Reality Check: Longer Spanish Civil War

[Gridley]

I'd like to invite people to discuss the probability of the Spanish Civil War lasting into 1940 with both major factions still in control of a large part of Spain, and the impact this would have on WWII. POD no earlier than the start of the war itself (July 1936). The POD must directly concern the war (no butterflies from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), though changes in outside intervention in the war are perfectly acceptable.

Some particular questions:
1. What is a good POD for prolonging the war? More or less outside intervention? Some action or event within Spain itself?
2. What butterflies does this cause in the events leading to OTL WWII? Is Austria still annexed in early 1938? Munich later that year?
3. With the war still going, and if WWII did still happen roughly as OTL, does Franco (or whoever's leading the Nationalists), join the Axis after the fall of France, and the Republicans join the allies?

I'm guessing any greater Axis involvement in Spain leads to a shorter WWII. Does this seem reasonable?

 

[Cryptic]

1. What is a good POD for prolonging the war? More or less outside intervention? Some action or event within Spain itself?

For the war to be prolonged, the Republican side (really the republican coalition) would have to become a unified military and political force. This would probaby have to come from with in Spain.

Maybe:

October 1936: All republican militias are disolved and their personnel intergrated directly into the Republican army.

November 1936: All political factions are forcibly prohibited from implementing independent and ofter contradictory economic policies, land reform agendas. Only centeral republican government has power of arrest, trials, death sentences etc.

 

[catalfalque]

Unfortunately for your idea the best way for the war to last longer would be for Germany and Italy not to be able to intervene.

Cat!

 

[Gridley]

Unfortunately for your idea the best way for the war to last longer would be for Germany and Italy not to be able to intervene.

Cat!

What if they don't choose to intervene, or their intervention is less? Or what if there's more intervention on the Republican side?

 

[Gridley]

For the war to be prolonged, the Republican side (really the republican coalition) would have to become a unified military and political force. This would probaby have to come from with in Spain.

Maybe:

October 1936: All republican militias are disolved and their personnel intergrated directly into the Republican army.

November 1936: All political factions are forcibly prohibited from implementing independent and ofter contradictory economic policies, land reform agendas. Only centeral republican government has power of arrest, trials, death sentences etc.

Seems like a good way to go; sounds like there's need to be a solid leader for the Republican faction(s). Who might be a candidate?

 

[catalfalque]

What if they don't choose to intervene, or their intervention is less? Or what if there's more intervention on the Republican side?

Yes 1, Yes 2, the third could lead to an earlier world war.

Cat!

 

[TxCoatl1970]

Longer SCW

Several issues dogged the Republic:
One- the Communists tried to get everyone marching the same direction from 1936 on with the Popular Front strategy, and didn't even wait for the strategy to work before purging the anarchists and democratic socialists from the coalition, destroying Republican morale.
Accepting Soviet help doomed the Republic from getting any substantial help from the French, British, Americans, etc.
It wasn't like everyone was lining up to help the Republic anyway, thanks to the press re: the seizure of Catholic property and abuses of clergy, and establishment of the communes-- all shocking developments.
Sure, the Falange was no better, arresting and killing with gay abandon when they took a Republican town, but they had better press.
"Army restoring order" sounds so much better than "pissed off villagers hang priest and loot church for real and imagined abuses".
So much of the Republican response to things was ad hoc and improvisational. 2/3 of the Army walked, most of the NCOs and professional officers left to join the Nationalists, leaving a skeleton crew of generals and lieutenants to attempt herding the motley crew of political militias to fill the gap. They had plenty of people and elan, but no equipment or supply chain and a lot of factional disputes.
Communist strategy was to hold the line and hope the West stepped up to oppose the fascist tide. They didn't, thus the Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to buy time.
I've argued that Leon Blum's premiership was an opportunity to give substantial aid to the Spanish Republic but they didn't IOTL for several reasons-- first, the French government was social democratic in program and motivation, not revolutionary;
Second, IIRC the PF government had a shaky mandate as it was and the French right made so much hay about the anticlerical abuses that it was politically impossible to go beyond token assistance. However, selling them some D.520 planes, munitions, and tanks might help the Republican Army tremendously, because they were drastically short of aircraft, artillery, and tanks vs. the Nationalists.
About the only thing that could have made the SCW longer would be France and Britain going full-on offensive against the Siegfried Line in 1939 (sure, the Brits and French weren't ready but really, if they could've bottled up the Germans before the Low Country offensives, fought a much different war) and thus spooking the Germans into pulling the Condor Legion. The Italians might keep the Nationalists in the game a bit longer in that case, but would be wrapped up or flee to Portugal by 1940.

 

[hsthompson]

I'd like to invite people to discuss the probability of the Spanish Civil War lasting into 1940 with both major factions still in control of a large part of Spain, and the impact this would have on WWII. POD no earlier than the start of the war itself (July 1936). The POD must directly concern the war (no butterflies from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), though changes in outside intervention in the war are perfectly acceptable.

Some particular questions:
1. What is a good POD for prolonging the war? More or less outside intervention? Some action or event within Spain itself?

The Ebro offensive fails and the Nationalists don't reach the Mediterranean cutting the Republicans in two. I know it is somewhat cliched, and I'm no military historian, but it doesn't seem impossible to turn the rapid advances into more to and fro's for a few months.

2. What butterflies does this cause in the events leading to OTL WWII? Is Austria still annexed in early 1938? Munich later that year?

Later than that, so both those still happen.

3. With the war still going, and if WWII did still happen roughly as OTL, does Franco (or whoever's leading the Nationalists), join the Axis after the fall of France, and the Republicans join the allies?

WWII... well, a difficult one. If France still falls on schedule... does it fight on from Republican Spain? If Menorca holds, can it work as a base for the French fleet and could a liberation of the rest of the Balearic islands be done from there?

I'm guessing any greater Axis involvement in Spain leads to a shorter WWII. Does this seem reasonable?

I'd say it is reasonable. How much shorter I have no idea.

 

[Cryptic]

Seems like a good way to go; sounds like there's need to be a solid leader for the Republican faction(s). Who might be a candidate?

I think Azana, the Republican president could have done it had he acted early. In the early days, many of the left wing extremist groups were vigilante mobs who could have been coralled by a strong "carrot and stick approach". The longer the various leftist militias were allowed to operate independently, the stronger they got.

So much of the Republican response to things was ad hoc and improvisational. 2/3 of the Army walked, most of the NCOs and professional officers left to join the Nationalists

Good point. Once they got the militias under a unified command and stopped extremists from abolishing money, looting and arbitrarily killing real and imagined enemies, they needed to get proffesional military advise and fast. Historically, the nationalists suffered some big early reverses in Madrid and Barcelona. Yet they quickly reboounded because the Republicans lacked the skills to stop Nationalist columns, even when they out numbered them and had terrain advantages.

The west was not going to send help. What about Mexico? Mexico was pro republican and had many leaders eperienced in improvisational, part conventional, part guerilla warfare. The right winger officers in Spain were hardly known for their military prowess and competency. Even modest advise could have made a big difference.

 

[Awilla the Hun]

The Republic not conducting its "active war policy" (going on the attack, even when they lacked enough men, aircraft, tanks, or generally good leadership), instead relying on digging in, holding out against the Nationalists, and getting foreign support, could allow them to keep going for a bit longer.