Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/3678: Telegram

The Ambassador in Turkey (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State

Ankara, June 11, 1940—6 p.m.
[Received 10:35 p.m.]

76. Pending your [sic] determination of the Turkish position, the Secretary General of the Foreign Office today outlined to me substantially as follows the general viewpoint of this Government:

(a)
In view of Italy’s declaration of war the Turkish Government recognizes that it is obligated to the support of Great Britain and France under its treaty with them and is prepared to live up to its obligation. It is a question, however, whether there is at this juncture anything that this country could do that would be useful to the common cause and whether the Allies may not prefer to have Turkey stand aloof for the time being rather than risk spreading the conflict to the Balkans.
(b)
He denied the rumor that the Italian Embassy had given formal assurances that its Government would not initiate any hostile action against Turkey. He also said that no assurance of that sort had been given on behalf of Germany although the Ambassador27 had frequently expressed himself conversationally in that sense.
(c)
He acknowledged that this Government had recently inquired of the Yugoslav Government whether it would be prepared to mobilize in the event of Italy’s entering the war but that the reply had been discouraging although perhaps inevitable in view of that country’s exposed position; and he added that Greece likewise was not taking any military precautions other than slight increases in existing cadres. [Bulgaria?], her armaments being already fully mobilized had not been similarly approached. No decision as to a Turkish mobilization has yet been taken.
(d)
He volunteered that the real anxieties of the Turkish Government are as to the action not of Italy but of the Soviet Union. Relations with that country are at present correct and satisfactory and this Government does not regard the recent considerable increase of Russian forces on the Caucasus border as a threat or even a manifestation against Turkey. But the Union has been massing large forces along the Black Sea coasts and the Rumanian frontier which would enable it to take advantage of any conjuncture favorable to a riskless invasion of the Balkans.

MacMurray
  1. Franz von Papen.↩