The Turkish nationalists remained defiant. With his Cabinet divided and the British public opposed to war, David Lloyd George hopes the Greeks can subdue the Turks and salvage the situation.
But the Greek offensive failed. The Greeks were ultimately driven from Anatolia in a bitter war that left hard feelings on both sides and brought down the Lloyd George government.
- Listen now:
The Four Lads perform “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” in 1953:
They Might Be Giants perform “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” in 1990, as interpreted by Tiny Toon Adventures:
Fanfare
Opening Theme
Istanbul Dawn
Closing Theme
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
You mention that Eskişehir had particular strategic relevance as it was an important rail junction. That is perhaps even more true in our time, as the inaugural Turkish high speed rail line was built from Ankara to Eskişehir.
By the way, if and when you decide to cover the hunt for speed records on railways (the 1920s & 1930s had some impressive things done with steam and diesel, the 1950s had France beating 300 km/h for the first time and then the 1960s had the first Shinkansen open for business) As this https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiengesellschaft_f%C3%BCr_Elektrische_Schnellbahnen Wikipedia article (sorry no English version) explains the first train to beat 200 km/h with electric traction ran in 1903. Of course the railway line in question was a military one and thus had to be dismantled after the war under the Versailles Treaty…
Instead Germany created one of the most impressive “civil” aviation industries of the world in the interwar years, as military planes had been banned under the Versailles Treaty – but nothing in the treaty said anything about planes with the same capabilities of military machines but used for “civilian” purposes…
Once again you state “King George was assassinated by an anarchist in 1913”. There is no proof that he was an anarchist beyond the sensationalist headlines in the western press at the time. Alexandros Schinas never claimed to be an anarchist and more recent research has concluded he was most likely to be mentally ill and, as he said at the time, acted spontaniously.
I don’t know what you consider “proof,” but there is certainly evidence. Political extremism and mental illness are not mutually exclusive, but the combination does make the question of his “real” motive rather murky.