The Chanak Affair
David Walder
The Macmillan Company
The "Chanak Crisis" in the years of peace and "normalcy" following World War 1 destroyed Lloyd George, threw Winston Churchill out of Parliament and brought Britain to the brink of war with a strong and newly unified Turkey. Now tor the first time British historian David Walder reveals the secrets of the most serious British crisis in the Middle East prior to Suez.
In 1922 Britain was faced with the prospect of waging war with a handful of troops against the entire Turkish army. This confrontation, centering around the insignificant little seaport of Chanak, was the culmination of a series of disastrous diplomatic decisions made by the same British statesmen who had designed the strategy of the First World War.
In 1919, Lloyd George had given the Greeks a large part of defeated Turkey as a reward for joining the Allies. Three years later the Greeks were in a state of ruin. Their king was dead of a monkey bite, the Turks, under Kemal Ataturk, had swept the Greek army into the sea, and only hopeless refugees and tiny Allied garrisons at Constantinople and. Chanak stood between the Turks and the final destruction of Greek integrity.
The other partners of the Grand Alliance made their peace with the Turks-the French and Italians made secret agreements, and Canada and Australia disassociated themselves from Britain. London nevertheless gave orders to open fire and then sat back to see what would have, been a calamitous war, but for the wisdom and coolness of General 'Tim" Harrington, the commander-in-chief at Constantinople. Disobeying orders, he risked his career and exercised great skill and patience to bring the Turks to a negotiated peace.
Using Cabinet papers and testimonies of participants, David Walder brings incisive historical scholarship to this dramatic tale of international intrigue and diplomatic bungling.
David Walder received his master's degree in history from Oxford University. He served with the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars in the Middle and Far East; after which he became a: barrister for ten years, and was a Member of Parliament in the Conservative Party from 1961-66. He has written political articles and military and historical reviews for many periodicals, including The Observer, Town Magazine, The Scotsman, and The Daily Telegraph. Author of four books-Bags of Swank, The Short List, The Gift Bearers, and The Fair Ladies of Salamanca-he is presently working on a history of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), to be published by Macmillan.
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