Spain Enters WW2 On The Axis Side

[Grimm Reaper]

If Hitler does invade Spain he likely succeeds, at a cost.

Losses and garrisons take down 20-30 divisions at minimum, more if he seriously wants to resist an Allied landing. Meanwhile there goes all of Spain's colonies and islands, likely Portugal's too, over to the British and Americans and since Operation Torch is already going well all he's really done is open up yet another bleeding front for the Luftwaffe. I might also wonder if this, on top of occupying Vichy France, might wind up weakening Germany at some key point like Tunisia or the Eastern Front.

Likely the Spanish Legion(actually a full corps) has to be disarmed as well.

 

[Condottiero]

If Spain enters the war in 1940 the main problem would be supplies. The spanish army after the war had good wargear and combat experience. In fact they had better tanks than the Wehrmacht as part of the tanks in Franco's army were soviet captured ones (T-26). Provided the spanish government got food for the population and fuel for the army and the airforce (I know this is almost ASBish), Gibraltar would not be invencible: there is an airforce. A combination of artillery, airstrikes and naval bombardment and the airfield and the port are useless... if the Royal navy appears then they would have some problems with the german airforce. The british could make a desperate and heroic stand, like in Singapore, but the Rock would finally fall.

The position of Portugal would be interesting, but I think they would keep the neutrality until UK+USA are in condition of sending there a sizeable army.

It is true that means that lots of german resources could not be destined to other operation theaters, and the Canaries would be in danger but I did not say it would be easy and a good thing for Spain and Germany. Obviously the best thing for Germany are neutral Spain and Italy.

 

[Michele]

In short: if Spain enters the war then the Allies lose the Mediterranean and can not get it back.​

You greatly misunderstood what you read there.

Force H was based _in Gibraltar_. What the author is saying is that Force H would have to evacuate the _Western_ Med, that is, _Gibraltar_. Had the British so wished, they could have redeployed it entirely to Alexandria, which is still in the Mediterranean. And anyway they would have remained in control of Malta and Alexandria; reading the statements you quote as if they meant that the loss of Gibraltar means the loss of the Med is a misunderstanding on your part.
In any case, I don't think Force H would go to Alexandria, be it across the Med or around the Cape. The British had another force set aside in Britain, both navy units and trained landing troops, for the Canary operation. In about two weeks, the Canary Islands would make a rather less cramped base for Force H.

Add that when the author says that Gibraltar is critical for the supplying of the region, the "region" he means is the Western Mediterranean. Gibraltar has virtually no role for the supplying of Egypt, as even a passing knowledge of the 8th Army logistics will tell.

As to the consequences on Torch, they are overblown. Additionally, the Axis logistical situation, as already mentioned, worsens dramatically if Spain joins the war. As already mentioned, the only fact that the Spanish civilian population is eating food imported from overseas is enough to give the lie to any idea that the overall logistical situation of the Axis improves.

Generally speaking, the page you quote seems an attempt at vindicating the contemporary US assessment of the Gibraltar situation. The British, knowing the local and national Spanish situation much much better, did not fear a Spanish move a lot; and in fact, the US assessment was completely wrong. Whence the attempt to vindicate it somehow.

As to the chances of the Spanish to neutralize the airfield, that's right; they would neutralize it. Many other things mentioned in that page, OTOH, are wrong. For instance, it's peculiar that the aging Spanish artillery with their badly trained crewmen and scanty ammo supplies are assumed to be able to hit the Rock with impunity, and no mention is made of the fact that the British artillery, guess what, would reply in kind.

Likewise, an attack by the Spanish from a cold start would be the only way to surprise the British – but it would turn out to be a massacre. And any concentration of troops and non-fixed artillery would be noticed and be a warning. The same warning would be received if German heavy rail artillery was sent in.

Note how Force H is only mentioned as the poor refugees which will have to evacuate if Gibraltar falls. The idea that they happened to carry heavy guns, and that some of the units were almost always in port, has not dawned upon the author you quote, nor on you.

The Spanish artillery commander would be faced with a choice. If he waits for Force H to be away, he won't be doing an artillery Pearl Harbor on them, and they will probably show up to play a Port Arthur on some Spanish harbor later on. But if he starts firing while they are in port, he'll have too many targets to neutralize at once; the coastal batteries and the ships. If he doesn't take them all out quickly, _his_ batteries will also come under fire. Of course battleships in the field of fire of coastal batteries are more vulnerable than coastal batteries in the field of fire of battleships, and the British will do their best to move them out; but that doesn't mean they won't fire back in the meantime.

Likewise, I'm impressed by the idea that the Spanish field artillery can make entirely inoperable the airfield in a few hours. That's right. Now, it hasn't occurred to that author, or to you, that the British aircraft would strafe and slaughter those Spanish artillerymen in a few minutes.

Of course the Spaniards _can, eventually_ neutralize the airfield. If they want to neutralize it quickly, they could, for instance, bombard it with their fixed, fortified heavy batteries. Which brings about a third target for them, however, as mentioned above, besides the ships and the British batteries. This will delay the moment the British guns will cease firing on the Spanish ones, of course. It might even delay it forever, given that the Spanish batteries will come under fire too, and that I suspect they'd have not a lot of ammo. Or they can neutralize the airfield in their own good time, gradually. This means the aircraft based there will gradually be destroyed on the strip, or made unusable; but not without having had time for repeated raids on those Spanish troops bunched up at La Linea.

Which brings about another remark. So the Spanish can deploy 50,000 or so men. Impressive, of course, never mind they would find the logistics a noticeable strain. Now, how do they plan to use them over that thin, thin, thin isthmus? In human waves? If they do that at night, probably they'll manage to keep their losses at catastrophic levels, instead of at 100%. Or do they simply wait for the artillery duel to be over? Do they choose not to assault, and are they satisfied with just destroying the airfield and the artillery in the Rock (assuming they can)? In that case, the remarks above take precedence and that number has no importance whatsover. Had they been able to gather, supply and feed 100,000 or 200,000, it wouldn't have mattered.

I'm also impressed by the fear that heavy artillery can collapse fortifications. Well, over time, that's true. Now, doesn't that apply to the Spanish fortifications as well?

The whole text has this slant; the British are helpless, passive targets. Sorry, it's wrong.

As a final note, the page you quote gives the impression there were only two 9.2" gun batteries, and that they both faced West or South-West, i.e., that they were in a position the Spanish artillery could hit. Well, that's untrue. There were four 9.2" guns facing East and South-East, which means the whole mass of the Rock protected them from the fire of Spanish coastal batteries in Algeciras or San Roque; but at the same time, they could still interdict naval traffic through the Straits.

 

[Michele]

Likely the Spanish Legion(actually a full corps) has to be disarmed as well.

Do you mean the Spanish troops in German service? If so, it was a division.

 

[chris N]

There was a german plan to take Gibraltar and it would require the co-operation of the Spanish government. Spain was willing to enter the war but to do so it had to make demands upon Germany for weapons, fuel and territorial gains. Germany was not able to supply those items to Spain in the amounts that would truly make Spain a capable military power.

 

[AirshipArmada]

You greatly misunderstood what you read there.

Drats.​

---​

What if we have an earlier POD.​

Here is a shot (none too serious).​

Say the British Olympic Committee has a few Germanophobes on it in 1931, and it is decided that the 1936 Olympics will be held in Istanbul (and not in Berlin). Istanbul was on the short list of contender cities OTL.​

Hitler comes to power on schedule.​

In 1936 OTL Hitler was trying to show off the new Germany to the world in a massive public relations blitz (if you’ll excuse the term). But in ATL the eyes of the world are not so focused on Germany, and Hitler is not distracted by the Olympics. He recognizes that the Spanish Civil War is a fine place to try out some new tactics and to make some powerful friends (same as OTL) but he decides to send much larger forces to Spain to get a bit of experience. This increased force does a few things: helps Franco win quicker, allows a post Civil War Spain to be a little stronger, and makes the Franco-Hitler relationship stronger.​

When WWII happens, Franco is a little more willing to offend the Allies and he is a little more friendly toward the Axis, so Franco decides to let the Nazis try to take Gibraltar. He allows them to move troops through Spain and to base planes in Spain.​

Would this change the discussion much?

 

[Wendell]

Jesse Owens' winning won't mean as much if it's not a slap-in-the-face to the Hitler regime in his own capital. Then again, this assumes that the Istanbul Olympics will go more or less the same way that those in Berlin IOTL did.

 

[Michele]

Drats.​

---​

What if we have an earlier POD.​

Here is a shot (none too serious).​

Say the British Olympic Committee has a few Germanophobes on it in 1931, and it is decided that the 1936 Olympics will be held in Istanbul (and not in Berlin). Istanbul was on the short list of contender cities OTL.​

Hitler comes to power on schedule.​

In 1936 OTL Hitler was trying to show off the new Germany to the world in a massive public relations blitz (if you’ll excuse the term). But in ATL the eyes of the world are not so focused on Germany, and Hitler is not distracted by the Olympics. He recognizes that the Spanish Civil War is a fine place to try out some new tactics and to make some powerful friends (same as OTL) but he decides to send much larger forces to Spain to get a bit of experience. This increased force does a few things: helps Franco win quicker, allows a post Civil War Spain to be a little stronger, and makes the Franco-Hitler relationship stronger.​

When WWII happens, Franco is a little more willing to offend the Allies and he is a little more friendly toward the Axis, so Franco decides to let the Nazis try to take Gibraltar. He allows them to move troops through Spain and to base planes in Spain.​

Would this change the discussion much?

There are a few problems with this.

First, you are assuming Franco wants to win more quickly. That's not a given at all.

Second, you can have the puny German armed forces of 1936 send more men and materials in Spain. Be careful to have them back by 1938, though; otherwise, the Austrians might decide they are not afraid.

Third, even assuming everything works out, Franco remains Franco; a wily opportunist. In OTL, he did not misjudge his timing as Mussolini did. I doubt he would do that in this ATL, even if Spain is stronger and he has a greater debt to Hitler (BTW, if we go by debts, he should have allied with Italy).

Having said that, yes, if the Germans are involved at Gibraltar, things change for the bad for the British - there. They also change for the bad for both the Germans and the Spaniards, elsewhere and overall.