In a military-history-esque style. Let me know if you like it better this way or the other. My notes switch between GMT and local time, so the narrative will too.
-- Opening Moves --
After military intelligence gathered in May and June suggested that the Soviet Army was unprepared to face the Germans, Stalin ordered STAVKA to prepare plans for invasions of countries along the southern Soviet border. After considerable deliberation, Turkey was selected as the first target.
Control of the Bosphorous was a powerful motivator for the Soviets. Their aspirations to world dominance and the eventual defeat of the Allies required that they manufacture regions of dominance wherever possible, and connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean was the first step on the path to control of the Mediterranean itself (though that goal would be delayed until the war with the Allies began). Soviet plans were simple: destroy the Turkish armed forces in a series of encirclements and decisive battles and force Turkey to surrender to Soviet dominance.
To achieve this goal, STAVKA pulled 50 divisions and fifteen air wings off of the German front, including a large number of modern fighters and bombers, as well as a full thirty armored and motorized divisions, the majority of the Soviet mechanized force. Generals Cherevichenko and Zhukov, battle-tested leaders from the Conquest of the Baltic States and the Winter War, were the highest-ranking commanders assigned to the operation, Cherevichenko commanding from an army headquarters.
The specifics of the plan were tailored to the challenging geography of Turkey. Mountainous in the north and south, with a central plain bordered by hilly regions, there was only one axis along which an armored thrust could achieve the rapid results demanded by Stalin. The majority of the armored forces were to attack along the central axis, while an infantry assault into the mountains of Trebizond secured the northern flanks. Infantry forces would follow the armored spearhead, securing territories captured by the leading forces. The plan was a classic example of Soviet deep operations, with armored forces breaking into Turkey's strategic depth to cut off its lines of suppy and retreat.
War was declared early in the morning on the 2nd of July. At dawn, the VVS began to sortie over eastern Anatolia, bombing reinforcements as they attempted to move into Trebizond. Yakov Smuschkevich, a veteran of Khalkin Gol and the wars in northern Europe, provided able leadership, forcing the Turkish to march in much smaller units and only at night, greatly reducing their combat effectiveness. At the same time, the Battle of Kars began, with Soviet troops attacking across the Turkish border in force. Under attack from armored forces with virtually no heavy weapons of their own and under constant aerial bombardment, the Turkish retreated from the border thirty-four hours after the war began.
It was now early morning on the 4th of July, and the infantry assault on Trebizond began with armored support from Vassilevsky's 46th Corps, which had arrived on the Turkish front after the assault on Kars began.
-- The Turkish Retreat --
Trebizond's defenders held through the morning of the 8th, at which point STAVKA decided to order the Black Sea Fleet to the coast to provide reconaissance and bombardment. This fortuitous decision led to the meeting of the Soviet and Turkish fleets off the coast of Trebizond. Only a rainstorm lasting into the night enabled the escape of the Turkish. The Black Sea Fleet moved to the Turkish coast, and after more than twenty-four hours of bombardment, the Turkish garrison departed Trebizond on the afternoon of the ninth.
With the northern flank secured, though at great cost, the armored forces on the central axis were freed to make attacks deep into Turkey. Securing the region of Batman on the 16th to trap a Turkish corps in Van, Zhukov's spearhead turned its eye westward. Ineffectual counterattacks from isolated pockets of Turkish resistance turned into an undignified rout, and the Soviet forces followed the Turks toward Ankara and Istanbul.
Though their actions had no bearing on immediate Soviet goals, the Italians and Bulgarians would cause great headaches for the Soviet bloc in the future. Owing to a perceived threat of Soviet aggression, these two countries cast their lots with Germany, signing treaties to bring them into the Axis on the 14th.
-- Revolution --
The following day saw territorial gains for the Soviets, who reached Sivas. Zhukov dispatched Bagramian's 39th Corps to secure Samsun, cutting off the retreat of the Turkish forces retreating along Trebizond's inadequate roads. Samsun was captured, and on the 22nd the Soviets suffered a greatly ironic setback[1]. From the 20th to the 22nd, pro-Soviet revolts in most of eastern Anatolia forced the retreat of a great number of Turkish divisions, who began the long trek back to Istanbul to reform. The Soviets were not unwilling to take advantage of this windfall, their task rendered easier by the territory handed to them, and over the next week, the remainder of mainland Turkey fell under Soviet dominion.
Owing to a lack of communication between the Soviet Navy and Army, however, the Turkish fleet was able to escape Izmit and reach safe harbor in Istanbul. Its presence there stymied Cherevichenko's plans to use local transport to cross the Bosphorous and take the city of Istanbul itself, however, and the Soviet fleet could not sortie into the Bosphorous while the Turkish remained there to defend it. This placed the Soviets in a difficult situation: without a naval presence or even naval bases in the Mediterranean, an invasion of Istanbul would be fraught with difficulties.
[1]What
actually happened was that I accidentally hit accept on a peace offer. Ahem.
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Hokay, so. We have all of Turkey except for one province, but the one province we don't have has a victory point on it, and so we can't annex them. There are a couple of things we could do here:
1. Put a token garrison on the bordering provinces, build transports, wait for the Turkish forces to run out of supplies, deploy the transports in the Black Sea, and invade after we've dealt with, say, Persia.
2. Invade Greece to get a land route to Istanbul.
3. Use bombers to attempt to destroy the Turkish fleet in port, allowing us to invade across the Bosphorous.
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Topic: Arsenal of Democracy LP (1 October, 1944: Vperyod!) (Read 95138 times)