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Greece out of the far and occupy that country and bases on the Turkish coast of the Aegean and in Macedonia. From these positions, Germany would dominate the whole Aegean including Crete and the Dodecanese, and confine our Fleet to the African coast of the Mediterranean along which it would maintain a precarious passage to malta.
4. It is true that Germany may get these advantages whatever we do, but surely we should make her fight for theme Above all, we must make her fight before we lose the power of bombing the Rumanian oil refineries and communications with effect, i.e. before she can cross into Asiatic Turkey,
5.
If this general appreciation is agreed, I would like to put forward the following proposals for immediate consideration.
(A) Turkey.
6.
I suggest that we should at once make the greatest possible efforts to persuade Turkey to give us the same facilities as Rumania and more recently Bulgaria have been persuaded to give to Germany.
7. If this proposal is accepted we should proceed to
The essentia send the maximum possible force to Turkey. components in this force would be fighter and bomber squadrons, A. A. defences for Istanbul and Smyrna, tanks and anti-tank guns, artillery and technical services.
3.
Simultaneously, I suggest that the Turks should be persudaded to leave only light forces in Thrace and to concentrate all their efforts on holding the Asiatic shore of the Straits.
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If necessary, the dispatch of our forces could be camouflaged as sales of equipment, the personnel travelling as civilians. In this respect we must learn the lesson the Germans are teaching us in Bulgaria,
10. Having established ourselves in Turkey within bombing range of the oilfields, with an anti-tank obstacle and the whole Turkish Army between us and the German Army, and with adequate A. A. defence of aerodromes and vital points, we may deter the Germans from starting the war in that area.
If so, we can then begin to think of advancing from Southern Greece ourselves and establishing or
If Germany threatening to establish the Balkan front. then decides to fight we can at least hit Rumania from Turkey, and go on hitting so long as the Turks hold the Straits and we can defend our line of communication to Turkey. The war will then be fought over Bulgaria, Turkey, Rumania and Northern Greece instead of over the
a difference Mediterranean, Crete and the coast of Egypt which would be well worth the expenditure of the forces concerned.
11. The acceptance of the forces proposed above would irretrievably commit Turkey to resist Germany when threatene
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