That's true, I never thought of that. It also could have had a pretty dramatic psychological effect on the Turks and essentially made the step into the Middle East via Ankara much, much easier. On the other hand there's still the problem of how to get them to the Bosphorus to begin with. Germany didn't have any European mediteranean ports and England would have figured out even sooner than the Japanese how vulnerable ships are to land-based aircraft if they had tried sailing it through the channel.

The amazing thing to me is that Germany got as far as they did. Even toward the end of the war when the armies were in retreat in the East they still had these divisions which, while not at full strength, could have taken France in a couple of weeks. Hell, one parachute (battalion? I don't remember) took Albania after Italy dropped out (before anyone laughs, take a look at a terrain map sometime. And Albania had a pretty nasty partisan movement to contend with.)

I can't believe I'm talking about Albanian partisans here. This board fucking rules.