A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Spain ]
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[Allies owed much to Franco
Rehabilitation of image long overdue
By PAUL JACKSON - Calgary Sun
August 13, 2000
As a boy, my father used to soothe me to sleep with stories about how, during the Spanish Civil War, he put a bullet between the eyes of many a Godless commie. I'm sure that, when he died in January, those exploits assured Max a place in heaven.
He had gone to Spain as part of a contingent of British Roman Catholics to fight alongside Franco's armies and against the Republicans who - when not engaged trying to turn Spain into a Stalinist state - occupied themselves with crucifying priests, raping nuns and burning down churches.
A loathsome lot.
Memories of my father's bedtime stories about his heroism, and that of his gallant chums, always come back to me when I watch the intriguing documentary of Franco that first appeared on A&E's Biography series, but now surfaces from time to time on The History Channel.
It's a dab-on piece of work, though it misses out on one of the most fascinating aspects of Franco's rule, that he may well have safeguarded victory for the Allies. For a man who, erroneously, has often been smeared by the lib-left crowd as someone akin to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, this might seem quite an assertion.
It has, however, been put forward by none other than master spy novelist and popular Second World War historian Len Deighton, which gives it some veracity. Coincidentally, it's also a theory supported by Sun editor Licia Corbella and columnist Rick Bell, also Franco aficionados. This is the scenario as it unfolds:
Had the Republicans - who craftily shipped most of the nation's gold reserves to Josef Stalin's bank account in Moscow - won the civil war, they would have turned Spain into a full-fledged Communist state and aligned it with the Soviet Union.
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Hitler - whose troops had quickly and successfully invaded most of Western Europe - would have also invaded Spain. Then he would have knocked off the British enclave of Gibraltar.
Indeed, the Brits would likely have had to immediately capitulate Gib, it being senseless to defend it at a major loss of lives. With Gibraltar would have gone Britain's power over the Straits of Gibraltar, and the British military's access to the Mediterranean. That access was vital not only for Britain's oil supplies, but for its ability to tackle the Nazis in the Middle East.
True, initially Hitler had signed a pact with Stalin and the two had divided up Eastern Europe together, but after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he would have had to neutralize a Communist Spain. Fortunately, the Nationalists won.
And - exhausted from the civil war, and with contempt for the atheistic Hitler - the deeply-religious Franco, kept Spain neutral. That meant Spain - and Gibraltar - were off-limits to the Nazi leader. And no matter how much Hitler pressured Franco to let him move against the British in Gibraltar, El Caudillo was having none of it.
So the Allies had open access to the Med.
It's not hard imagine to the immense blow it would have been to the Allies had Hitler controlled the straits.
Another intriguing little tidbit about Franco is, throughout the war years, any Jew who managed to escape from occupied Europe to Spain was given sanctuary. Franco, firm Catholic that he was, thought anti-semitism was malarkey.
Before his death in 1975, Franco was quietly honoured by Israel for his wartime action. One would have thought after the war the Allies would have recognized Franco's place in their victory. But no, with socialist governments in power throughout Europe, they treated him as a pariah.
It wasn't until 1953, with the Cold War at its height, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower saw the vital importance of Spain as a bulwark against Soviet military aims, and signed a 10-year military and economic pact with Franco.
The little general, who had done so much against both the Nazis and the Communists, had finally come in from the cold. Or most would say she is an extraordinary woman.
Jackson, associate editor of the Sun, can be reached at paul.jackson@cal.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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