Maglio
Posts: 55
Joined: 1/16/2007
From: Chile
Status: offline
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Coming from one of the so called "Johnny comes lately" countries, I just put thing in perspective.
We South Americans on the early 40s didn´t saw WW2 as a global conflict, for us it was a European thing far away and worsening our already deteriorated economies.
Speaking from the Chilean point of view, both our presidents during this period, Mr. Aguirre Cerda and Mr. Rios where leftist, although there was a really high proportion of Chileans who supported Germany up to late 43 (tons of immigrants here that still speak German). So there was not a clear national position towards the conflict.
Finally what pressed us toward braking diplomatic relations with the axis powers was the US pressure on our government, our recovering economy was highly dependent on nitrates and cooper exportation and by then our only "customer" was the US.
Another "incentive" was the lend lease of US materiel to replace our German and Italian equipment out of spares by then, and we really needed some hardware since our relations with Argentina has been deteriorating rapidly, so for getting the stuff we were compelled to break diplomatic relations with the axis.
Finally what caused the declaration of war to Japan in 1945, was only the fact that it was a prerequisite to became a member of the United Nations, and by then we were really pressured by the US to do this.
So in resume, we didn´t want to get involved, even some south American countries has fascist governments that did quite well and where even popular, so from our perspective (by then) was what is the point to get involved in something so far away. Only by the end and mainly pressured by the US, we were compelled (mainly economically) to declare war in order to be part of the new world order emerging by 1945.
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“Tres barquichuelos dieron a los Reyes de España la posesión del Nuevo Mundo, estas cuatro tablas van a quitárselo”.
Bernardo O' Higgins, October 10th, 1818, while watching the Chilean first fleet getting underway.
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