What If Spain Joined the Axis?

#possiblehistory #ph
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[possiblehistory]

Check out today's sponsor Manta Sleep and use code "PossibleHistory" for a 10% discount!

[TheGeneralofMandalore]

I hope there's an alternate universe somewhere in which somebody makes a "What if Spain never joined the Axis?" video which ends in a Total Axis Powers victory

[alternateaccount]

I love that Hearts of Iron 4 has almost standardized what colors countries have on the map during this period, like it's interesting how we've agreed that yellow means republican spain while the brown are the falangists

[Rainer-fwfd]

The Churchill encirclement reddit post is comedy gold

[Robsonski]

I got an idea: "What if FDR died before the Yalta Conference?" and "What if FDR retired after his second term?"

[jayrodthered]

4:46 "Churchill was a big proponent of the southern strategy".
*Dixieland plays*

[Lolaso-sqpb]

“Look at my double encirclement” Churchill in Hoi4 😂

[Ghosty.maria]

Two leaders with one ball makes a worse axis 😔

[myrddinemrys]

You seemed to have completely ignored Portugal in this scenario. Although it's possible they could have stayed out, or otherwise been occupied, keeping Spain out of the war was a big reason why Portugal was not asked for aid in terms of military assistance per the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty.

You also said ultranationalism would be crushed in Europe with the defeat of Franco, again ignoring Portugal that would still be under Salazar for another thirty years.

[bruhmoment]

this morning i was having breakfast and suddenly thought "hmm, what if spain joined the axis?" and now i see this. it's definitely a message sent by the universe. or the youtube algorithm spying on my thoughts. these days, both options are equally possible...

[randomdudeoti]

One issue: Spain actually did get some aid (about 1b) with the pact of Madrid in 1953. Sure it could still be higher in the alternate timeline, but it wasn’t as though Franco-Spain didn’t get any aid at all.

[danielsantiagourtado]

Idea: What if FDR lived to see his 4th term to completion?

[Brasc]

I don't think it would be quite that simple, though. Malta was an important base for the British that sunk most of the supplies sent to Axis forces in North Africa. With the Strait of Gibraltar closed, the Siege of Malta will be far worse as Allied convoys will face a far longer route to supply forces on the islands. Malta's defenses could have been degraded to the point that Operation Herkules, the Axis invasion of the islands, could have been launched. If Malta falls into Axis hands, they would have far more success against the Allies in Egypt. Will it help in the long run? Probably not.

Even if Rommel overruns Alexandria and Mussolini rides his white horse through Cairo, the Axis now have to defend against Allied forces in the Sinai and the Middle East beyond, and against forces further up the Nile, stretching their forces and resources even if they aren't being sunk by Allied subs from Malta. And once the US joins in the invasion of North Africa back in Morocco and Algeria, the bulk of Axis forces will be shifted back west and they'll get pushed back in Egypt as well. In the end, same outcome but taking a bit longer, more of Egypt wrecked in the fighting, and Malta and its residents not having the legend status they have in OTL and having to endure an Italian occupation before they either face another invasion by Allied forces, or Malta is bypassed by the invasion of Italy and starved into submission until Mussolini's fall and the forces on Malta surrender.

[four...]

"What If Spain Joined the Axis?" 3rd Spanish Republic

[RMProjects]

I’m surprised you didn’t mention that the Axis might see increased success in North Africa as British shipping in the Mediterranean would be so much harder with the strait of Gibraltar cut off. The British might even abandon Malta to Italy. While I still don’t think they’d be able to take Suez, they might contest the Nile Delta. With the entry of the US, the African Front is doomed, but the Axis might hold out for longer. Italy may be more effective as the Allies would be also dealing with Spain, so they may not surrender as quickly, with Mussolini holding out until late 1943 early 1944. Because of this, Germany would not have to bail out and take over Italy like they did in our timeline until much later, the Allies also may not advance as far into Italy and so it would be less of a concern. In fact, the diversion of German troops to the Balkans and Italy was one of the key reasons for the Soviet victory in the Battle of Kursk. The Soviet advance into Eastern Europe may be a lot slower. But yeah by 1944 the German collapse outlined in the video would happen, with 1945 going basically the same as it did in our timeline, maybe with Albania falling into western influence rather than Soviet.

[SuperDarkMatter]

Can we all agree that this video is 10 minutes of roasting Spain.

[diegojimenez]

There is a small mistake in the video, Spain would become a constitutional monarchy, since there were negotiations between the Spanish monarchists in exile and the allies so that when WW2 was won the monarchy would be restored

[viriatox]

As a Spaniard and a fan of alternative history, I highly doubt such a scenario.

If Hitler accepted Franco's initial demands (not only territorial as Gibraltar, French Morocco and French Cameroon, but also economic, since at that time Spain required wheat and oil, supplies coming mainly from the other side of the Atlantic), the war would begin to focus on the Iberian Peninsula from that moment on.

On the one hand, the situation in Gibraltar would be unsustainable (the British garrison could take shelter in the tunnels of the Rock for months, but the port and airport are perfect targets for any artillery attack), probably causing the later fall of Malta due to the lack of supplies before the Americans arrived in North African theater (which could cause Rommel to reach the Nile and the Suez Canal before Montgomery could stop him).

On the other hand, the British always had a plan prepared for the eventual Spanish entry into the Axis: the invasion of the Canary Islands, where they would place a puppet government (which could be a monarchical one in the name of Infante Juan, heir of the exiled Alfonso XIII; or the exiled government of the Second Spanish Republic, led by the Canarian pro-Soviet socialist Juan Negrin, last prime minister of the defeated republic in 1939). Most experts declare that a successful invasion of the archipelago would require a week or 10 days, so even before Spain officially entered the war, the Germans could have landed enough troops and material to make that landing impossible (in fact, Operation Felix planned an important landing of German troops and material in the Canary Islands before Spain announced its entry into the war with the planned attack on Gibraltar).

There would be serious doubts about the outcome of the British landing (many would not want to live under Franco's dictatorship, but many more did not want to live again under Republican chaos and PSOE tyranny, since the PSOE (the Spanish socialist party) of that time had Bolshevik behavior and was clearly pro-Soviet, discarding any internal element that today we would consider social democratic, true reason why Great Britain and France committed themselves to the Committee of Non-Intervention during the Spanish Civil War), but, personally, the most possible scenario in my opinion is that the British failed thanks to the timely arrival of the Germans, especially their artillery and their submarines, which would make Churchill and his cabinet see that they urgently needed the entry of the Americans in the war, something that will only happen after Pearl Harbor, causing the next Operation Torch to focus on an Anglo-American landing on the Canary Islands.

However, in any case, the British would be forced to occupy the Portuguese archipelagos in the Atlantic (Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde) to ensure their maritime traffic in that area, which would cause a crossroads for the corporatist dictatorship of Salazar that governed Portugal.

On the one hand, the Salazar government would protest the occupation of its Atlantic archipelagos by its oldest ally, but on the other, it would know that it did not have enough navy to do anything against the British and had to focus on the fact that the Germans would already have troops in Spain in the event of any eventuality with neutral Portugal. Most likely, the Germans considered the Portuguese response to that British attack as ambiguous and decided to invade together with Spanish troops to control the entire Iberian Peninsula. To convince Franco, he would be convinced that in the medium term, Hitler would support the realization of an Iberian Anschluss where Spain would annex Portugal and all its colonies after the Axis victory.

As for the danger of pissing off Vichy France, Hitler could try to compensate them with the promise of some British colonies to be given to them after the end of the war. They would also remember how the British recently treated the French, with their treacherous attack on Mers-el-Kebir a few days after the signing of the armistice with Germany, which caused among many French an outrageous response similar to that which the American people had after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Meanwhile, Spain's entry into the war would cause greater emphasis on the Atlantic Wall that would extend to Dakar, the capital of French West Africa under Vichy control that already resisted an Allied landing in September 1940. Furthermore, it is very likely that the war involved the active participation of an industrial company with a long history of war machine in the Axis war effort: the Spanish Hispano-Suiza, with factories in Spain and France and a great history in the manufacture of cars, trucks, planes, tanks and cannons. In fact, its president at that time was a personal friend of Franco and was the first mayor of Barcelona after the victorious entry of Franco's troops at the beginning of 1939 into the Spanish Civil War (he was mayor until 1945).

On the other hand, if Spain entered the war, the Germans would have made "recommendations" so that the Spanish economy would be more efficient for the war effort and not only focus on the extraction of tungsten necessary for German armor. It is also very possible that Spain contributes something more on the Eastern Front (at least one army corps, although if Spain saw little action at first, it is possible that many young Spaniards would have wanted to participate as volunteers in the anti-communist crusade that began with Operation Barbarossa).

[paulpeterson]

The assumption that the loss of Gibraltar would not impact the North Africa campaign is fundamental to this alternate history, and is completely ludicrous. Without Gibraltar, Malta or Suez, there is no possible way that the allies could supply or sustain a beachhead in North Africa, nor in Spain. It would be 1945 before the USA would have enough carriers to even attempt to provide air cover for all of the supplies that would need to go into maintaining a bridgehead, let alone supply an offensive operation by dozens of divisions.

[r.ladaria]

Göring put forth the 'south strategy' in June 1940. If Gibraltar were to be closed, that concept could become a reality. I'm curious if the Afrika Korps arrived in August 1940 and proceeded 600 miles further east than it did historically, thus closing the Suez Canal. This would pave the way for Rommel's advance towards Damascus, Baghdad, and Basra, driven by the pursuit of oil.

The question then arises: in such a scenario, would Hitler still have launched Barbarossa? And if not, how long could the German Empire have held out against the formidable American forces from 1943 onwards?