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The World War Two Allied Economic Warfare: The Case of Turkish Chrome Sales
Abstract
Economic character of "modern warfare" is too important to be underestimated. In the Economic Warfare belligerents attempt to reduce the war capacity of the enemy through various methods. In World War II crushing down the German war production and economy was the main target of the British Ministry of Economic Warfare. For Germany, one of the many ways of overcoming the British Economic Warfare was to trade with the neutral countries that had land connection to the Third Reich. Turkey was one of them.The most important of all the Turkish products was Chrome.It was indispensable for Germany and therefore the supply of Germany by Turkish Chrome had to be prevented.Turkey was free to trade with both the Allies and the Axis. She was aware of the importance of this asset and used it in every occasion before and during the war to reach her goals. As a neutral state. This study argues that the Allied Economic Warfare regarding the chrome sales failed in Turkey as a result of a series of facts derived from the Allies, the Axis and Turkey herself. The reasons for this failure are analyzed throughout this work.
1939’da patlak veren İkinci Dünya Savaşı, Türkiye’nin 1930-1939 arasında uyguladığı korumacı/devletçi politikalarının sekteye uğramasına yol açtı. Türkiye, Avrupa başta olmak üzere pek çok ülke üzerinde ciddi tahribat bırakan bu savaşa fiili olarak katılmamakla beraber, savaş ekonomisini uygulamaya mecbur kaldı. Diğer taraftan ülke nüfusunun ciddi bir bölümünü oluşturan erkek işgücünü silahaltına alan Türkiye, arz daralması yaşadı ve tüketim talebini karşılayamadı. Enflasyonist bir ortamın doğmasına yol açan ekonomik abluka, askeri harcamalar ve seferberlik gibi sıradışı unsurlar, ülke ekonomisini temelinden sarstı. Savaş başında tarafsızlığını ilan eden ABD ise, hem Alman zaferlerinden doğan Atlantik, hem de Japon politikalarının gösterdiği Pasifik tehdidi karşısında silahlanmaya hız verdi. Bu doğrultuda Türk-Amerikan ilişkilerinin ana yörüngesini askeri ve iktisadi gelişmeler teşkil etti. Savaş ekonomisinin yarattığı ortamın etkisiyle ABD ile hemen her alanda ticari ilişkiler yoğunlaştı ve ordu malzemeleri ağırlıklı olarak ABD’den temin edildi. Zirai, sanayi, sağlık ve hizmet gibi tüm sektörlerin ihtiyacı yine ABD ile ilişkilerde önemli yer tuttu. Gerçekleştirilen yardım anlaşmalarıyla perçinleşen Türk-Amerikan ilişkileri, uzun süreli ve ciddi bir kopukluk yaşamadı. Savaş döneminde yaşanan ikili ilişkilerin iktisadi düzeyi, savaş sonrası gerçekleşecek olan büyük çaplı yardım ve antlaşmaların da temelini oluşturdu. Bu çalışmada, Türkiye ile ABD arasında yaşanan iktisadi/ticari ilişkilerin II. Dünya Savaşı boyunca hangi düzeyde yürütüldüğü, ilişkilerin iktisadi niteliği ve diplomatik gelişmelere yaptığı etkiler arşiv belgeleri ışığında tetkik edilecektir.
This thesis, the first work that investigates the Turco-German relations in the Interwar Era from the perspective of soft power, examines German soft power policies in the Balkans and Turkey in the Interwar Era. How certain German non-state actors such as the Messeamt, the Leipzig Trade Fair, chambers of commerce, etc. took the initiative and re-established German economic presence in certain Balkan countries in the mid-1920s in the absence of the Weimar government's support is discussed. How German economic drive in the Balkans gained speed following the proclamation of the New Plan in 1934 and how the Balkans played a decisive role in realizing Hitler's rearmament venture by supplying Germany with various raw materials needed by the German war industry are also examined.
Similarly, how Turkish-German political, economic, military, and cultural relations were re-established and developed in the Weimar period and what kind of changes came out in Germany's soft power practices with the emergence of the Nazi rule are also addressed. Certain German soft power practices such as investments, student exchange programs, supporting the employment of German specialists and academicians in Turkey, arms trade, and using well-established German institutions in Turkey to achieve imperialist aims, etc. are examined in the light of a variety of primary and secondary sources from both sides.
This paper discusses the importance of chrome in the historical context of the Turkish-German relations between 1933 and 1945. Chrome attains its central significance due to its indispensability in the defense industry production. On the evidence of the political aim of the National Socialist government it endeavored to ensure chrome especially from Turkey because it was, in comparison to the other suppliers, the only country which was reachable by land and by sea. On the contrary, Turkey was interested in a relationship with Germany owing to the Turkish industrialization efforts as well. Germany was equipped with know-how and human capital which Turkey lacked. Both countries complemented each other economically, whereby the economic cooperation depended on stable political conditions. To understand this interaction the analysis deals with both the political and economic level. Considering this fact, the time period between 1933 and 1945 is divided in three phases which reflect the dynamic relations between Turkey and Germany based on those two levels.
A detailed chronological and bibliographical fact-finding of the most relevant treaties, agreements, political decisions, legislation, definitions, theories, public documents and scientific studies in the field of the economic and financial warfare and their tools and tactics (market penetration, trade agreements, international aid, preclusive purchasing, dollar diplomacy, monetary policy, world investment banking, shipping assurance, economic and financial intelligence, business intelligence, economy as statecraft, for-eign economic policy, geoeconomics, national emergencies, export controls, asset freeze, sanctions and countersanctions, embargos, boycott, lawfare, extraterritorial jurisdiction, shipping insurance, predatory pricing, dumping and antidumping, bankrupting, counterfeiting, smuggling, color revolution, human rights, responsibility to protect, blockade, bombing, sabotage, espionage, covert operations) since 1900 ongoing.
Although most frequent mention must be made of the political relations, the special emphasis in the article lays on the economic cooperation between Turkey and Germany. For commercial and financial factors played a key role in shaping the Turkish-German relations in the second half of the 1930s. Turkey came to view the dominant German grip over its economy with much anxiety and looked to other powers to assist it in breaking the Reichsmark shackle. In the political field, the dynamics of Turkish-German relations often led Germany to seek a formal relationship which Turkey, for reasons of its own, did not grant. Throughout the study Ankara's attitude vis-a-vis Berlin evaluated in terms of its position within wider Turkish diplomatic strategy.
This collection provides a comprehensive English-language survey of the conduct of neutral and non-belligerent states during the war. Instead of narrowly focusing on the few neutrals that survived the war intact, the volume broadens our understanding of neutrality, by including chapters on 'non-belligerents' and those neutrals of south-east Europe, such as Romania and Yugoslavia. The essays focus on how individual neutral governments perceived international developments and throw light on the domestic political circumstances that critically affected their response to the course of the war. They therefore provide the political context that has been overlooked in controversies surrounding their humanitarian and financial activities. While based on the authors' own research, the essays draw widely on secondary literature and provide invaluable analytical introductions to the large amount of historical writing on these countries.
Almost everyone assumes that by enforcing trade sanctions and arms embargoes, modern democracies make tin-pot dictators and rogue states mend their ways - that the application of economic pressure is easily the most effective way to curb aggression and encourage respect for human rights. R.T. Naylor demonstrates that economic warfare fails almost everywhere it is attempted, and that even when it succeeds, it has consequences that are not only unintended, but also frequently the precise opposite of their advertised result. For instance, embargoes drove Cuba into the awkward embrace of the Soviet Union. Everywhere that economic pressures have been used to either replace or augment military actions, the result has been confusion leading to criminality. From east to west, from before WWI to the recent confrontations with Pakistan, Bosnia, and Iraq, the legacy of economic warfare has been money laundering, gun-running, drug smuggling, and evasion of the rule of law. Naylor's approach is at once epic and anecdotal. His survey is populated by a bizarre underworld of warriors and smugglers, gangsters and spies, whose singular careers would be comic if they weren't absolutely real.