Invasion of Cyprus

[Ross Hackett]

Does anyone know of the Italian plans to take Cyprus all the info I have is that a landing was to be made by fast warships, no details of which ships, troops to be invovled or landing points. my e-mail is [email protected]

[Ross Hackett]

If the Axis had invaded Cyprus in 1941/2 I think they could have used this as a bargaining chip with Turkey offering them the island for say transit rights or even military help against Russia

[Andy H]

If the Italians/Germans had invaded Cyprus, how would Turkey have reacted given it's ties with the island?

Andy H

[Albert]

Maybe the Germans would better have invaded Malta, because of its more important location than Cyprus.

[Kaan Caglar]

If the Italians/Germans had invaded Cyprus, how would Turkey have reacted given it's ties with the island?

Andy H

I'm not sure but Turkeys stragedy was depended on being fully neutral.
I don't think we would want Cyprus but we would want the Turks living there to be moved back to Turkey.
Best Regards
Kaan

[Jon G.]

Only found this thread after the Africa/Med.split-off...

Turkey was courted throughout WWII by both sides. When the Brits invaded Syria and Lebanon in 1941, they offered Turkey a part of northern Syria in return for joining the Allied war effort. Apparently, this move was not coordinated with de Gaulle, who offered independence to the people of Syria and Lebanon - this move was not popular with his own Free French troops, who spearheaded the invasion.

In any event, Turkey did not take the bait. I think the closest they got was the 1943 Cairo summit, where they agreed to join the Allies provided they got an exorbitant number of tanks, guns and planes first.

Cyprus would have made a good base area for the Germans as a staging area for invading the Middle East - invading it from the Dodocanese (Italian-held since the 20's) would definately have been possible. Instead, the Germans threw away their only airborne division in the wasteful assault on Crete. Crete is too far away to be of much use as a base for units aiming for the Middle East, and it didn't even have a deep water port.

[Ross Hackett]

I read in the gaming magazine Europa that when the Germans invade Russia in the second year of ops 1942 the Turks actually mobilized on the Russia Border and were going to invade Armenia and go for Batumi as well if the Germans reached a certain point whether this is valid I do not know but it was written by John Astell who seems very knowledgeable about these things

[redcoat]

The trouble with Cyprus was it was too far away from any Axis territory to enable the Luftwaffe to provide effective air-cover, as well as being too close to British naval and air bases in the middle east.

[Jon G.]

The trouble with Cyprus was it was too far away from any Axis territory to enable the Luftwaffe to provide effective air-cover, as well as being too close to British naval and air bases in the middle east.

Cyprus was within range of fighters flying out of Rhodes, which was Italian-held since the 20s. The RN had great difficulty capturing the Dodocanese as late as 1943, due to lack of air cover.

Cyprus itself was an air/naval base of some note, unlike Crete, which didn't even have a deep water port.

The wasteful conquering of Crete would have made more sense if it had been a stepping-stone to taking Cyprus - but the paratroops with which to do it had ceased to exist as a division-sized operational unit after Crete, and there was not enough shipping to even support the Crete landings, let alone landings on Cyprus.

I still think that taking Cyprus could have been done, with Italian help - but by the time it was practicable (May 1941), the Germans were looking east, rather than south.