A New
Byzantium 1919
Genesis - Greeks
in the Balkans 1917-1920
The Greek
Army (after much vacillating) finally entered WW1 in 1917, and fought with the
French, British and Serbs against the Bulgarians, Austrians and Germans, and
emerged victorious on the southern Balkan "Salonica" Front at the end of WW1. At that point, the map of Turkey and quite a lot of Europe was redrawn.
It does
make you wonder if, after WW1, the Allies had decide to recreate Byzantium from
some of Turkey's European lands, rolling back some of the Bulgarian, Greek
& Serbian advances in the Balkan Wars. Why and How may it have happened?
Byzantium re-emerges in 1919
At the
Treaty of Versailles, Byzantia was made a Class A mandate (effectively an
independent state, but under French management). The why was to ensure that
Turkey no longe had a starnglehold on the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. and to
punish Bulgaria for the trouble it caused, Greece for being a such a lukewarm
ally, and the rest to make it a viable state.
So the European part of Turkey, part of North Greece and much of Bulgaria south of the Jiricek line was amalgamated to form the new Byzantium. I
also decided, wih the stroke of a pixel, that Trabazond would be returned to Byzantia, so the French and Royal Navies could use it's
facilities on the Black Sea, and help keep the Turks and Russians honest.
Being a French mandate meant that
they became involved in the Russian Civil War in Odessa (partly to ensure they
got their War Gift of equipment, necessary given all the covetous surrounding
powers), withdrawing with the Greeks in 1921. They did not get involved in the
Graeco-Turkish war, which strained relations with their Southern neighbour (the
Byzantine view was that if they had, their Northern neighbours would have gone to war to
capture parts of Byzantia) and their Eastern neighbour would at the very least have seized Trabazond.
Byzantia's
Turkish governor, Marx Effendi, served as the first prime minister, saw the
constitution through, and presided over the first election in 1923 and is now
State President, as he was immensely respected by all. Although Marx Effendi
had hoped that Byzantia would be returned to the Turkish fold, he had also
realised that his future there was limited (as part of Turkey that had - by
necessity - actually worked with the Allies to ensure that its people did not
suffer too much) and in fact potentially dangerous (his great friend and mentor, Mehmet Cavit Bey, was executed last year).
This is the
period of the first editions of Tintin and other romantic literary Imagi-Nations, so New
Byzantium is certainly well aware of the tensions between Syldavia and
Borduria, unsettled intrigues in Ruritania, even peaceful Herzoslovakia is not
untouched, and it also has Johnny Turk breathing down its back, as well as the
Pan-Hellenes wanting it to join the Greek nation for the Greater Good. For the
demi-democratic Government this is also the period of the Communist and Fascist
demagogues, Young Turks, The Balkan Black Hand, plotting ex-Royals and
dangerously democratic ideals fomented by Secret Societies - never mind the
crackpot schemes of various Mad Professors in Tran - Syldavian castles....and
not forgetting the various Orthodox Churches vying for superiority
An Army in
the 1920's
The army
that emerged as a Class A mandate was predominantly men from the Turkish army
in World War One, plus various Greeks and Bulgarians. In the aftermath of the Great War the Byzantine view was that
the defeated Germans and Turks were not the best example, and so they
re-modelled themselves on the French army they served alongside in the Russian
Civil War (most commentators there confused Byzantia with Greek troops,
probably because they were both French equipped and used the Greek alphabet).
The first question was how big could the new army be? By 1918 the population of the ceded areas was about 3m. World War one ensured little growth, and a shortage of men.
Using the 1% rule, a peacetime military of c 30,000 is affordable with near-zero impact on the economy. Assuming again a c 1/3rd tail (Typical World War One level), that is a 20,000 person effective standing military. About 1/3rd are in the Navy and Air Arm, leaving c 13,000 in the Army. This gives (at about 600 front line men per Battalion) about 21 Battalion sized formations.. Assuming the same again in active reservists and conscripts that is about 25,000 fighting troops at near instant muster. .
That was the theory. Most combatants in World War One had bled themselves white,
running between c 15% and 20% of all the population called up - so double that
for % of males - (Russia was less, at c 7.5%, but that is partly a function of
the society structure and partly exiting early). At full stretch, Greece as a
late entrant in World War One had 230,000 men in arms with a population of c 4.8m (ie c 5% of the population). The other
Balkan states, fighting more intensively, averaged c 13%. Bulgaria at 20% was
at major state levels. (Warning -
stats differ wildly per source so these are orders-of-magnitude views)
So
Byzantia's 1920's army was going to a very small affair, the one piece
of good news was all the countries surrounding it were as badly off, so the 1920's were hopefully going to be peaceful. Byzantia
managed to wheedle a War Gift from the French and British, so loaded up on
decommissioned WW! armoured cars, tanks, guns and planes from the two great
powers.
Thus they reconstitued themselves, each of the 6 Themes (provinces) was a recruiting ground for a 2 battalion strong standing force with another battalion's worth of artillery. The annual conscripts, plus a reservist force (of which one battalion was an active reserve force - the Akritoi) meant they they could put 1 brigades per Theme in the field very quickly and another with a short muster. There was another brigade of light mountain infantry.
Byzantia
also reached back to another historical trick - foreign
mercenaries. Constantinople was always a gold mine,
being the centre of trade between East and West, so there was at least
some money in the treasury and a lot of impoverished ex soldiers were
happy to take service.
So the great Mercenary regiments were re-formed - the Latinikon (Europeans), Turkopoloi (Turks), Skythikon (Tartars etc), Vardariots (Balkan peoples) and Varangians (Russians - or more accurately, White Russians)
The Latinikon and Turkopoloi were formed as armoured units. The Varangians formed an "armoured infantry" formation, to move with the armoured regiments.
The big
lessons from the Russian Civil War conflict was the usefulness of fast moving
Armoured Car and Cavalry, and easy to move medium artillery. That had
influenced Byantia's thinking, so the Vardariots and Skythikon became mixed armoured cars and cavalry.
The idea was that as the Themes got better populated, they too would be able to support some armoured formations.
And of
course, there is a small Air Corps, operating with (initially) easy-to-get WW1
cast-offfs and then getting later aircraft a few years later than the
major powers.
As the main
victorious powers in the region were Britain and France, and France was New
Byzantium's Mandator, This New Byzantium began it's life with primarily French
organisation and equipment - and has
quite a few bits purloined from defeated Bulgarian and Ottoman forces.
That sets the scene - the next post looks at ow the army moves into the 1930's
