The Alexandretta War

The Alexandretta War

The Alexandretta War was an armed conflict that began in late February 2020 with the invasion of the Alexandretta Governate of Syria by the Turkish Republic. The invasion was opposed by a variety of nations and multinational organizations within a few days after the attack, and resulted in a major war between Turkey and Syria, the Netherlands, France, the Sofia Pact, the Tehran Pact, the German Confederation and the Commonwealth of Nations that would continue for much of 2020 until the excessive casualties between the both sides and a looming World War resulted in a ceasefire by September of that year.

In January 2020, the Turkish Republic declared that it had resumed its claim on Alexandretta which it had originally revoked in early 1970s during the Middle Eastern Detente. As the diplomatic relations between the two nations were reaching a heated dispute, the Syrian government requested aid from multiple nations. Bulgaria and Iran, the leaders of the Sofia and Tehran pacts (which, put together, make every neighbor of Turkey bar Syria itself) each accepted to help Turkey in case of a military struggle, while North Germany and Britain, in their capacity as the leaders of the German Confederation and the Commonwealth of Nations, each accepted Syria's request for military aid. The North German military base in Alexandretta was originally completed in February 13 2020. Ten days later, the Turkish Republic cut all diplomatic ties with its neighbor in Syria and moved a total of 100,000 into northern Syria. In response, members of the Tehran Pact and the Sofia Pact joined the Syrian government. However, the Turkish military overwhelmed its enemies early in the war. Turkey completely occupied Cyprus, Armenia and Greek Anatolia by early April 2020, and successfully defeated the Sofia Pact in the First Battle of Constantinople, occupying the city and marching into Bulgarian Thrace on 23 May 2020. The Commonwealth of Nations, France, the Netherlands and the German Confederation each joined the war in full force by 1 June 2020 in response to the occupation of Constantinople. The bulk of the German Expeditionary Force met with Turkish forces in the Battle of Sofia, putting a halt to the Turkish advance on 13 June 2020.

The Turkish forces were pushed back to Constantinople and then to Anatolia by a joint taskforce between the German Confederation, the Sofia Pact, and local resistance forces while the Turkish advance into Asia was stopped by a Jewish-Egyptian-Iranian taskforce in Beirut, Lebanon on 27 June 2020. Fighting a war on two sides, Turkey was pushed back to its borders after violent, heavy fighting in the next two months, until it was fully pushed back into Constantinople on 14 July 2020 and into its own borders in the Asian Theater on 1 August and finally finally defeated in the Battle of Caesaria (17-29 August 2020), which was the largest battle of the war and saw troops from every participant country. The catastrophic results of the Battle of Caesaria resulted in a diplomatic Intervention by the Japanese Empire on behalf of the Turkish Republic on 4 September. The other belligerents accepted a general Ceasefire and opened negotiations in Rome on 17 September 2020. The negotiations eventually resulted in the Treaty of Rome on Christmas Day 2020, putting an end to the War for Alexandretta.

The Alexandretta War saw more than 60% of the military personnel dying in battle or falling to heavy injury. Armenian, Cypriot, Constantinoplian, Lebanese and Greek armies nearly lost their entire military personnel. Four million civilians were killed and more than seven million were displaced, and property destruction has been estimated to a minimum of 37 billion Reichsmarks (or equivalent). The Alexandretta War was by all accounts the most destructive of the Turkish Wars (that had been ongoing between 1908 and 2020), and brought forth the Protocol of the Treaty of Rome which demilitarized Turkey and took near 70% of its industry as reparations, while it was forced to similarly pay heavy indemnities to the countries that it had put under occupation. It began an era of National Renewal for most member-states of the Tehran and Sofia Pacts, and was commemorated by the governments and leaderships of each of the victorious participants of the War.

Background

The origin of the territorial disputes between Turkey and its neighbors -like all things- reach back the late 19th and early 20th century. After the Congress of Berlin released much of the Ottoman Empire's territories in the Balkan Peninsula in form of Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece, the Ottoman Empire maintained territorial claims to these territories, something that resulted in the Balkan War against the Kingdom of Bulgaria in 1896. The Ottoman Empire later lost nearly half of its territory to the British Empire in the Persian-Ottoman War of 1907-8. The Humiliating defeat resulted in a state of popular revolts throughout the Empire which eventually manifested in the Turkish Revolution of 1908. Within weeks, a military government had been established and it had reformed the Ottoman Empire into the Turkish Republic.

The Revanchist Turkish Republic committed a number of atrocities within 1908 and 1932 that slowly but steadily made it into a diplomatic pariah state with little diplomatic relations with its neighbors or the Great Powers. These atrocities include ethnic cleansing of Greeks in most of Anatolia, a genocide of Armenians in the Kars region, and an attempt to exterminate the Kurdish population that live in most of Southeast Turkey. Turkey entered the second Great War as a member of the Brotherhood of Nations, and was forced to cede the Kars region to a recently established Armenia, Izmir to Greece, Thrace to Bulgaria, and recognize the independence of Constantinople as a Free City. Between 1940 and 2020, Turkey attempted to restore lost territory more than twenty times without any success.

In January 2020, the Turkish Government declared that it no longer accepted a previous treaty signed with the Hashemite Kingdom in 1974 during the Middle Eastern Detente in which it had revoked its claim on the territories held by the Hashemite Kingdom. As Syria was an independent State, Turkey once again restored its claim on the territories that make the Alexandretta Governate in Syria. On 16 January 2020, Mustafa Tayyepoğlu, the President of the Turkish Republic demanded the territory on a meeting with the Syrian National Chief Hasan al-Damashqi. During this meeting, coincidentally also the first meeting between the two nations, Tayyepoğlu gave al-Damashqi a one-month-long deadline to "clear out Iskanderun" and prepare it to be ceded to Turkey. In response, Turkey and Syria cut their recently-established diplomatic ties. Within the next three weeks, al-Damashqi met with Anahita Farrokhi, the Prime Minister of Iran and Simeon Borisov, the Bulgarian Prime Minister to request for aid in the event of a Turkish invasion. Similar requests were made to North Germany, Austria, Britain, Japan, and even the United States for aid. The Sofia Pact declared that it would "come to the aid of anyone threatened by a Turk", while the Tehran Pact, after a week of negotiations, accepted to aid the Syrian State provided Syria had been the victim of Turkish aggression. Britain and North Germany made no promises, though North Germany established a military base between January and February, which saw a redeployment of 25,000 from Lebanon and Macedonia.

The deadline enforced by Turkey finally ended in 21 February. Turkey delivered its formal declaration of war on 23 February, which was when the Alexandretta War began.

Course of Events

When the war began, Turkey had a standing army of 355,200, with the capacity to mobilize a reserve force roughly the same size as its standing army. Turkey deployed the Second Turkish Army, a war force 120,000 men strong, into its borders with Syria. At the time of the war, Syria had a standing army of 100,000. Upon the declaration of war, Syria called for a general mobilization of all its reserves; This mobilization was only completed by 18 April 2020 at which point the Turkish armies were near Damascus.

Battle of Aleppo

While Syria had believed Turkey would march from Adana to occupy Alexandretta, Turkey took the road from Gaziantep to Aleppo. The first contingents of the Turkish Army engaged Syrian border guards in al-Salameh (Battle of Al-Salameh, 23 February 2020), which was chased to A'zaz within an hour of the war. The Syrian Republican Guard was rapidly deployed to Nubl while the the Standing army in Syria was deployed to Aleppo proper. It was hoped that the much more rapid Republican Guard would hold back the Turkish onslaught while the rest of the army prepared for a siege in the city itself where, they hoped, a decisive victory over Turkey could convince the aggressor to sue for peace. Despite their hopes, the Turkish army quickly and decisively defeated the Republican Guard on Nubl (Battle of Nubl, 24 February) and had already reached Aleppo before the Syrian army could be successfully deployed.

The two sides fought in the Battle of Aleppo (24-26 February) for 37 hours. The Turkish Air-force successfully bombed the Syrian positions in Anadan, Kafr Hamrah, and finally a paradrop inside Aleppo itself took the much less experienced Syrians off guard. Aleppo was quickly occupied and by 27 February, the Turkish Army was marching towards Antioch in Alexandretta.

Kars Offensive

The occupation of Aleppo resulted in a joint declaration of war by the Sofia Pact. Bulgaria, Greece, Constantinople, Armenia and Cyprus formally declared that they were "entering the War between Syria and Turkey on the side of its clear and evident victim, the Syrian Republic" and partial mobilization was ordered by all five states on that same February. To the Sofia Pact's dismay, Turkey's standing army was better prepared. The Third Turkish Army, stationed in Ezrincan, was quickly deployed to Erzurum, a city that borders both Turkey and Armenia. Turkey's Second Fleet quickly put a blockade on Cyprus, and an army 60,000 strong was deployed into Cyprus which began the battle of Cyprus (3 March-4 April 2020). On the East, Turkey's 120,000 strong army fought the 51,580 strong standing army of Armenia. The first of these was the Battle of Erzerum (4-5 March 2020).

The moving of Turkish troops in Erzrum -which had been declared a demobilized site in 1940, the Tehran Pact joined the war. Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Hashemite Arabia formally joined the war on 5 March 2020.

Battle of Kars

The Armenian defeat in Erzerum opened the way for Turkey to march into the "lost province of Kars". The Battle of Kars, fought between Turkey on one side and Iran, Hashemite Arabia and Armenia on the other. Turkey decisively defeated the Armenian army between Erzerum and Narman (Battle of Narman, 5-7 March 2020), while a joint Hashemite-Persian force was crushed by a moralized Turkish army in Patnos (Battle of Patnos, 8-10 March 2020). The two defeated armies regrouped in Kars in what was the first inter-organizational mission in the war, but were again defeated by the Turkish army in the Battle of Kars (10-15 March 2020). At this time, Turkey called for a mobilization of 20% of its reserves, partially because its western borders had also been violated by Greece, Bulgaria and Constantinople.

Battle of Yerevan

With the fall of Kars, Armenian morale fell apart. A fully mobilized Armenia fought against Turkish forces along the Aras river (Battle of the Aras, 19 March-1 April 2020), where Turkey deployed half of the Third Army towards Van and Tabriz. A Turkish force 80,000 strong clashed with Armenia along the Aras River until decisively defeating the Armenian force in the Battle of Ranchpar (1 April 2020). The Turkish force victoriously moved towards Yerevan, the Armenian Capital, and by 4 April, the Yerevan government had fallen. The rest of Armenia quickly followed suit during the week.

Battle of Tabriz

While a smaller Turkish force had chased the Hashemite-Persian expedition south during and after the Battle of Aras, its main target was both Kurdistan and Azerbaijan. The Fall of Yerevan (4 April 2020) gave Turkey the option to move south. Using the aid of fifth-column Turkish militias in Iran and a disorganized multi-ethnic army in Northern Mesopotamia, Turkey defeated the Tehran Pact in the three battles of Van (25 March), Yüksekova (1 April), and Urmia (7 April). The now-reinforced Turkish army marched towards Salmas, and after a decisive Battle of Lake Urmia (7-11 April 2020) successfully marched for a Tabriz that had welcomed them with open arms.

Westward Offensive

The Balkan Theater of the Alexandretta War formally began on 28 February. The Bulgarian, Constantinoplian and Greek forces were much more prepared for combat than their Cypriot and Armenian fellow members. As a result, a 70,000 man-strong army (made mostly of Bulgarian forces and Constantinople city guards) marched through Constantinople and marched for Bursa. They were joined by the Aegean Greek Army (40,000) and defeated the Turkish garrison in the Battle of Bursa (5-8 March 2020). The combined Expeditionary Force was hoping to march for Ankara and capture the city, thus forcing the Turkish government to surrender effectively. Despite their hopes however, the Turkish First Army (stationed in Ankara) and the Turkish Garrison for Aegea (stationed in Antalya) put together (115,200) successfully halted the Sofia Pact onslaught in a pitched battle. The Battle of Dedeler (10-12 March 2020) pushed the Greco-Bulgarian troops to retreat. The Turkish army chased their retreating enemy all the way back to Düzce, where a second defeat (Battle of Düzce, 18 March 2020) shattered the coalition army, forcing near half of the force to retreat to Constantinople while another retreated back to Greek Anatolia.

Battle of Smyrna

The primary objective of the Turkish Army in the Westward Offensive was the occupation and pacification of Smyrna. While a smaller part of the Turkish force had barricaded and blocked the roads leading to Constantinople following the Battle of Düzce, the largest part was chasing the 30,000-man strong Greek army back to Izmir. The two forces first fought in Bursa (Second Battle of Bursa, 23 March 2020), Balıkesir (Battle of Balıkesir, 25 March 2020) and Akhisar (Battle of Akhisar, 26 March 2020) before Turkey began a amphibian siege on Smyrna. As the 89,000-man-strong Turkish army assaulted the city, it was also lightly bombarded by the Aegean Turkish Navy. The city fell to the Turkish army in 8 April 2020, putting an end to both the Westward Offensive and the Battle of Smyrna (23 March-8 April 2020).

First Battle of Constantinople

Within days of the conclusion of the Westward Offensive, Tabriz had fallen. While Persia and Hashemite Arabia were preparing for a counter-invasion, Turkey similarly redeployed 75% of its Third Army back to Ankara. A similar order halted the Turkish advance in Syria and Lebanon as 80% of the Turkish forces in the theater were similarly redeployed. By 17 April, 150,000 had been redeployed in Ankara. That was when the Constantinople Offensive began.

The offensive first fought against the Sofia Pact Vanguard which had advanced to Bursa as Turkey was dealing with Smyrna. The Third Battle of Bursa (18-20 April 2020) annihilated a 18,000-man strong Bulgarian force that had been cut off from support due to a Turkish naval blockade on the Straits. With that, a 100,000 strong Turkish army attacked and captured Gebze (Battle of Gebze, 20 April 2020) and laid siege to Constantinople.

A Turkish success in the naval First Battle of the Dardanelles (6 March-18 April) successfully ensured that Turkey had total control over the Dardanelles. This culminated in the redeployment of the First Turkish Army from Izmir to Gelibolu. The Turkish Army, backed by Naval support and Aerial Supremacy, mowed through the Bulgarian opposition, finally culminating in the First Battle of Nova Tsirkasiya (2 May 2020). From this point, the battle was an easy Turkish victory. The two Turkish armies (233,000) defeated the joint armies of Bulgaria, Greece, and Constantinople (‭209,250‬) in the third most important battle of the war. The Battle of Costantinople (also known as the Constantinople Offensive) began in 17 April and finally saw an end on 23 May 2020. The Turkish Republic held a military parade in the city only two days later, the proud Turkish military marching through the silent, mourning city.

European Intervention

The Fall of Constantinople, while the most important Turkish accomplishment between 1940 and 2020, was also the turning point of the war. While a proud, moralized Turkish army rapidly began marching west to fully occupy Greece and Bulgaria, movement that begun to establish Turkish rule over all occupied territory. At this point, Turkey was confident that it could wrest a strip of territory in Northern Syria and Hashemite Arabia, reannex Constantinople and Cyprus, and even take back Kars in addition to its original demands in Alexandretta. President Tayyepoğlu personally called for peace "between warring powers" more than three times. However, this occupation had opposite results.

North Germany, which despite having a military base in Alexandretta had not aided Syria in its war with Turkey thus far, demanded Turkey end the city's occupation. The German Confederation itself voted on a general mobilization to fight "for the liberation of Constantinople and other states from Turkish occupation" on 25 May, the same day that Turkey had held its parade in the newly-dubbed Istanbul. A general vote resulted in a general state of war between the German Confederation and the Republic of Turkey on 27 May 2020. While all 13 members formally entered the war, only seven fought in an independent capacity, the other six only attaching small token forces to the larger armies of North Germany, Austria and Emilia. This declaration was followed by that of the Netherlands and France (28 May 2020) within a day of the declaration.

The Commonwealth of Nations also voted to enter the war for the casus belli of liberating Constantinople, Syria, and Cyprus (as its fellow member of the Commonwealth). While all ten members of the Commonwealth declared war, only five operated in an independent capacity. The last declaration of war, issued by the Kingdom of Ireland, was issued on 1 June 2020.

German Intervention in Sofia

By the time the German Confederation had mobilized its troops, the Turkish army had occupied most of Continental Greece and was well underway defeating the last pockets of resistance in Peloponnese. The bulk of the Turkish army was operating in Bulgaria. While the Bulgarian government contemplated using Scorched Earth tactics during their retreat after their defeat in the Battle of Edirne (28 May 2020), a missive delivered by the German Confederation reassured them that the bulk of the German Expeditionary Force would be deployed to Bulgaria first.

The German Expeditionary Force manifested in 4 distinct armies: The Papuan Expedition which was made of 3,000 Papuan forces and 750 North Germans deployed from Singapur and Tsingtau, the Emilia Expedition which was made of 12,500 from Emilia, 7,500 from Luderitz, and 5,000 from India, Zanzibar and Wastrecht, the Austrian Expdition which was made of 20,000 Austrians and a total of 5,000 from Alsace, Lorraine, Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria. The Largest military force was the North German Expedition, made of 40,000 from North Germany, 25,000 from Livonia and 10,000 from Ruthenia. The North German (75,000) and Austrian (25,000) Expeditions were deployed between 28 May and 2 June, and eventually joined forces in Saravejo, Croatia on 3 June 2020, from where they moved straight for Sofia to the request of the Bulgarian Government.

By 13 June when the German Expeditionary Force arrived in Bulgaria, the local forces had been forced to end their retreat in Novi Han, 25 kilometers away from their capital and one of the last spots in Bulgaria not under Turkish occupation. The two armies had begun fighting in Novi Han on 6 June, marking the first phase of the Battle of Sofia, and had been driven back 13 kilometers to Kazichen after 153 hours of bloody fighting when the North German Airforce bombarded the Turkish positions in Ravno Pole (5 kilometers east of the suburb). The 100,000 strong German reinforcement arrived 6 hours later that same day, and Bulgaria retreated to Plovdiv after 14 hours of fighting.

The German Intervention in Sofia was the first step in the new phase of the war. With Sofia free, the British, North German, and Bulgarian governments formally formed a temporary alliance against Turkey by merging their organizations' pools of resources in form of the Combined Joint Task-force - Operation Valley of Elah (CJTF-OVE) which was formally established on 15 June 2020. The Combined Joint Task-Force later saw the Tehran Pact and the two governments of France and the Netherlands also join as the war was threatened into becoming a global conflict.

Restoration Campaign

CJTF-OVE began operations on both fronts of the war effective after its formation. The general plan, after discussions between British, North German, Bulgarian and Syrian military officials, had been the use of rapid military force and the Combined Taskforce's near decisive upper hand in manpower to quickly wrest back the territories that had been put under Turkish occupation. Constantinople, Greece, Cyprus and Armenia were given primary status due to the official Turkish discrimination against their citizens. The long series of campaigns (which officially began on 3 June with the Battle of Ramallah and ended on 24 July when the Turkish forces retreated from Syria into Anatolia proper) is commonly known as the Restoration Campaign.

Beirut Campaign

The Eastern Theater of the war saw its turning point upon the entry of the Egypt into the war. Egypt, which deployed the largest number of Commonwealth troops into the war, concentrated most of its efforts in the Asian frontier. Of its 73,000, 40,000 were moved through the land border into Israel where they regrouped with a now-fully mobilized Israeli army. The joint Egyptian-Israeli task force, led by the well-decorated Egyptian Major General Faisal Farouq, began the Beirut Campaign which, despite its name, was for the most part fought inside Israel and Golan.

Farouq and his opponent, the Turkish Major Ömer Kaya, first fought in the Battle of Ramallah (3-5 June), putting a halt to the Turkish advance which had mowed its way through Asia largely unscathed until that point. The Battle of Ramallah stopped Kaya's forces fifteen kilometers north of Jerusalem -the Israeli capital, and it is believed that had Turkey captured Jerusalem, the Tehran Pact would have sued for peace within a month. The Turkish forces, defeated in Ramallah, retreated for Nablus, but were hindered by the Iranian garrison in Israel which had originally been deployed during an earlier war against Hashemite Arabia in 2001. The Iranian Garrison (led by Maj. Gen. Shakoori) fought with the Turkish garrison along the Israeli Route 60. Shakoori knew that his numerously inferior forces, cut off from supplies and logistic support, had no hope to defeat the larger retreating Turkish army and as such he only hoped to hinder their retreat long enough for the Iranian forces to take back Tabriz and Azerbaijan -which would in turn free up to 65,000 Iranian forces to be redployed into the Levant. Shakoori and his garrison eventually held their last stand in Shiloh, where his 32,000 strong force was completely defeated by the 130,000 strong Turkish army in the Battle of Shiloh (13 June). While a victory for the Turks, this was a tactical defeat as they lost the headstart they had enjoyed for nearly a week. Farouq fought Kaya again in Huwara (14 June), Sebastia (14-15 June) and finally Qabatiya (18 June).

Around this time, the Iranian Imperial Army had taken back Tabriz after encircling the Turks in Urmia and defeating a 150,000 strong Turkish army in the Battle of Khoy (14 June) which while not a strategic victory had forced Turkey to evacuate Azerbaijan. General Pishavar's 70,000 strong army was redeployed through Hashemite Arabia and into Amman. It had been hoped that Iran could regroup with the Syrian forces which had also been situated in Amman to begin the liberation of Syria. By 23 June when the Iranian and Syrian armies had reached the rally point however, Turkey had all-but evacuated Judea and Samaria after its defeat in the Battle of Nablus (19-21 June) and as such the Syrian-Iranian forces could move for Damascus.

The Maj. Gen. Farouq's army successfully defeated the Turkish forces in Nazareth, the third most important battle of the campaign (and seventh most important in the entirety of the war) in the Battle of Nazareth (13-21 June). The Turkish army was forced to retreat all the way back to Tripoli. While Tripoli was, unlike Jerusalem and Amman, within the Turkish logistic support, things quickly went sour as the Persian-Syrian forces arrived in Damascus. Short, bloody and thunderous, the Battle of Damascus went along the Battle of Tripoli, and just as Tripoli enjoyed Anglo-Egyptian naval superiority and coastal bombardment of Turkish positions, Syria enjoyed Hashemite aerial supremacy. Unable to hold each of the cities alone, Kaya attempted to divide his forces, hoping to catch the enemy off guard in any of the two cities, but was finally defeated in both battles. The Twin Battles of Damascus and Tripoli (22-29 June, 23-27 June) marked the end of any possible Turkish advance into Asia. From this point, Turkey was completely and only on retreat.

Operation Deliberate Phoenix

Operation Deliberate Phoenix (13 June-14 July 2020) was the designation assigned to the joint efforts of the German Confederation, the Sofia Pact and the numerous resistance organizations in the Balkans to push the Turkish force back to Asia and liberate Greece, Bulgaria and Constantinople. The Operation itself was divided into six different offensives. The Thessaloniki offensive, the Peloponnese Offensive, the Skopie offensive, the Plovdiv offensive, the Varna offensive, and the Nova Tsirkasiya offensive. The bulk of CJTF-OVE forces were concentrated on the Nova Tsirkasiya offensive as that was the only mission that could successfully push the Turks back to Constantinople, which the North German and Austrian navies were more concentrated in deploying Sea Infantry to liberate the Bulgarian coasts. While the land forces fought to liberate the Balkans, major battles were fought in the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara (Battle of the Coast of Varna 17-23 June 2020; Battle of the Coast of Thrace 25-28 July 2020; Battle of the Black Sea, 29 July 2020 Battle of the Aegean Sea 18-26 June 2020; Second Battle of the Dardanelles 28 June-2 July 2020; Battle of Marmara, 2-14 July 2020)

The Thessaloniki Offensive

The Thessaloniki offensive (13-28 June 2020) began with directly after the battle of Sofia and even before the formation of the Joint Task-force. The Western Flank of the German Expeditionary Force, led by the Austrian Major General Sebastian Geiß took the E79 Road from Sofia itself. The 30,000-strong force originally engaged the Turkish army in Blagoevgrad (Battle of Blagoevgrad, 14-17 June 2020) where the numerically superior Turkish force was hindered by local Bulgarian resistance forces which changed the battle from a pitched battle in Stob to a chase and later an urban battle in the city itself where the Turkish force was decisively defeated and forced to retreat. From then, Geiß engaged the retreating Turkish army twice in Simitli (Battle of Simitli, 18-19 June 2020) and Kresna (21-22 June), before finally catching up to the Turkish army -that had been hindered by local Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Greek resistance- in Syar (Battle of Syar, 23 June 2020). Geiß decisively marched for Thessaloniki after Syar. The Battle of Thessaloniki was waged for five days, but was practically decided after the Turkish defeat in the naval Battle of the Aegean Sea forced the Third Turkish Fleet to retreat to the Dardanelles. Without naval support, the local Turkish garrison surrendered in 36 hours.

The Peloponnese Offensive

The victory in Thessaloniki opened the way for Maj. General Geiß to begin his second, more ambitious offensive. Intent on liberating Greece while a North German Sea Infantry force was deploying more than 15,000 into Eastern Thrace, Geiß used the naval domination of the Aegean Sea to deploy his now-reinforced Army through the E75 and E90 towards Patras and Athens. This resulted in the Peloponnese Offensive (28 June-14 July).

Due to a lack of active military command in Greece and the fact that access to Command had been cut off within days after the fall of Thessaloniki, the Austrian military force was for the most part unchallenged. The aid of Sofia Pact military and resistance units mobilized during the short occupation of Greece, the Turkish force was seldom stationary enough to engage in a battle, and the only important Battle in this offensive was fought in Livadia (Battle of Livadia, 9-12 July 2020) after which Athens and most of Greece were decisively liberated.

The Skopie Offensive

Parallel to the Thessaloniki Offensive, the Skopie Offensive began on 13 June 2020. Bavarian General Howard Stahlstein took a 40,000 strong force towards Bulgarian North Macedonia through E871. Stahlstein's offensive was a relatively short offensive, but it was in of major importance as its success on 25 June through the Battle of Skopie (21-25 June 2020) was the primary reason why the larger force under Maj. Gen. Geiß was successful in liberating Greece.

The Plovdiv Offensive

The third initial offensive, led by the North German General Helmuth von Kohl-Sauer, was also the longest. Its primary objectives were the liberation of the central city of Plovdiv and taking control of the A1 Road. As the most important of the offensives taken during Operation Deliberate Phoenix, it held the largest portion of the German Expeditionary Force and nearly the bulk of the Sofia Pact military forces in the Balkans. Starting with a 180,000 strong force, Kohl-Sauer fought his Turkish rivals first in Ihtiman (Battle of Ihtiman, 13-16 June), chasing his weaker enemies -that had already been suffering from logistics and support problems thanks to resistance operations in Constantinople and occupied Greece and Bulgaria- to Saraya (Battle of Saraya, 21 June) and to Tsaratsovo on 24 June 2020.

The Plovdiv Offensive decisively defeated the Turkish forces in the Battle of Plovdiv (25 June-1 July) which destroyed Turkey's military capacity in Europe and its capability to maintain an effective occupation for any meaningful period of time. With the victory in Plovdiv, Operation Deliberate Phoenix took a new turn.

The Varna Offensive

Immediately followed by this victory, Kohl-Sauer knew that it was time to take away Turkey's naval capacity in Europe by taking away the last coastal strips under its occupation. This meant that the bulk of the forces under General Stahlstein were recalled from Skopie on the first of July to Plovdiv. The German Expedition, now only hindered by sparse, unenthusiastic opposition by the Turkish forces, divided into two equal forces. Half marched for Nova Tsirkasiya in what came to be known as the Nova Tsirkasiya Offensive while the other half marched first for Burgas, wresting control of the A1 road through a number of battles.

The German Expedition first fought the Turks in the Battle of Strata Zagora (3 July 2020), suffering the first -and only- major loss for the German Confederation in Operation Deliberate Phoenix as a more powerful Turkish force, dug in and well-prepared, successfully forced the Germans to retreat. As such, the retreating Germans preferred to encircle Strata Zagora and ignore it completely, regrouping instead in Yambol where they mowed through a smaller Turkish defensive force in the Battle of Yambol (5 July 2020). Upon reaching Burgas -a city that had been put under blockade by the German fleet ever since their victory in the Battle of the Coast of Varna (23 June). Burgas was wrested without much opposition by the Turks, and the German forces had reached Varna by 10 July 2020).

The Nova Tsirkasiya Offensive

The other half of the army formed by General Kohl-Sauer marched for Nova Tsirkasiya. By this point, the considerably smaller Turkish force, already on the retreat from Plovdiv, had taken a Scorched Earth doctrine in regards to the Bulgarian territory that it held under occupation and knew quite well was about to lose momentarily. The Offensive began on 1 July, and only ended on 12 at the gates of Constantinople as it became obvious that Turkey's imminent defeat in the Sea of Marmara would mean Constantinople was on its way to freedom again.

As such, this offensive was in reality a race between Bulgarian officials and Turkish forces, the former hoping to stop the destruction of their lands and the latter hoping to inflict as much of it as possible. This was, indeed, a race that Bulgaria tactically lost as the German Expeditionary Force only caught up with the retreating Turks at city of Kastanies (Battle of Kastanies, 12-14 July), less than an hour away from Constantinople itself.

Second Battle of Constantinople

The Second Battle of Constantinople (14 July-1 August 2020) pushed the Turkish armies out of Constantinople, took away their temporary and short control over the Straits, and decisively ended the Turkish occupation in Europe. By this time, Turkey's occupation in Syria, Hashemite Arabia, Armenia, Cyprus and Lebanon had also ended through the CJTF-OVE's campaigns in Asia, and as such the final phase of the war began.

The battle itself can be divided into two phases. The First phase, or the pitched battle, was a series of engagements between the Turkish Army (67,500) and the military units of CJTF-OVE (105,425). These engagements which formally began in Alvanikí víla (Battle of the Villa, 14 July 2020), were short, brief, and mostly made of a chase between the Germans and the Turks in which the Turks repeatedly failed to maintain positions and push back an enemy that had both naval and air support and support from the locals in the territory the Turks were attempting to hold. These battles finally ended in the decisive Turkish defeat in Athyras (Battle of Athyras, 19 July 2020).

The Second phase, started with the general retreat of the Turkish military into Constantinople, was a short period of urban warfare that was primarily fought in the European side of Constantinople until the Turkish military decisively surrendered after their defeat in the Prosphorion Harbor (Battle in the Prosphorion Harbor, 26 July-1 August 2020). The Turkish military had originally intended to cross the Bosporus and regroup near Néa póli at the edge of the Asian partition of the town, but the German blockade on the Bosporus which had been established immediately after the Allied victory in Battle of Marmara negated that option. The Surrender at Prosphorion was and remains the largest surrender suffered by the Turkish military throughout its history as a republic or a monarchy. The Urban Phase of the Battle of Constantinople was as destructive as the Scorched Earth tactic in Bulgaria, and were both main points of discussion in the Conference of Rome that eventually established peace between the two powers.

Battle of Eskisehir

With the Turkish surrender in Constantinople, the city's administration returned from their exile in Naples and sought to restore order. The city's domestic military raised a host of 50,000, nearly half the Allied Army that had liberated their city, and began taking the fight into Turkey on 4 August 2020. The Allied Army, under command of the French Major François de Serre, began a campaign towards Eskisehir.

This campaign first engaged the Turks in Néa póli at the edge of the city of Constantinople where a small pocket of Turkish forces, cut off from communications and unaware of the surrendered, waged war with the allied forces (Battle of Néa póli, 4-5 August 2020). The French Major then led the joint forces to Ellinikí Pýla (Greek Pylae, sister town to the Turkish City of Yalova which it borders in the south across the Sea of Marmara) where after four days of extensive combat, the Turkish force surrendered control of the city (The Twin Battles of Pylae, 5-9 August). The victory in Pylae opened the way for the fourth and final battle to take place in Bursa in the war (Fourth Battle of Bursa, 9-13 August 2020). With Bursa once again occupied by the Combined Joint Taskforce, de Serre engaged the Turks in the Battle of Eskisehir within three days. The Battle ended five days after the major Battle of Caesaria had started, and by that point, nearly half of the forces under de Serre had been redeployed to Caesaria to aid the Allied offense. The Battle of Eskisehir was the final major offensive taken in Deliberate Phoenix (Battle of Eskisehir, 16-22 August 2020)

Liberation of Cyprus

The Liberation of Cyprus was a military campaign taken primarily by the Commonwealth of Nations. Led by Egyptian, Yemeni, and British forces and backed by the Irish fleet that engaged the Turkish blockade, this campaign began on 6 June, immediately after the successful conclusion of the Battle of Ramallah began the Restoration Campaign in the East. The primary objective of the battle was to restore British control to Akrotiri and Dhekelia, the two territorial concession of Britain in Cyprus. A combined task-force of 35,000 made land in Cyprus on 8 June after the Commonwealth Navy defeated Turkey in the Battle of the Episkopi Bay (6-8 June 2020). The amphibian landing operation (Battle of Kolossi, 8-10 June) opened southern Cyprus to 10,000 forces, while another 500 were paradropped in Pissouri, Limassol, and Erimi. The Beachhead in Akrotiri allowed the Commonwealth to deploy the bulk of its engaging forces within the next week.

Upon the capture of Kolossi, the Commonwealth Forces aimed for three different targets: Nicosia, Dhekelia, and Paphos. While Paphos and Dhekelia were taken without much bloodshed, the battle in Nicosia quickly took an urban turn, forcing the British Commonwealth to redeploy up to 5,000 from its campaigns in Lebanon and Israel. The Battle of Nicosia (18 June-3 July 2020) was the costliest battle for the Commonwealth of Nations and the most destructive for the Sofia Pact in the East.

Liberation of Armenia

Just as the Commonwealth fought in Cyprus and Syria, the bulk of the forces of Tehran Pact fought to liberate Armenia. A long-time ally of Iran that had originally been granted independence by the Persians out of their partition of Armenia in the 1930s, the Liberation of Armenia -especially when taken in the context of the Armenian Genocide of 1920-25- was seen of utmost importance by the Tehran Pact. As such, Iran and Hashemite Arabia deployed a total of 200,000 (120,000 Iranian and 80,000 Hashemite forces) into this campaign.

Led by the Iranian Maj. Gen. Rakhshan Aryani, the Liberation of Armenia formally began after the victory in Khoy (14 June). With Azerbaijan once again restored to Iranian control, Hashemite Arabia and Iran deployed their forces into two missions. A smaller part marched for Amman and Damascus to participate in the Beirut Campaign while the larger part moved to Qaraziadin. The Turks were first engaged in Nakhchivan (Battle of Nakhchivan, 15-19 June). The Turks successfully defeated the first Tehran Pact Assault, but it was in vain as Iran and Arabia instead moved eastward and attacked again from Shushi. The Battle of Shushi (20-21 June) opened the way for the Iranian forces to march straight for Zar (Battle of Zar, 23 June), Jermuk (Battle of Jermuk, 24-25 June), Sharur (Battles of Sharur and Dudangya, 26-29 June), Maku (Twin Battles of Maku and Bazargan, 27-29 June, 26-30 June), and finally, after the total encircling of the Turkish forces, its total annihilation in the Battle of Shahbuz (1-4 July 2020).

With the death, injury or surrender of more than 45,000 Turkish forces in Nakhchivan, the rest of Armenia was easier to capture, especially after the German Navy deployed a Sea Infantry task-force of 10,000 in Hopa and Rize. The Liberation of Armenia turned a new leaf on 15 July after the German Sea Infantry force created a second front in the campaign by marching through the D010 to Kars. Tied between two enemies, Turkey failed to push either back, and the lack of reinforcements -as by late July 2020, the situation was bleak for Turkey on every front- ensured that the Liberation of Armenia could be decided in the Battle of Yerevan (21-28 July) and concluded in the Push for Erzerum (3-11 August). By 11 August, Armenia had become the last occupied country to be liberated, and the fighting had, after the victory in Adana, been taken to the heart of Turkey itself.

Battle of Adana

After the Twin Battles of Damascus and Tripoli, Turkey practically evacuated most of Syria and Lebanon. Chased by Syrian, Egyptian, Israeli, Iranian, British, Hashemite, Lebanese and -by that point- Cypriot troops, Turkey abandoned its occupation of Syria, concentrating all of its forces inside the region that it had originally used as Casus Belli to start the war. On 2 August 2020, President Tayyepoğlu once again called for a ceasefire, offering to end the war on all grounds and pay a to-be-negotiated amount as reparation in exchange for the annexation of Alexandretta. In response, the Combined Joint Task-Force challenged the Turkish force (260,000) in Alexandretta.

A force nearly 300,000 strong fought against the Turks first in the city of Antioch in the Battle of Antioch (3-4 August). The inherent resolve in the allies and the lack of morale in the Turks who had only recently lost Constantinople and were fighting the Germans, Bulgars and Greeks inside their own territory once again, ensured that the Turkish force once again evacuated the city for Alexandretta itself, which culminated in the Battle of Alexandretta (4 August) and their evacuation of the last pockets of land inside Turkey.

President Tayyepoğlu once again called for a ceasefire, offering a Status Quo peace and a negotiable reparations on 5 August. In 7 August, CJTK-OVE encroached on Adana after a relatively bloody battle in Erzin (Battle of Erzin, 4-6 August). This time however, the allied forces did not attempt to engage the Turkish military. Instead, a temporary military base was erected in the South and East of the city, and an intensive campaign of land, naval, and aerial bombardment was commenced. The Battle of Adana (8-11 August 2020) was the last major engagement of the war before the Battle of Caesaria, and within 42 hours, more than 70% of the city had been destroyed, more than 6% of the city's population killed and more than 67% made homeless.

Battle of Caesaria

The Battle of Caesaria was the final and quite possibly most bloody battle in the Alexandretta War. The Turkish force, outnumbered and fighting against two different enemies on its own territory, quickly realized that a peace would not be possible that would allow Turkey to keep any territory it had originally occupied during the war. At that point, President Tayyepoğlu had been all-but sidelined in favor of the military, merely voicing the orders that he received from the country's military officers. It was known in the Turkish military circles even as early as late July that outside of a miracle, the end of war was impossible. What remained was which side Turkey could afford to lose more territory to. By 13 August and the reported treatment of the Turkish populations in Bursa, etc., it became increasingly more obvious that losing to the Tehran pact was a better option. As such, the Turkish High Command slowly but steadily evacuated its forces after the Twin Battles of Damascus and Tripoli.

When the Battle of Eskisehir began, all Turkish forces in the east were rapidly redeployed to Ankara to prepare for a final stand against a German-Sofia Pact war force that was at that point clearly going to win in the west. The command officially came on 16 August. The retreat had formally began in 3 hours. The Turkish retreat was followed immediately by a chase from the Tehran Pact forces in Armenia and Adana. The Allied forces eventually caught up with the Turkish Army southwest of the city of Keysari, and began the Battle of Caesaria.

The Battle of Caesaria, which finally ended after a Turkish surrender by Major General Deniz Şahin called for a general ceasing of fighting by the Turks in the battle. It saw more than 500,000 soldiers killed in action and around the same number injured, one of the most bloody battles in the world after the second Great War had ended. Immediately after this battle, the Turkish government's request for diplomatic intervention was accepted by the Japanese Empire which called for a general ceasefire and the beginning of the Peace Negotiations in Rome.

Treaty of Rome

The bloodiness of the Battle of Caesaria was only part of the reason the war was halted. At the time, Russia and China were preparing to mobilize in favor of the Turkish state, and it was an open secret that should three of the Big Five be at war, Japan would be called by Britain to aid them as a diplomatic ally, not to mention the possibility of Chinese aggression in Japan in case of general mobilization. The costliness of the campaign by the four organizations and a general anti-war sentiment in most of the German Confederation and Commonwealth of Nations also drove the two intervening organizations to the negotiations table.

With a ceasefire in effect and a Unit made of Japanese, American and Omani Peacekeepers monitoring the border, the twenty-five participant countries sent their representatives to Rome to negotiate a peace agreement. As according to the terms of the ceasefire the following cities were put under occupation for the duration of the Peace Conference, in large part to ensure the demobilization of Turkish forces could proceed as accepted.

• Ankara by a joint force of CJTK-OVE

• Adana by Syria

• Bursa, Eskişehir and Antalya by the Sofia Pact

• Gaziantep, Diyarbakır and Erzerum by the Tehran Pact

• Kayseri by France, the Netherlands, German Confederation and the Commowealth of Nations

Turkey entered the negotiations with a clear and evident lower hand. While it was hoped that a Status Quo Peace could be signed, Turkey was well prepared to accept any term that wouldn't have territorial concessions. This was well-known by the peace powers, most of which had no intentions to take any territory from Turkey either. Turkey had an incentive to end the negotiations as quickly as possible, as it was forced to pay the costs of the occupation of nine of its cities. As such, the negotiations -which were expected to continue well into 2021- ended by 20 December 2020. The Treaty of Rome was officially signed between the warring parties on December 2020.

As per the articles of the Treaty:

• Turkey recognized that it was the sole party responsible for all civilian and military casualties suffered on the both sides of the conflict

• Turkey ceded territory along its border with several states: A total of 25 settlements were ceded, most important among them the city of Erzerum which had prior been the border between Armenia and Turkey

• Turkey revoked its claim to any and all territory held by the twenty-four nations that it had fought.

• Turkey recognized the Sovereignty of Constantinople

• Turkey recognized the sovereignty of Syria on Alexandretta

• Turkey surrendered its industrial zones to a neutral body of nations to cede as much as necessary to the victorious nations as reparations.

• Turkey accepted to pay indemnity to all victorious nations for a period of seven years

• The city of Adana would be occupied by Syria in perpetuity

• The city of Bursa would be occupied by Constantinople in perpetuity

• The city of Ankara would be occupied by the Combined Joint Task-force-Operation Valley of Ellah for seven years

• Turkey recognized its defeat in the conflict ended in the Treaty of Rome