Celal Bayar peered forward over his desk in the heart of Çankaya Mansion. The very latest information was scattered all over it; black on white with the occasional red 'Confidential' or 'Top Secret' stamped on for good measure.



The 4th Corps was making its way south to capture; or re-capture as the public was being made to see it as, the island of Rhodes. Ships had been requisitioned from all along the south coast and were gathering to ferry across two of the newly formed semi-motorised brigades.



The Turkish navy and its two submarine squadrons had put to sea last week, and were already reporting in thousands of tonnes of downed Italian shipping.



Historical Side Note: Celal Bayar is HOI4's default leader for Democratic Turkey, despite not becoming Turkish president until 1950. İsmet İnönü was president of Turkey for the entire duration of World War 2.

Reports on the world strategic situation were not so good. The foul forces of Facism had almost completely overrun Poland, and French armies were being hard pressed along the Italian border.



Celal reached for a cup of coffee that held down another stack of reports.Overall, this grand alliance was winning at sea, but not making such good progress on land.



Celal silently thanked God for placing the Dardanelles to divide his Turkey from Europe. He took a sip of coffee and grimaced. It had gone cold.

Haluk stayed silent at his station in the battery room of the TCG Dumlupinar. The submarine was a hundred meters underneath an Italian destroyer escort, and had been pinged by SONAR a moment before.



Hopefully the British subs they were hunting with could come around and sink the destroyer before it began dropping charges.



Just as he was thinking that, Haluk heard the dull blast of a depth charge detonating. It sounded distant.



Haluk began to mutter a prayer his mum would say to him before bed.



Another dull thud sounded and the submarine quivered slightly with the force of the blast, but all then returned to stillness.



It hadn't found them.



Haluk let out a breath he didn't know that he'd been holding.



Then another blast sounded, much louder this time.



The whole submarine quaked and rolled slightly to port. The glass coverings to pressure dials all up and down the ship shattered, sending sharp slivers of glass everywhere. The hull creaked and groaned, but it held.



Then a call came in from the ship's PA for all spare hands to go to the engine room to help stop a leak. Haluk turned and rushed to the stern. There was no time to worry about another depth charge.



Unbeknownst to the crew of the Dumlupinar, the destroyer that had been attacking them was itself headed underwater, with the complements of the Royal Navy.

Enver sighted down his rifle, pulled the trigger and missed again. He muttered a curse and ducked back behind his tree to reload his weapon.



The Italians were scrambling for cover in the exposed sandy bay beneath him. They didn't seem to be in any sort of good order, but there certainly were a lot of them.



Enver stripped a new clip into his rifle and poked out from behind the tree to shoot again. He levelled his rifle and-



PAIN



Enver screamed and dropped his gun. He dropped himself to the ground, clutching at his left arm.



Someone ran over to him, and he heard the sharp retort of return fire, but that was unimportant because right now his world had turned into pain.

Enver had been rushed to a rudimentary field hospital set up several miles from the hotly contested bay. He lay in a tent while field surgeons rushed around treating burns, shrapnel wounds and bullet holes.



He had been tanked up on some opiate or other and was rather enjoying his blissfully painless time in the field hospital. As a result, he did see, but didn't really register the import of, the Soviet-made BA-6 armoured cars rushing past the field hospital towards the battleground.



Historical Side Note: The Russian T-26 tank and the BA-3 and BA-6 armoured cars were what made up the single Turkish armoured brigade at the beginning of World War 2. Germany, trying to sway Turkey to their side, gave Turkey 150 Panzier IV's in 1941. Despite all this international pressure, Turkey managed to stay out of the war.

Celal Bayar peered forward over his desk in the heart of Çankaya Mansion. The very latest information was scattered all over it; black on white and red all over now, just in case a spy with scruples tried to read it.



It had taken two days for two divisions of the 4th army to ship across to Rhodes after the Italians surrendered after their disastrous attempted invasion of the Turquoise Coast. There had only been 36 Turkish Casualties.



The submarine Dumlupinar had docked at Istanbul for repairs last night. It had been involved in a battle out in the Mediterranean and had limped home with half its engine cylinders waterlogged. Its sister ship, the Atilay, had not been so fortunate.



'Ah well', thought Celal. 'At least it wasn't one of our newer submarines.'