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By Root 1177 0

Thereafter, however, relations with Germany soured. The Spanish dictator was galled when Hitler refused to concede to him French colonies in Africa, partly because Germany still hoped to enlist Vichy France as an active ally. Mussolini strongly opposed Spanish belligerence, partly because he was a competitor with Franco for the same French colonies, and also because he sought unreserved personal hegemony over the Mediterranean littoral. Hitler, in his turn, had his own shopping list, wishing to appropriate some of Franco’s colonies as German overseas bases: Spanish Equatorial Guinea, Fernando Po and one of the Canary Islands. The most intractable sticking point in negotiations was that the Spanish leader, like Mussolini, was unwilling to allow large numbers of German troops into his country. He admired Hitler vastly, and cherished illusions that the Führer would create a new European polity in which Spain, for so long an abused underdog, would be conceded its rightful place in the sun. But he had no intention of allowing his country to become a Nazi fiefdom.

Hitler’s key strategic objective was seizure of Gibraltar. Having scant faith in the Spanish army to accomplish this, he prepared plans for the Wehrmacht to do so. For Franco, however, in the words of historian Stanley Payne, ‘it was a point of both honor and national interest that Spanish forces carry out the operation’. An impasse developed: the Germans would not provide Spain with the weapons and supplies for Franco to make an attempt on Gibraltar, and Franco would not grant the Wehrmacht rights of passage for its own assault. He knew the Spanish people were unwilling to accept the sacrifices of a new war. His generals were hostile, not least because the British were paying them a fortune in secret bribes – $13 million in all – to keep their country neutral. As long as Britain remained undefeated, the Royal Navy could blockade Spain, with devastating economic consequences. Once again, British sea power exercised an important, though invisible, influence upon events.

British successes in Libya and Abyssinia further discouraged Franco from any hasty commitment to fight, at precisely the moment when Hitler was ready to dispatch tanks and troops to take Gibraltar. On 7 December 1940, the Abwehr’s chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris met Franco in Madrid, to seek his agreement that German forces should start moving into Spain within a month. Franco refused. Canaris cabled Berlin on the 10th, saying that Spain would not move as long as the British maritime threat persisted. Hitler lost patience, and Operation Felix, the Gibraltar attack, was shelved. By February 1941, his attention had switched irrevocably eastwards. He needed every division for his intended invasion of Russia. His interest in Gibraltar waned, and with it Germany’s willingness to pay an extravagant price for Spanish belligerency. Spain remained an active friend of the Axis for almost two years thereafter, until the successful Allied invasion of North Africa made obvious the turn of the tide. Italian aircraft bombing Gibraltar refuelled at Spanish airfields; vital commodities including tungsten continued to flow from Spain to Germany; the country swarmed with Nazi diplomats and spies, who were provided with every facility to impede the Allied war effort. Franco sent a token division to assist Hitler’s invasion of Russia; Luftwaffe weather and reconnaissance aircraft flew from Spanish bases until 1945. But Spain maintained nominal neutrality. Gibraltar remained unconquered, and thus the gateway to the Mediterranean stayed open to Allied shipping.

If Franco had joined the war, the inevitable fall of Gibraltar would have doomed Malta. It would have been much harder – perhaps impossible – for the British to hold the Middle East. The damage to their prestige and confidence would have been immense, and Churchill might not have survived as prime minister. Franco deserved no gratitude from the Allies, because cautious Spanish diplomacy was driven by self-interest; he held back only because he overvalued his own worth