Atatürk's Navy: Determinants of Turkish Naval Policy, 1923–38

Abstract

Turkish naval policy between the establishment of the Turkish Republic and the Second World War was influenced by a set of institutional, domestic and international factors. Until the mid-1930s domestic political rivalry and Turkish military culture relegated the navy to a secondary role in support of the army for territorial defence. Because of the new republic's international isolation, naval policy was shaped largely in a diplomatic vacuum. Ankara gradually tried to take advantage of emerging great power rivalries in Europe to secure affordably priced naval arms. In the process, politically unsatisfied powers such as Germany and Italy figured prominently as suppliers of naval arms to Turkey. After 1934 changing international political and economic conditions weighed more heavily than domestic factors in setting the parameters of Turkish naval policy. The armaments programme adopted in 1934 provided for naval expansion to counter the Italian threat in the Aegean. This shift of emphasis is in naval policy also reflected Turkey's changing international status from an ‘outcast’ to a pro-status quo power. However, the coming of the Second World War denied Turkey the chance to build the fleet envisaged under its new naval programme.