I guess because of name)), but I mean not about Turkey’s readiness for invasion. I mean Hitlers hope about it. He had hopes not only Turkey’s invasion, also about Japan. But Japanese were fully involved in China against Chan Khai Shi. And. If Soviet Union began to shrink and collapse many of neighbors try to take part of eating that big pie. But who knows? It’s alternative history, only supposition. And I really don’t know about Turkey’s condition in that time.
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I was unaware how many Italian troops were deployed on the Eastern front until I read Giovanni Guareschi’s Comrade Don Camillo (original 1963 Italian title Monde Piccolo: Il Compagno Don Camillo), where the Catholic priest Don Camillo smuggles himself into a “fraternal” tour of the USSR by Italian communists led by his arch-enemy Mayor Peppone. On the tour, they find themselves on a remote part of the former front line where many Italian soldiers were buried.
It wasn’t just World War 1, but also the fighting that continued after the end of the war until the early 1920s, involving some very significant fighting and “population exchanges” with Greece to move Greeks out of Anatolia and Turks out of Greece. Those disruptions alone would have taken decades to settle out even if the former Sultanate had not been defeated in the 14-18 war.
Both the allies and the axis had exerted significant diplomatic and economic pressure on Turkey to enter the war, but I think the Turkish government made the correct decision to stay as neutral as they possibly could for as long as they possibly could.
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Hey wow, Don Camillo is really good as a comedy and as a portrayal of the Catholic/Communist issues in Italy. Thanks for sharing, I totally forgot about the series but it has good memories.
Indeed it also did not hide the fact that the Italians also fought for the Nazi’s. A lot of Italians love it as well and say that the uniqueness of this series is that while Pepone and Camillo adversaries it is more of a “friendly” rivalry where both have good intentions. (as opposed to my side is good and the others are all idiots. A sort of almost reconciliation in a contentious time or at least not demonizing the other completely. Kind of hard to explain, I recommend watching the series and make up your own mind.
We should have more of those TV series.
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I’d say rather that Guareschi managed to portray the idiosyncracies of both sides as mostly idiocy rather than intentional evil, and that is something any human can understand.
I knew there had been at least one movie made in the ?1950s? that was either dubbed or subtitled for English-speaking viewers, but I didn’t know if anything else had been made available in English. I’ve read most of the books that got translated, but the original stories were gathered into several volumes but the English translations don’t include all of the published stories.
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Thanks, an excellent way to put it. In the Netherlands and Belgium we got this with subtitles. It is best to listen to them in Italian I guess. I am not sure if it ever got dubbed, nothing really gets dubbed here except for kids movies.
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Well, let’s remember that in February 1941 (when Rommel first arrived at Tripoli), the Germans had been knocking out anybody they could attack on land pretty easily. And that when Rommel reached Alemein (150 miles from Cairo), the Germans in Russia were just about to break into the Caucuses.
In retrospect it’s obvious that the African adventure was not a good one for the Germans, but at the time, it sure looked possible that they might at least close the Suez Canal. (Certainly Churchill thought so.)
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