Allies sponsor a monarchist coup against Franco after World War II

Would it be possible for the Allies, after World War II, distrusting and disliking Franco due to his close relations with Hitler and Mussolini, to sponsor a coup against him by monarchists who were disgruntled with him due to the monarchy not having been restored? If so, what would happen to Spain in this timeline?
 
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I don't see this happening. Americans, French and speciality Soviets weren't fans of monarchy and for UK, USA and France Franco was useful tool against Commies. And Franco was alone relatively dangeless. There wasn't anything what he couldn't had make for neighbors anyway. Allies and Franco knew that Spain would be crushed easily if Franco would try something fun.
 
Would an assassination via poisoning and then a replacement by someone friendlier towards the Allies be possible?
Too risky for too little gain. Franco is already anti-communist and pro-western. There is no need to kill him. if They tried and is it is discovered, Spain would go to the Soviet camp or the very least establish ties .
 
If the Allies sponsor a coup, they have to be prepared to support Spain economically. It was difficult enough to put Western Europe back together again, even feeding folks, in the immediate aftermath of the war. If Franco is thrown out, and things get WORSE in Spain (and they will because there will inevitably be some destruction in the fighting), the population may decide to go red rather than embrace the new government. Simply not worth it - Franco was absolutely no threat to anyone, and the last thing the USA wanted would be to be worried about Spain going red. It is really down to the USA, because neither France nor the UK could do anything to help a post-coup Spain economically.
 
Would it be possible for the Allies, after World War II, distrusting and disliking Franco due to his close relations with Hitler and Mussolini, to sponsor a coup against him by monarchists who were disgruntled with him due to the monarchy not having been restored? If so, what would happen to Spain in this timeline?
Franco never really abolished the monarchy. Postwar Spain was in a similar situation to Hungary during the Horthy era. On paper the head of state was technically a monarch, but that position was left vacant and a dictator/general was the head of government/"temporary" caretaker. Horthy was technically just a "regent" temporarily keeping a seat warm for the monarchy that was never restored with a suitable royal.
 
Franco never really abolished the monarchy. Postwar Spain was in a similar situation to Hungary during the Horthy era. On paper the head of state was technically a monarch, but that position was left vacant and a dictator/general was the head of government/"temporary" caretaker. Horthy was technically just a "regent" temporarily keeping a seat warm for the monarchy that was never restored with a suitable royal.

I'm aware of that but I'm sure, that, some monarchists were disgruntled at Franco for there being no monarch.

I don't see this happening. Americans, French and speciality Soviets weren't fans of monarchy and for UK, USA and France Franco was useful tool against Commies. And Franco was alone relatively dangeless. There wasn't anything what he couldn't had make for neighbors anyway. Allies and Franco knew that Spain would be crushed easily if Franco would try something fun.

Franco was anticommunist but monarchists are no friends of Communists either.
As for not being fans of monarchy, the Americans did support the monarchist coup against Mossadegh.
 
More to the point, Iran was an actual parliamentary democracy (technically a constitutional monarchy but the Shah was persona non grata, blowing his allowances on the French Riviera) and democracies are always unpredictable. Still more to the point, it was possible, if you squinted anyway, to see Mossadeq as veering toward Soviet control--either turning outright to the USSR for protection or probably more likely, failing to resist a Tudeh takeover effectively. Now I think if the Eisenhower administration had been middling honest on the question of supporting "Free" nations versus upholding the interests of global corporations, solutions assuring Iran's safety from falling to Soviet domination that did not involve destroying its functional democracy, probably solutions involving working with Mossadeq, would have been possible, so if anyone claims "we had no choice" but to back the Shah's assumption of monarchial power, they are full of it. Other choices might have been a bit more uncertain and involved more delicate diplomatic work, but on the other hand been a far less brutal setback for democracy and probably headed off the formation of something like the current Islamic Republic.

But in the brutal, cynical terms Cold War masterminds thought of things, Iranian parliamentary democracy was an active threat to Western hegemony and the containment doctrine, while the Shah was an active friend.

Franco on the other hand was exactly the sort of strongman these geniuses were liable to impose on a nation that didn't already have one, and sustain no questions asked once they did. He fits just fine in the company of people like the Somazas of Nicaragua or the Duvaliers of Haiti, or of course the Shah or Pinochet or all their ilk. As far as the Cold Warriors of the Western Allies were concerned the monarchists could take a hike or pray to God for the restoration; Franco was more than tolerable; he made Spain an asset, supporting US and perhaps other foreign bases there.

I actually got a ride to school from one of my high school teachers once, in 1979-81 (can't recall just when but it was when I went to a Catholic High School in Virginia) whose husband had been stationed in Spain in the mid-Seventies, she living with him apparently. I expressed some sympathy about having to live in a country under a dictator like Franco and she sniffed and said it wasn't bad at all. Not knowing her very well I can only wonder if she was some kind of psychotic Bircher type who enjoyed the notion of Reds being lined up and massacred, or just found it all quaint and orderly and gratifyingly easy for Yankee money to buy nice things with. She did teach at a Catholic high school after all.

So--Americans in particular, at least non-left wing ones, would have little trouble with Franco's way of doing things, especially if the Spanish authorities were careful to avoid offending the Yankees with unseemly spectacles before their very eyes, and gratifyingly orderly and non-corrupt in dealing with them. (Which in the context of more general corruption is a gross form of corruption in itself, but by its nature, not one US service members or tourists would be likely to notice).

There is just absolutely no realpolitik reason to bother Franco and loads of them to welcome him as a staunch antiCommunist ally. Only democratic idealism, or an attachment to the defeated Republican cause for whatever other reason, would explain aversions to dealing with Franco, and the kinds of Americans who had those kinds of issues were exactly the ones Cold War era governments kept far out of power. Might have been more of a problem with France, where a lot of governments would be left wing and include people with experience aiding Franco's foes during the Civil War, but the solution there is for Paris to choose its diplomats carefully for neutrality in these matters and keep things correct--besides De Gaulle withdrew France from day to day integration in combined NATO operations. Who does that leave to be too revolted by Franco to maintain correct relations with him? Outside the Soviet Bloc that is? (Or within it for that matter; Stalin was quite jealous of Spanish Civil War veterans and their life expectancy was not great back in the USSR).
 

Kaze

Banned
Staging the coup would not be easy. But the problem would be the Nazi Army in France - they might decide to move some tanks to help out Franco. This might be part of the plan - keep the tanks busy, while the allies invade Normandy.
 
Staging the coup would not be easy. But the problem would be the Nazi Army in France - they might decide to move some tanks to help out Franco. This might be part of the plan - keep the tanks busy, while the allies invade Normandy.
The OP says, after WWII. Messing around with Spain during WWII is a whole different topic. On the one hand, there is more reason for the Allies to be suspicious of Franco as his fundamental allegiance is to fascism and very strongly against the Soviet Union. However, one of the paradoxes of fascism is that hypernationalism is a key element of its ideological stew, which would seem on the face of it to pose an inherent barrier against any sort of internationalist "Axis" of fascists. In fact the SS found interesting ways to square that circle, and the brutal fact of the matter is that formation of an Axis is about raw power, subordinating one small nation's fascists to subservience to the big nation's fascists, and peer powers who are in a position to either cooperate or not, such as Italy with respect to Germany, negotiate partnerships based on perceived mutual benefits.

Spain was in the position of being a small, weak fascist state that however had some strategic negotiating power with respect to Hitler's on paper overwhelming strength. Franco for his part demonstrated, for all his faults and failings, a determined Spanish nationalism prioritizing himself and Spain first and second, and understood shrewdly enough that mere submission to Hitler would benefit neither. Had he somehow placed Spain at Hitler's mercy by inviting substantial German military force in, as would have been logistically possible after the Fall of France (though it is not clear to me any foolish decision on his part to do that would not be resisted by others below him in the Spanish Nationalist hierarchy) Franco would become quite dispensable and his life dependent on delivering perfect satisfaction to Hitler personally. And Spain would suffer terribly. She would lose her overseas colonies forever, and be deprived of overseas trade Spain will suffer badly without by RN mastery of the sea. That's before the Allies start considering whether they need to intervene militarily. No doubt if Franco handed the keys to Spain over to Hitler, Hitler would seek to take or at least neutralize Gibraltar, and this raises the priority of the Allies doing something to stop it, turning Spain into a battlefield again.

With Hitler's huge and recently victorious army right there on the Pyrenees, not to mention the debt of gratitude Franco owes the Axis powers for their help in the Civil War, Franco can hardly consider joining the Allies either, even if he could swallow the idea of working on the same side as the Soviets.

What he did OTL was smart, and the only smart move he could make--he temporized with Hitler, negotiated, haggled, and stalled. Spain's technical neutrality had some serious costs for the Allies but it also brought benefits. On the whole, the way Franco played it, it was never worth either side's while to upset the applecart and intervene for their greater benefit, because the cost of trying for that would be considerable--until the situation evolved where the benefits would cease to matter. Once the Allies took Southern France back, Franco would be dead in the water if the Allies had any reason to prioritize cleaning his clock. But by that same token, Nationalist Spain was no longer any kind of asset for the collapsing Reich, not as a sub base, not as a source of resources--it was and remained a place where Reich spies and later refugee collaborators and German Nazis could try and hide out from justice, but Franco largely caved in to pressure to extradite these fugitives. I think the rule was, the Spanish police were just amazingly oblivious, being unable it would seem to recognize infamous Nazis or collaborators from photos, but if some foreign agents such as British intelligence or OSS/CIA or Mossad were to haul them into the station, into the lockup they'd go and extradition to Nuremberg trials or Israel or Denmark or wherever would proceed from there, by proper due process.

But this is getting back into the postwar period. During the war, Franco played both sides off against each other so that it was always more worthwhile to leave Spain alone and focus the war effort elsewhere.

I've fantasized myself about the ATL "benefits" the Allies might have reaped if Spain were somehow on the allied side AND it were possible to hold the line pretty much at the official border with France when the Allies were weak, and thus have a fixed broad beachhead already established to pour into Southern France from at whatever moment Allied command deems suitable. That's a nice daydream (plausible only in the context of first of all Republican victory in the Civil War and then French forces fleeing collapse of the Third Republic being adequate to hold the line of the Pyrenees, and possibly that is a pipe dream too) but let the Reich find a break in the armor anywhere and enter Spain, and once again Spain is a battlefield, and the Allies must conquer their way to a Pyrenees line the Axis holds and fight their way over its top. Not so great then really! Franco of course, even if he had no animosity against the USSR, would surely want to avoid this just to spare Spain more such turmoil.

For either side to upset the balance in Nationalist Spain, Franco has to do something stupid.
 
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