Spain or Turkey

[wheatbeer]

Actually, a UK Viceroy declared war without actually consulting any Indians. If it had been up to Gandhi, India would have remained neutral.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a1138673.shtml

[CWO Marc]

@wheatbeer:

Actually, a UK Viceroy declared war without actually consulting any Indians. If it had been up to Gandhi, India would have remained neutral.

When Roosevelt and Churchill issued their joint declaration of August 1941 (which came to be known as the Atlantic Charter), one of its articles stated:

“Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.”

This point was seized upon by nationalist groups in various parts of the world (including India), but Churchill’s position about “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live” was that it didn’t apply to the people of the British Empire, which left him open to accusations of hypocrisy.

[KaLeu]

As far as the original question is concerned, a similar poll has been held before:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=13252.0

The outcome was also rather convincingly pro-Turkey, though not by a margin as large as this time.

On a side note, Hitler and Franco did actually meet to discuss a possible alliance. It didn’t go well. Hitler reportedly stated about this meeting: “I would rather have my teeth pulled than meet with Franco again.”

[aequitas-et-veritas]

I know this post sounded familiar but didn`t wanted to dig this deep…

Good post Herr KaLeun!  eins hoch  :wink:

[ABWorsham4]

How would the Arabs have reacted to a German/Turkish alliance? Would the fears of a rebirth Ottoman Empire driven the Arabs to ally with the British?

[Imperious Leader]

Germany had great support throughout the Arab/Muslim community. But of course they created Franco. The only issue with Spain is they didn’t like Italy.

[CWO Marc]

@Imperious:

Germany had great support throughout the Arab/Muslim community.

As one example, Egypt was nominally neutral (and nominally independent, though there was a large British presence there) for most of WWII, but King Farouk and some of the people around him had pro-Axis sympathies.  The British were worried about this, and these worries eventually led to the Abdeen Palace Incident of 1942 (a political maneuver which was similar in purpose to the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941, but less dramatic in scope and method).

[ABWorsham4]

I was reading of Vichy’s French defense of the Middle East, the Vichies put up a tough fight.

[KaLeu]

I’m not sure the Arab support for the Nazi cause would have held if Germany would have allied itself with Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was an entity of the past, but as late as 1938, the Turks took Alexandretta, which had until then been a part of Syria, driving out most of the Arab population.