Turkish Civil War

Turkish soldiers patrolling in stolen NATO tank[Circa 2022]

### Result

Decisive NATO Victory; Founding of Republic of West TurkeyOld Turkey renamed to The Socialist Republic of Turkey

### Belligerents

West Turkish Rebels backed by NATO and the EUTurkish Military backed by the UCD

### Concluded

May 15, 2024

The Turkish Civil War was a conflict between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Republic of Turkey that lasted from 2022 until 2024, with the signing of the Treaty of Ankara. Nearly 150,000 were killed in total during the war, with a majority of the casualties on the side of the Turks, who would be on the defensive most of the war. The war was fought by militias, organizations and terrorists, and as time went on the reasons for the fighting became less apparent. However, the war ended with a complete split of Turkey, and a heavily militarized border between East and West, something akin to Soviet-era Germany.

## Prelude to War

War between NATO and the UCD was something people were fearing, however nobody believed it would start in the Middle East. Everyone was preparing for a land to land invasion of East Europe. While the war would not be directly fought between NATO and the UCD, the two sides would be funded and supplied by these organizations.

The beginning of the war can be traced back to 2018, with the resignation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after falling ill. His successor, Saban Akkaya, has ideologies similar to Fascist Italy, and slowly over the course of the next few years, personal freedoms in Turkey begin to degrade. Relations with the eastern nations like Syria, Iran and Russia build, while ties with the east are slowly cut down. 2019 for Turkey is spent strengthening their military, by recruiting thousands of troops and developing new technology and equipment for combat. This development continues well into the 2020's. In 2021, Turkey withdraws from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Their application for membership in the European Union is withdrawn. Turkey applies for membership in the Union of Common Defense. Public outcry is ignored, with riots and rebellions being put down by the government.

Around late 2021 and early 2022, NATO forces being withdrawn from Turkey are going missing, and sometimes turning up dead and completely removed of their equipment. Rare survivors tell accounts of masked men in uniforms with Turkish flags raiding their convoys. The United States pits the blame on the government of Turkey, which denies any involvement and claims it is the work of local militias. The US is skeptical, and invokes Article V, as most of the troops killed were American and German. After several riots begin and militias attack the streets of Istanbul, the first wave of NATO troops into Turkey move in, starting the war. The east is backed and funded by the UCD, which has not yet accepted the nation into the coalition.

## The War

The war officially began on March 17, 2022. Troops took over much of Eastern Thrace by May, and kept pushing towards Istanbul. Local militias were being supplied with weapons and given limited training by NATO, allowing them to become efficient yet small fighting forces to distract the enemy while NATO pushed through the lines. The Union of Common Defense played a similar game, albeit on a much larger scale. Troops from Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran were being sent to Turkey to train troops in the east who would be sent off to the west.

Around November of 2022, Armenia and Iraq began a small invasion of east Turkey to help divert the attention away from the west and give NATO an advantage. After the Iranians threatened the Iraqis with war and the Armenians were told they would be removed from the UCD and invaded by the coalition, the two nations withdrew from the invasion. However, the attacks worked, and gave NATO enough time to capture a large amount of southwest Turkey. Istanbul was overrun on December 22, 2022 after months of fighting. The Turks fell back over 100 km after the fall of Istanbul, with NATO on their heels. They would regroup in Sakarya and hold out here on the defensive for much of 2023. Meanwhile Russian forces were being moved to Ankara, and the Iranians were being sent to the front lines alongside the Turks.

The war began to slow down through 2023, however picked up again after a massive offensive launched by the west began in July. With support from the European Union, NATO and Turkish Defectors, the West would break through the lines at Sakarya and continue moving. The morale in the east was dropping, and there was pressure on the President to surrender. However, he believed that surrender meant the the destruction of the Turkey he had spent years to build, and was not ready to give up yet. The line around Bolu and Beypazari was heavily fortified, and meant to stop the oncoming offensive from reaching the capital. A naval invasion by the Standing NATO Maritime Group on the southwest Turkish coast would show the plan to be ineffective, as troops moved north from the sea and caused the line to be distorted, allowing for NATO to encircle and imprison several thousand Turks and Iranians.

The Battle of Ankara would begin on November 28, 2023. It would be the bloodiest battle of the war, seeing ~30,000 casualties on the side of the Turks, and 22,000 on the side of the West. Artillery, air strikes, bombing campaigns and ballistic missiles left much of the outskirts of the city in ruins. Both sides wanted to keep most of the city intact, however, for the victor would need to maintain control of the city. Therefore, much of the fighting within the city was between infantry and Light Armoured Vehicles. The battle would last well into 2024, with Ankara falling into the hands of the West on April 16, 2024. The war would end roughly one month later with the Treaty of Ankara.

## **Aftermath**

The war saw the formation of a new nation, The Republic of West Turkey, and the renaming of the Republic of Turkey to The Socialist Republic of Turkey. West Turkeys military was made up of the thousands of defectors that fled to the West during the war, and the military was funded and supplied by NATO. The east however, saw a huge decrease in economic growth and population. The border between the nations was heavily militarized with miles of barbed wire, chain link fences, landmines, guard towers, spotlights and machine guns. Crossing over was suicide.

The embarrassment of the defeat left the UCD in a state where they wanted revenge. The war in 2024 would be the driving motive for the invasion of Europe that would take place two years later, and mark the beginnings of World War Three.