Saturday 24 May 2014
On 23 October, 1940, Franciso Franco, the Caudillo of Spain, attended a meeting arranged with Adolf Hitler at the small town of Hendaye is southwestern France to discuss Hispano-German relations. Ever since then people have been intrigued by the idea of Spain joining forces with the Axis in the Second World War. While this was indeed a possibility, I hope to examine and speculate upon the likely, immediate, affects on the course of the war. I dare not speculate too much, as indeed speculating at all is very risky and unprofessional. Nonetheless I believe a somewhat accurate idea of what would have happened within a short time after Spain's entry can be guessed at.
Our first order of business is to establish the national strength of Spain in late 1940 and how the entry of it into the war would change the balance in general, and in separate theatres. Many things affect the strength of a nation, including the size of the population, that population's education, its ethnic composition, the size of the nation's standing armies, its trained reserves, its industrial capacity, its wealth, its geostrategic position, its access to and possession of sources of raw materials and food, its number of warships, the amount of merchant tonnage under its flag, its general infrastructure, number of aircraft. All of these factors have a serious impact on a nation's strength and Spain's comparative level in each would go a long way in informing us of Spain's strength and how that measured up with its contemporary powers.
First on the list is geography. Spain occupies 504,030 km2 on the arid Iberian Peninsula, jutting southwest from France. It is separated by the Pyrenees Mountains from the rest of Europe, and encircles Portugal to the north and east. It's consisted primarily of a Central Plateau called the Meseta, which dips to sea level near the coasts. Cantabria in the north, has a very mild climate reminiscent of nearby southwest France, and has temperate forests. Catalonia forms the east coast and has a warm sunny Mediterranean climate resembling that of Italy or nearby southern France. Andulusia, in the South, is hot, sunny, and arid. Douglas Porch records it as reminding people "more of Africa than of Europe," and is very similar to nearby Morocco across the Sea of Almeria. Castile, the heart of the country, as well as Leon and Aragon, occupy the Meseta, a plateau with cold winters and hot summers. The Meseta most closely resembles the plateau of Central Anatolia in the peninsula on the other side of the Mediterranean, and in some respects the highlands of Persia. Spain is criss-crossed by mountain ranges and rivers, most of which tend to run east-west, rather than North-South. As a peninsula, Spain is surrounded by water, and possesses a coastline 9,964 km2, which is longer than its slightly larger neighbour, France.
Now on to demographics. Spain's population in 1940 was roughly 25,757,000. For a Western European nation of its size, it wasn't very large. Italy, occupying 303,000 km2, had a population of around 44,467,000, nearly 20 million more than Spain. In 1940 Spain was still socially backwards. The population was still very religious, being Catholic and conservative. Sources I've found say Spain's literacy was "over 50%." How much over, I haven't been able to find. One of the sources also say that Austria and Hungary were "over 70%" literacy. So I believe we can safely deduce that Spain's literacy was between 50% and 70%, leaning more towards the former. Spain's people also spoke a myriad of languages. Castilian Spanish was predominant, but in 1940 many people spoke Catalan, Basque, Galician, Andulusian, and some Portuguese, and many of these had no proficiency in Castilian. This would make integration in a national army more problematic, and the reduced literacy would tend to generate lower quality NCOs, leaving the army less efficiently led and organised. These problems I'm familiar with in my research of Austria. The Austro-Hungarian Empire faced very similar problems in its attempt to construct a national army in WWI, though of course Spain's problems were too a lesser degree.
The Spanish Army in 1940 stood at 600,000 men. Many of these were conscripts that were poorly trained and equipped. Spain doesn't appear to have enacted any universal conscription laws prior to 1940, which meant its trained reserves would not be very impressive. It could call several hundred thousand more men to the colours, of course, but these would take time to equip and train, and would be unable to take part in immediate action. However, their standing forces did have recent combat experience in the Spanish Civil War, though it wasn't modern style warfare. Most of Spain's vehicles and armour were supplied by foreign sources. The Republican side during the civil war received some 200 Soviet tanks, some of which were appropriated by Franco after the war, but the majority consisted of 155 L-3-35 light tanks from Italy, and 122 Panzer I light tanks from Germany. Spain possessed 290 batteries of guns, with roughly 6 guns per battery, giving Spain some 2,000 pieces, again many from Germany or Italy. This is, again, not very impressive. Spain's armour was barely 400 machines, contrasted to France's 3,000 at the same time, and 2,500 German (taken from the forces engaged in the Battle of France, summer of 1940, a few months before Hendaye). In artillery it contrasts very unfavourably with its contemporaries. Germany possessed 7,500 pieces for the Battle of France, while France possessed over 10,000, and the British, with less than 300,000 men, less than half Spain's forces, nonetheless possessed nearly as many guns at 1,300.
The air force at Spain's disposal in 1940 consisted of some 600 aircraft of all types. Again, most of these were older Italian or German models, many being Savoia-Marchetti SM-81s or Junkers Ju-52s for the bombers, and Fiat CR-32s and Heinkel He-51s for fighters. These were not particularly effective planes for even the Germans or the Italians. The Messerschmitt Me-109 and the Macchi C.202 Folgore were the standard work horses of the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica respectively, and both were much better than the models given to Spain. The planes the Spaniards flew would have been chewed to pieces by the standard French fighters, the Bloch MB.150, of which 593 were built by France before France's surrender, or the Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker Hurricane, of which the British had over 1,000 on hand by the beginning of the Battle of Britain. British production could also easily outstrip Spain's, as Spain was reliant on Germany and Italy for more aircraft, while Britain produced nearly 20,000 of the Spitfires by the end of the war.
At sea the Spanish Navy constituted a completely paltry force and was perhaps the weakest of all branches of the Spanish military. Here again the models were constructed mainly by foreigners, in foreign yards. It was composed of 6 Cruisers, 18 Destroyers, 19 Torpedo Boats, and 9 Submarines, with a handful of auxiliary vessels. Of the Cruisers, the 1 of the Blas de Lezo-Class was constructed in the Spanish yards indigenously at Ferrol, as were the 3 of the Almirante-Class. The 2 Canarias-Class Heavy Cruisers, being the largest and most powerful of Spain's warships, were constructed by Vickers in the United Kingdom. For the Destroyers, the 3 Alsedo-Class, and the 13 vessels making up the Churrucca I and Churrucca II-Classes were all constructed autochthonously at Cartagena. The other 2 Destroyers, named the Ceuta and Mellila, were originally built in Italy for the Romanian Navy, named Viscol and Vifor, respectively. They were seized upon completion by the Italian Navy and rechristened Falco and Aquila, respectively, and were given to Spain in 1937. The Torpedo Boats were all entirely constructed in foreign yards. The 9 T-1-Class were all built in Germany. The LT-15 and LT-16 were built in the Soviet Union and given to the Republican side in the Civil War, and were requisitioned by Franco. The 4 Torpedo Boats named Badajoz, Oviedo, Requeté, and Toledo were all originally GermanSchnellboote built by Lürssen in Bremen. The remaining 4, the Sicilia, Nápoles, Cándido, and Javier Quiroga were MAS Italian ships constructed in various Italian yards. The 9 submarines in Spain's possession were also all foreign built. 2 were of the Archimedes-Class, that were built by the Cavallini shipyard in Italy for the Italian Navy in the early 1930's, and the other 6 were of the Holland-Class, constructed by Vickers in the United Kingdom.
When we compare it to other contemporary fleets its weakness becomes readily apparent. The Italian Navy in 1940 consisted of 6 Battleships, 19 Cruisers, 59 Destroyers, 67 Torpedo Boats, and 116 Submarines. When contrasted against its potential adversaries the picture is even more bleak. The French Navy at the time of France's surrender included 6 Battleships, 2 Battlecruisers, 1 Aircraft Carrier, 20 Cruisers, 60 Destroyers, and 80 Submarines, and gets really gloomy when compared to the Royal Navy, which possessed 12 Battleships, 3 Battlecruisers, 7 Aircraft Carriers, 66 Cruisers, 184 Destroyers and 60 Submarines. The British also had several ships on the slipways under construction, including 5 more Battleships, and 23 more Cruisers, far more powerful than the entire Spanish Navy.
The Spanish Merchant Fleet was also less than impressive. Spain had 642 merchant vessels hoisting its flag, composing a fleet of 899,209 tonnes. In comparison to this meagre fleet, the British possessed 9,285 ships at 19,541,364 tonnes, by themselves. If we add the 2,068 ships possessed by the British Commonwealth, standing at 1,732,700 tonnes, the British Empire as a whole possessed 21,274,064 tonnes, or something like 24 times the shipping of Spain. When you take into account that the British had several supply problems despite their vast merchant fleet, you get the idea of how difficult it would be for Spain to maintain a presence overseas. It would be dependent on Italian shipping, and Italian shipping proved to be largely inadequate even for Italian purposes.
Gauging Spain's wealth was a bit more problematic, given the sparsity of sources. However, I was lucky enough to stumble upon Spain's per capita, and using that I was able to extrapolate a rough estimate of Spain's GDP (which I know is quite accurate because I applied the same mathematical formula to Italy and landed within 2 billion dollars of Italy's actual listed GDP). So, my figures show Spain's GDP to be $62 billion in 1940. This is very poor for a Western European nation. Italy's GDP stood at $147 billion, while France's was $164 billion, Japan's was $192 billion, the UK's was $316 billion, Germany's was $387 billion, the USSR's was $417 billion, and finally the US's was $943 billion. So you can see that Spain was really small fish compared to even Italy, and the discrepancy just gets wider and wider, the UK being 5 times as rich as Spain, and ultimately the US being 15 times as rich as Spain.
Then we add this to the equation, Spain's foreign currency and gold reserves were practically non-existent, its economy was hard hit by the civil war. In infrastructure Spain's kilometres of both track and paved roads were well below the Western European average. Spain lacked a solid industrial base, and therefore an ability to prosecute a modern war, as was revealed by the large numbers of ships and machines Spain was forced to rely on foreign powers to obtain. Spanish facilities and Spanish shipyards were simply insufficient to produce modern material for war. Indigenously Spain constructed a mere 4 Trubia tanks, as well as 2 Landesas, and 3 Verdejas. Production of a mere 9 tanks by native industries does not imply a very expansive industrial foundation. Plans for domestically produced aircraft were likewise unimpressive. The Spanish HA-1112 fighter was planned to be put into production and 1,000 models built. However, since it required the Daimler-Benz DB 605 engine, and Germany didn't even have enough for its own aircraft, only a few aircraft were produced, and the first one didn't appear until 1944. The obvious conclusion is that Spain would be horribly incapable of replacing even the few obsolete machines it possessed, and would be entirely dependent on Italy and Germany for aircraft and armour, as well as for transport vehicles, rolling stock, and even warships.
Spain was largely deficient in many natural resources. Almost all of Spain's oil had to be imported from the United States. Due to the devastation of the civil war Spanish agriculture had collapsed and was unable to even feed the population, and therefore Spain was importing large amounts of foodstuffs from the United States and Canada. Spain did possess large deposits of iron and coal, but they were difficult to access, and it largely just exported it and did not possess many industries to turn the iron into steel, nor the steel into vehicles and ships. So in the vital supplies of food and oil, Spain would be forced to turn to Germany to make good the shortfall in imports that would inevitably follow Spanish entry into the war due to Spanish weakness at sea and British supremacy on the same. Given that both Douglas Porch and Vincent O'Hara have attested that the Italian Fleet was stranded at anchor for long periods at a time due to the lack of fuel, one can assume the Germans would be as reluctant to deplete their own stocks for Spain as they were for Italy.
Now we come to the matter of Spanish aims, and what they could potentially receive from the war. No doubt Spain would very much like to reclaim Gibraltar, and perhaps Morocco. There were also irredentist claims to regain the Roussillon from France, lost in 1659. Given Spain's weakness in artillery and in aircraft, assaulting Gibraltar would be difficult for them, especially since the British could block any of their seaward attempts. Taking it without German support would be most formidable. The seizure of Gibraltar would also be of little strategic benefit for the Axis. In 1940, due to Italy's entry, the Admiralty had already redirected all traffic to the east around the Cape of Good Hope, therefore its fall would not affect the ocean-going traffic of the British merchant fleets. Furthermore, Gibraltar's inhabitants were overwhelmingly pro-British, and therefore anti-Spanish. Its reincorporation would be symbolic at best.
When considering gains made at France's expense, we have the actual example of Italy before us. Vichy yielded nothing to the Italians. The Italians had entered the war intending to annex Nice, Savoy, Corsica, and Tunisia. Vichy gave them none of these. It was not until the Germans ended Vichy during Operation Anton in 1942 that the Italians finally received these, and they were resisted. There is no reason to assume that Vichy would have yielded to Spanish demands, and there's no reason to believe Hitler would pressure Vichy on them. Hitler was most anxious to keep Vichy, and in particular its formidable fleet and large empire, out of the hands of the Allies. He did this by holding Vichy hostage and threatening them with war. If Spain attacked Vichy in either Morocco or over the Pyrenees, they'd risk the immediate defection of the French fleet and empire to the Allies, and their loss would be hardly offset by Spain's entry. So Spain's prospects for gains seem rather limited.
If the Spanish did attack the French in Morocco, they'd find themselves hard pressed to maintain any army with the amount of shipping they possessed, which the British would sink whenever and wherever they happened upon it. On the ground the French possessed superior firepower in the form of better artillery and better armour, and much better aircraft. The French also possessed superior knowledge and experience of desert warfare. Even without their metropole the French would be a tough nut to crack for Spain alone. Again it would likely need help from Italy and Germany. Morocco would also hardly be a lucrative acquisition. It was a drain on France's finances, it would be a much more onerous burden on the muchpoorer Spain, who had suffered greatly simply holding the Rif in the interwar years, which even necessitated French intervention to rescue Spain from defeat. Therefore Spain's gains were largely economically and strategically illusory.
I'm going to take this opportunity to briefly go over the actual performance of Italy during the Second World War, Italy's position being closest to Spain's in all respects, to shed some light on how Spain may have fared. Italy entered the war in June, 1940, and was quite unprepared to do so. Its Alpine forces found themselves outmatched by their French opposites, and the much smaller French forces inflicted a severe check on their assault into Provence. The French Navy shelled the city of Genoa with impunity. The Italians subsequent to France's fall invaded Western Egypt, but were ill-supplied with vehicles and sufficient armour. The more mobile British forces, with heavier tanks, crushingly defeated the Italians, and swept them far westwards into their own colony of Libya. Though the Italians managed to briefly take British Somaliland in East Africa, Field Marshal Lord Archibald Wavell was able to wrap them up in this part of Africa after a short campaign, taking Addis Ababa from them. In October, 1940, the Italians attacked Greece from their neighbouring territory of Albania. They were humiliatingly defeated by the Greeks under General Alexandros Papagos and the Greeks even took Southern Albania from them. In early 1941, British forces began arriving in Greece to assist them against Italy. Hitler, alarmed by the British threat to the Romanian oilfields intervened both in the Balkans and in Libya to shore up the Italians, thus wasting German forces and time rescuing the Italians. At the same time, the Italians fared poorly at sea. Their navy was badly handled by Admiral Lord Andrew Cunningham at Cape Matapan, and during the daring raid at Taranto. Italy's constant lack of fuel hamstrung her naval actions, and Italy's coasts were naked to British seapower.
Italy became increasingly dependent upon Germany, not only for resources and weapons, but for actual German military personnel, pulling the Germans away from more vital theatres, i.e., Russia. When Italy finally collapsed, the Germans were forced to take up the burden of defending the Apennine Peninsula in order to protect Germany itself. Given that the Allies possessed complete dominance of the sea, the Germans were in a most exposed and perilous position. Luckily for them the Americans were insistent that all Allied shipping be gathered in Britain, and ignored Churchill's pleas to allot any of it to Sir Harold Alexander. Otherwise Alexander may have been able to continuously outflank the Germans by landing behind them, and so cut them off. The Allies could easily have repeated the maneuvre several times until they bagged all the Germans or drove them from the peninsula completely. Therefore the whole business with Italy can only be considered a costly distraction for the Germans, that they were lucky wasn't even more costly as it could easily have been.
My conclusions for Spain are that its performance would broadly mirror Italy's, except Spain was even weaker militarily and industrially than Italy was. Spain, as I've demonstrated, was weaker in all respects to Italy, and much weaker than its immediate adversaries France and the United Kingdom, not to mention the Soviet Union and the United States. Because of its dependence on imports, and its long coastline, it, like Italy, would be rapidly starved of food and oil by the British. Germany would have had to deplete its own stocks to make good the shortfall. My belief is that Hitler would put pressure on Portugal to join the Axis once Spain joined. I assume Portugal would refuse to fight its ancient ally Britain, which would be economic suicide anyway, and thereafter Hitler would goad the Spanish to attack Portugal. My conclusion is that Spain would fail against Portugal, and the British would then land in Portugal like they did in Greece. Once the British landed in Portugal, Hitler would feel compelled to eject them, diverting substantial German forces both to overrun Portugal and to secure Gibraltar. The benefits of this would be minimal, Portugal was worthless, and Gibraltar's fall would not ruin Britain, as I explained earlier. On the other hand, the Germans would have had to definitely call off Sealion earlier, and would have wasted their strength and their time messing around in Iberia, setting the clock back for Barbarossa.
At the same time, Spain's long coasts would be naked to British, and later American, amphibious assaults. Spain's ability to resist these would be considerably less than Italy's, and therefore the Germans would once more have to take up the responsibility themselves, lest the weak Spaniards allow the Allies a foothold on the European Continent, diluting their strength even further. All of Spain's colonies, as well as the Canary Islands, would be forfeit to the British. Once the Americans joined, Germany would be forced to hold in Iberia, in Italy, in the Balkans, in France, in Scandinavia, in the Low Countries, in Germany itself, and at the same time grapple with Russia in the east.
To sum up, I come to the ironic conclusion that Spain's entry on the side of Germany would be the best thing that could possibly happen for the Allies. Spain would have constantly drained German resources, since it would be incapable of producing its own material of war, and was too weak to challenge the British at sea. It would therefore be useless against Britain, let alone the US or Russia. Spain would simply languish, being propped up by Germany, until the Germans were so weakened by their fighting in Russia that they couldn't hold out in Spain anymore, and Spain would therefore fall to the Allies. Without Gibraltar the British would still have survived in Egypt, as they survived when they practically treated Gibraltar as if it did fall, Spanish attacks on Morocco would do nothing to harm them, and their weakness would distract Germany and just cause Germany to lose against Russia even faster than it actually did. So I come to the rather amusing resolution, that far from encouraging Spain to join, the Germans should have tried to keep both them and Italy neutral. Germany would have done much better without chasing Mediterranean chimeras.
- Kaiser
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