff and Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand; maybe it might have sold or given one or both of the A-H relics to Turkey prior to the Cleito Treaty coming around?

Obviously this is something you'd have to sort out with Red Admiral, I'm only throwing the idea out there.

My thinking is that because Atlantis is also involved in the Darnelles campaign that it go's slightly different, instead of the British and french pulling out Atlantis chips in and gives Turkey some headaches. Turkey and Italy have never truely seen eye to eye either, when Turkey attacked Russia the Italians moved into Tripolitainia and Cyrenaica.
I think with Atlantis in the Turkish theatre it would speed up events in that area a bit, and Atlantis also see's the benifit of good ties between country's in that region.