Having served as prime minister from the beginning, having fought alongside Kemal in the war of independence against the Greeks, and having represented Turkey at the Lausanne Conference, Ismet Inönü's appointment to the presidency by the Grand National Assembly the next day was a mere formality. But no sooner did Inönü take office than he was confronted with an international crisis of unprecedented proportions.
The Soviet Union's relentless lusting over the Bosphorus Straits made it a continuous threat, while Hitler's menacing of the Balkans boded badly for Turkey. Sandwiched by two great powers, Turkey entered into a "declaration of mutual guarantee" with Britain followed by a treaty of nonaggression with France. The Nazi-Soviet pact of nonaggression signed in August 1939 presented a difficult problem for Turkey, now that the Soviets had taken sides against Britain and France. Turkey sent an envoy to the Soviet Union in an attempt to secure a peace treaty with them, but none was forthcoming. Betting on security in numbers, Turkey entered into a "treaty of mutual assistance" with Britain and France stipulating that no action would be required of Turkey that might lead to an eventual involvement in war with the Soviet Union. The arrival of the Germans on Turkey's doorstep with the invasion of Greece prompted Turkey to initiate a preemptory nonaggression treaty with Germany, stipulating nonaggression with either Britain or France. Four days later Germany invaded the Soviet Union, an almost irresistible turn of events for the Turks, given their historically acrimonious relationship with the Russians. Nevertheless, Inönü never permitted German access to the Straits or passage on or over Turkish land, maintaining his assertion that the Germans could not win the war. After Germany's defeats in Egypt, North Africa, and Stalingrad seemed to confirm this position, Inönü relented at a meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill in Cairo to a request that Turkish military facilities be made available to the Allied forces.
Inönü's fence-sitting allowed Turkey to maintain its neutrality at least until February 1945, when a declaration of war on Germany became a prerequisite for admittance into the San Francisco Conference (the precursor to the United Nations, of which Turkey was one of the original 51 members).
Nevertheless, war took its toll on the Turkish economy. During the war years, inflation rose significantly, and to feed the war debt, the government imposed a capital levy on the Turkish people. Contrary to the government's posture of absolute equality, the levy was applied arbitrarily and mercilessly, and was particularly biased against rich Greek, Armenian, and Jewish merchants. Deadlines for payment were often harsh, and default was punishable by property seizures, arrest, and deportation into forced labor. To this day, Turkey acknowledges this as a shameful episode in its history, attributable to the extraordinary pressures of war.
There were postwar problems to address as well. The discovery of wartime documents revealed the Soviet Union's enduring desire for control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Historically a European issue, the United States joined with Britain to support Turkey against Cold War pressures, expanding Turkey's scope of "Europeanization" to now include the United States. The Truman Doctrine of 1947 confirmed a United States-Turkish friendship with the United States' contribution of $400 million toward strengthening the security of Turkey and Greece against Soviet aggression. Turkey later demonstrated its support of Western policies by sending an infantry brigade to Korea to serve under United Nations command in the 1940s and 1950s.
In a postwar desire for political stability and national security against Russian aggression, Turkey pursued a policy of friendship with its neighbors, signing the Greece-Yugoslav Alliance, the Turkish-Pakistani Mutual Security Pact, and the Baghdad Pact, in addition to its membership acceptance by NATO. Turkey's recognition of Israel provoked outrage among its Arab neighbors, but because Arabs still had the stigma of being Ottoman subjects, they were simply ignored.
