By the late nineteenth century, Germany replaced Britain as the modern Ottoman Empire’s principal European partner. Hence, in 1914 it did not take the Ottoman government long to enter World War I at Germany‘s side, fighting Russia. After Germany‘s defeat, the new government in Berlin in June 1919 accepted the onerous Versailles Treaty. Declaring Germany and its allies the sole responsible parties for the war, it detached territories in Germany‘s east and west, imposed tremendous reparation payments, principally to France, and set strict limits to armed forces and military development (which however were soon bypassed by clandestine cooperation with the Soviets). In the postwar Ottoman Empire / nascent Turkey, developments differed—and were closely followed in Germany. From as early as 1919, especially conservative Germans saw Turkey’s action against the Allies as a model for their country, as Stefan Ihrig‘s Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination (2014) has shown.

A case in point is the text published here, in the elite conservative national daily Neue preussische Zeitung (also Kreuzzeitung), by Otto Hoetzsch (1876-1946), who in 1920-1930 served as a member of parliament for the Deutschnationale Volkspartei, the largest conservative party in the Weimarer Republic (1918-1933). To be sure, the Ottoman/Turkish postwar beginnings were as bleak as Germany‘s. In October 1918, the British-Ottoman Armistice of Mudros demobilized the army, evacuated all non-Anatolian garrisons, and stipulated the Allied occupation of Istanbul and the Straits. And in August 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres, signed by Sultan Mehmet VI but rejected by the subsequently disbanded parliament, affirmed Allied control of the Straits and Istanbul, designated Anatolia’s southwest and center-south as Italian and French influence zones, foresaw a Franco-British-influenced Kurdish state and an Armenian state in present-day eastern Turkey, and gave Thrace and Izmir to Greece, which had invaded western Anatolia in 1919 and was pushing eastwards. But these terms galvanized the Turkish National Movement (TNM), which was begun by Muslim Ottoman officers and notables in post-armistice Anatolia and was galvanized already in 1919 by the Greek invasion. To many Germans’ envy, by September 1922 the TNM was in control of almost all of present-day Turkey, due to its own military and political-diplomatic force, to Greek overreach, and to divergent Allied interests. To replace the Treaty of Sèvres, negotiations ensued from November 1922 with the Allies in the Swiss city of Lausanne. In January 1923, the Turkish and Greek delegations signed the Convention Regarding the Exchange of Greek and Turkish populations (also Lausanne Convention), by which about 1.5 million Greek Orthodox (“Greek”) inhabitants of Anatolia were forcedly exchanged for about 500,000 Muslim (“Turkish”) inhabitants of Greece. And in July 1923, all delegations signed the Treaty of Lausanne. It imposed some conditions on Turkey, including a minority protection regime patterned on earlier League of Nations models for postwar Eastern Europe. But on the whole, it was a great Turkish success. It inter alia internationally recognized the Turkish Republic, returned Istanbul and the Straits to Turkey, abolished the prewar capitulations, and absolved all perpetrators of the anti-Armenian, -Assyrian, and -Orthodox genocide from legal prosecution.

Mao Zedong and a visiting delegation from Albania discuss the history of the Albanian Party, Albania's relations with Italy, US-China relations, and other developments in Cuba, Brazil, Turkey, and Greece.

Ambassador Livingston Merchant, who was responsible for the U.S. diplomatic effort to win support for the MLF, asked INR to report on the degree to which non-nuclear European members of NATO were satisfied with their “lack of a share in ownership or control of nuclear weapons.” Based on the evidence, mainly various statements made by leading politicians, diplomats, and policymakers, INR experts concluded that most of the countries surveyed (Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Greece) were “relatively satisfied,” while only West Germany was “restive” to the extent that some of its officials were interested in a NATO or European nuclear force.

Churchill, Eden, Stalin, and Molotov discuss the leadership in Poland, Britains interests in Greece and Hong Kong, the actions of Romania and Bulgaria during the war, Turkey, the need for the Great Powers to exert influence on the Balkans to prevent small wars, the leadership of Italy, interests in Bulgaria and Romania, the dividing of Germany and Germany's future, and the American plans in the war against Japan.

Remarks from delegates across Asia, including Ngo Dinh Diem, attending the Third Annual Conference of the Asian Peoples' Anti-Communist League in Saigon, Vietnam.

Bulgaria's General Consul in Istanbul, Turkey, reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs information he received from the Chief of the Greek General Staff to Turkey. As recorded, the Greek General Staff reported a meeting between Turkish and Greek governments. The governments discussed a non-aggression pact between Warsaw Pact and NATO countries and the use of Polaris missile submarines in Turkish waters.

On 5 July 1963 the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs completed an information report on NATO's activity during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the report, the ministry outlines detailed espionage carried out by NATO agents. According to the report, the NATO Military Intelligence Services provided instructions for NATO member-states' military attaches stationed in Warsaw Pact countries and agents they could get to cooperate with them. Agents were to observe and report specific military intelligence collecting in Warsaw Pact countries -- arms deliveries, missile sites, military movements, etc. The report also includes explanation of how the attaches carried out their intelligence gathering -- reading official press, speaking in Russian and misrepresenting themselves as Russian, etc . The Bulgarian Interior Ministry notes that Western governments were well-informed of Bulgarian military structures -- including exact formations and secret designations.

Bulgarian Embassy in Athens staff member Atanasov reports on Greek media accounts of military preparations to the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to Atanasov, Greek newspapers report preparations include Soviet movements in the Mediterranean in response to US submarines carrying Polaris missiles, Bulgarian maneuvers near the Greek and Turkish borders, and an anticipated NATO forward strategy in Greece. Atanasov adds that NATO is preparing the defense of possible attacks on Greece.

Bulgarian Ambassador to Greece Nikolai Minchev relays recent newspaper reports to the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Minchev summarizes a recent NATO meeting in Athens where NATO staff and Turkish and Greek military personal discussed security in the two nations and the Balkan region as a whole.

In his cable to the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, Ambasador Kiril Shterev reports information about expected US assistance to Greece in 1963. Shterev acquired the information during lunch with the Greek Charge d' Affaires, Counselor Kalougeras. Kalougeras also mentioned Turkey's possible entrance into the European Economic Community and inquired about US-Bulgarian relations.