warspite1
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You may be right but if so then a) Franco had the most remarkable foresight and b) he was a very peculiar type of fascist dictator.
Taking these in reverse order:
Franco believed in a resurgent Spain – a Spain restored to its rightful place as the first ranking power it had been around the 15th and 16th Centuries. For this, as with Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler provided the perfect opportunity of a quick win with little effort. The idea that Franco made a conscious decision to pass up on such a golden chance of expanding Spain’s empire is difficult to believe given the other evidence.
Personally, I set more store by the words of Pedro Teotonio Pereira, who was close to the action as the Portuguese Ambassador to Spain. In 1940 he wrote to Prime Minister Salazar:
Beyond doubt Spain continues to hate the Allies. There are few who rise above this resentment…..sadly things are working out in such a way that it is not easy to convince them that Germany will not win this war. When one talks to reasonable people about the advantages of neutrality they will always mutter “Yes, we cannot make war, we are ill prepared”. Therefore they do not judge the war to be infamous, but judge themselves in a bad position to take part. If your excellency were to ask me how many sense the danger of German hegemony, I would have to answer they are rarer than a four leaf clover. In such regard, the instinct for survival, Catholic faith or Latin spirit is drowned by hatred for England and for France.
Franco was worried about US involvement - that is true. But who realistically was seeing anything but a German victory with each passing month: Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium – and of course the big one - the total defeat of France in six weeks and the ejection of the British Army (minus its equipment) from the continent.
I could buy the ‘Franco was playing a game to appease Hitler and keep Spain out of the war’ line if it was supported by the facts but:
- Franco did not ask the impossible of Germany. Those requests were in the power of Hitler to give (less Equitorial Guinea). The point is Franco only asked what he needed AND what Hitler could have agreed.
- Franco’s attitude toward America (in particular) and the UK was not in line with someone playing a clever game, the evidence does not support this, i.e. long after Germany had no chance of winning the war, long after Hitler had no chance of attacking Spain, Franco continued to provide assistance to the Germans.
- This assistance came at the price of risking an embargo by the US. One thing practically guaranteed for him to be overthrown was a famine of his causing. Every cessation of help for Germany was like pulling teeth.
- This stance - that made less sense as German defeat followed German defeat, with the Allies landing in North Africa, with Italy out of the war – was potentially disastrous for Franco as every Allied power started to break off relations. Why would he do that?
Therefore I firmly believe Franco wanted nothing more than to join the war, but was genuinely in need of assistance to do so. If that assistance had been granted, Spain would have put the secret protocol into effect and joined the Axis as a full ally.
Franco was saved thanks to the Cold War and the need for an anti-communist Spain. The myth was thus created about how Franco kept Hitler at bay and did the Allies such a massive favour. The truth, at least in my mind, is very different……
< Message edited by warspite1 -- 10/14/2015 1:03:11 PM >
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