TURKEY was one of the first countries to leap into prom-
inence as war stresses began to bend the news even before
Germany made her fateful aggression against Poland in
September 1939.

Even while the war headed north and west from Germany,
directly away from Turkey, and while Russia was still the
co-signatory of the non-aggression pact, the force of Tur-
key's strategic position thrust her to the forefront of the
minds that directed the war, and caused Germany, Britain,
Russia, the United States, and France to put unusual em-
phasis upon their diplomatic relations with Turkey. This
emphasis appeared, for the most part, in the early arrival in
Turkey, while the war was still just over the horizon or
before Turkey stood directly in its path, of top diplomatic
representatives. Of these the outstanding one, without any
question, was the Prussian blue-blood and ace salesman of
German ambition, Franz von Papen.

Throughout the uncertainties of the long war years Tur-
key remained a top news interest, a fruitful field for specu-
lation and conjecture, a salamander living unscathed in the
midst of the war's hottest flames. And now it is one of the
countries that have become "key" in the vast juggling and
maneuvering for position among the victorious Great
Powers after the war.

The geographic and ethnic reasons for Turkey's prom-

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