So basically everything the British did anyway? All of these are nuisances at best, and unlikely to have any real effect on the Germans.
In addition to what the Brits did. Besides they didn't start until 1941 and ran into serious issues because they had a limited pool of French willing to continue fighting in the early years, plus the Vichy collaborator regime and their Milice who were highly effective in preventing the French resistance from getting much off the ground until 1943.
You can see in how many Germans were stationed in France per year; by late 1941 there were only some 100k Germans in all of France. By 1943 it was over 500k. Without Vichy and with France fighting on, including from bases in Corsica, they could have a serious resistance movement started in 1940.
Outside of Morocco, the French have Dakar to name just one port.
Sure, but that is quite far away from the main zone of action. Don't get me wrong it certainly helps blunt the potential of the Canaries, but by itself it was not sufficiently close to Europe to be that helpful. Morocco would be very important, which is why it behooves the Germans to move quickly to capture it and control the region with France fighting on. IOTL Germany's nightmare scenario was the deal with Vichy breaking down and the French colonies becoming major staging areas for the Allies; that fear was realized in November 1942 and shortly thereafter the Battle of the Atlantic was lost.
Attempting to use force density size makes no sense, given the Pyrenees; the Spanish have to defend the border mountain passes initially, not the entire country itself. Likewise, unlike Greece, Spain has open connections to the Atlantic as well as the French Army, which OP suggests evacuated to North Africa. Likewise, without the threat of invasion and no North Africa Campaign, the British can commit more to Spain than they did with Greece historically.
The Spanish couldn't sustain 1 million men on or near the Pyrenees. If you wanted to make that comparison then look at the Metaxas Line and force densities there. Much shorter than even the Pyrenees, but it was flanked and breached. The Pyrenees isn't fortified and mountain divisions could traverse even the rougher sections of it if needed. The Luftwaffe can and would act as their trump card, much like how it utterly smashed the much more powerful French army in Belgium and Northeastern France.
The evacuation of France IOTL got out a few hundred thousand soldiers, the majority of the evacuees weren't front line troops, they were LOC troops, navy and airmen. They could send some, but they didn't evacuate organized divisions with their equipment, they evacuated individuals and naval stuff. Certainly the French could risk sending naval ships, but then they risked being bombed by the Luftwaffe.
Of course that is assuming Franco decides to fight the Germans, which is unlikely in 1940 if they give him what he asked for. In 1940 the British don't have really any organized divisions they could send; they still had to retain a reserve at home and keep troops in Egypt to hedge against Italy. In fact France too had to do the same, because if they weakened their forces in Algeria/Tunisia too much they could well invite attack at a later date than IOTL. Italy waiting and preparing would be a much more dangerous foe than the willy-nilly mobilization of OTL.
For two, I'm questioning whether continued attempts to limit Italy would've even been viable once Western Europe fell into the hands of the Germans, as that's a LOT of extra ports/territory to blockade.
By throttling Italy's imports they could control her ability to mobilize, as Italy was extremely dependent on imports to function economically. There is a reason they're fighting ability was so impaired IOTL. I doubt Churchill would moderate given how panicked they were IOTL.
The Anti-Nationalist resistance briefly revived for a time in late 1944-1945 thanks to French support, but they were quickly suppressed and the French then sealed the border in March of 1945, giving up on the affair. I sincerely doubt Hitler or anyone in Nazi Germany would be willing to make common cause with the Communists and vice versa in return.
I didn't claim that the Germans would make common cause, just that the Republicans would take advantage of the situation to try and carve out their own nests of resistance and in doing so would help cut out the legs from under Franco.
For one, there is no reason for the Germans to attack without notice or provocation; they didn't do so when Franco turned them down in 1940 or 1942 afterall, and they led both efforts with diplomatic pressure to get them to join which would be an obvious warning sign here too. Likewise, the Germans have just overran Western Europe; they're going to need time to rebuild their logistics.
I didn't claim that they would even have to, just that if necessary they could. Franco by all indications was more than willing to throw in with Germany in 1940 IF Franco got the colonies he wanted. IOTL the deal with Vichy was the sticking point, but ITTL with France fighting on there is no reason not to grant them what they want to head off the serious problem of France getting it's feet back under it and setting up supply lines from the US and UK.
Franco didn't turn them down in 1940, Hitler didn't ask him to join the war, he just had a conference with him to find out what the situation was and if Franco planned on joining. By October 1940 IOTL Franco had offered several times to join the war starting in June 1940 before France even surrendered, but Hitler ignored him, thinking at the time the British would quit soon because France surrendered. Then that the BoB would work, then that Italy would handle the Mediterranean well enough alone. By the time he got around to actually seriously considering getting Franco to join it was already clear that the price wasn't work the reward due to what Vichy would do if Franco's terms were met. As I said ITTL there is no Vichy to worry about, so no sticking point to getting Franco in the war, as he had already laid his terms out repeatedly before he and Hitler met.
1943 (when there was serious discussion of invading and Franco mobilized) was a very different situation and not applicable here.
The infrastructure issue isn't nearly as big as you'd think; it was a problem for the BoB due to how much damage they inflicted right in the area they needed to sustain air operations, which is not the area they would need to move into Spain. That said they had fixed things up by July when the started the first stage of the Battle of Britain, so I'm thinking ITTL the move into Spain could start in August if desired. Since the fighting to finish off France would probably be done by early July, as the French were effectively decisively defeated everywhere by the time they offered the armistice, August is entirely reasonable and plenty of time to get enough infrastructure fixed to enable the move into Spain.
You misunderstood my point; it wasn't the Luftwaffe that disrupted Polish communications but their (The Poles) own actions that did that, by moving their CiC into a place with limited communications means.
You misunderstood my point, which is that Luftwaffe would disrupt the Spanish ability to coordinate so badly as they did the French, Poles, and others in 1939-41 to the point that it would replicate the disruption of the Polish GHQ move. Since Spain was already pretty messed up from the Civil War it would be even easier to achieve than in the more intact countries that they disrupted.
For a further benefit I just realized benefiting the Spanish: Madrid is beyond the range of fighter cover afforded by Me-109s based in France.
It's rather pointless digressing here into a potential invasion of Spain, I've already provided sourcing on the willingness of Franco to join the war for French colonies in the peace deal.
As you've pointed out, the continued French control over their gold reserves affords them the ability to continue purchasing American fighter planes, meaning that any bomber raids on Madrid and the like by the Germans will be unescorted running into hundreds of French, Spanish and possibly British fighters with all that entails.
Ok that's just silly. Any French orders were coming last because of US rearmament and British demands. Britain is not sending fighters abroad in 1940 after losing 1000 aircraft in France, after all they wouldn't send more fighters to France in June 1940 when it might have helped delay or prevent France from falling. They certainly won't send them to Spain. The French won't get many aircraft until 1941 at the earliest and Spain was using their older BF109s left over from the civil war by Germany; they were enough to best RAF Hurricanes and most of the older French and American fighters on hand in 1940, but not the latest Me109s. Plus Spain doesn't even have a radar network, so good luck actually putting together a fighter defense; Britain had enough issues coordinating that with their excellent Dowding system and France couldn't even get fighters in the air to defend Paris in 1940:
en.wikipedia.org
It was cited in terms of outlining why the Poles collapsed as fast they did, to give a better picture. While it is correct there are not serious rains like that of Poland in Spain, it is a mountainous country with all that implies for Fall and Winter operations.
K. But it was a Mediterranean country with an entirely different climate than Central Europe and benefits from the trade winds from the Atlantic, which makes them abnormally warm for their latitude.
Spain is several points larger than Yugoslavia or Greece in terms of capabilities. It's worth noting what doomed the Greeks was they over-extended themselves on the offensive, leaving them unable to effectively shift over into the defensive when the time came. Unlike that situation, however, the Anglo-French have full access to the Mediterranean for shipping, the French Army that was evacuated and then the British forces stationed in the Home Isles and North Africa that can be shifted due to the lack of a British invasion.
After the civil war? Not sure about that. Especially given that Greece had pretty heavy British support to bolster them on the defensive and they were badly routed despite having another year's combat experience over what they had in summer 1940.
The French army was not evacuated. Individuals were, but they were mostly not the army and certainly not front line troops; those were largely overrun during the fighting in June, it was the rear area guys that got out and they did not get out with equipment or in organized divisions.
What forces did the British having in the home isle in 1940 that they were willing to ship out?
Wiking's idea of the Germans going into Spain in the fall of 1940 is pretty much destroyed by the consideration that if the French fight on until they can evacuate the maximum number of troops, manufacturing equipment and essential workers (along with their Navy), the Germans will suffer greater losses and need more time to recover for their next enterprise.
That's a nice fantasy, but they failed to do that IOTL even before they decided on an armistice and their most valuable factories and equipment were overrun. Even if they delay the fall of the mainland by 3 weeks they don't really have anything left to evacuate. The FFO scenario is pure fantasy in terms of all that they claimed could be pulled out.
Indeed, the war in continental France may continue for another month or more, and the Germans will have no Italian naval help or Italians tying down French troops on the border between the latter two countries.
Hate to break it to you, but those forces would be locked down anyway in case Italy attacked. They were pretty small as it was though and highly dependent on the terrain and forts to defend, defenses that were not aimed internally against an enemy offensive down the Rhone valley. Just see OTL:
fr.wikipedia.org
At most the war would continue for a couple-few more weeks, but the writing was on the wall:
en.wikipedia.org
The French surrendered after their last lines were broken, so the exploitation that was just about the occur was stopped until the treaty was signed and only then were troops allowed to move further south.
And the French troops (never the "rabble" that Wiking fancies) will be fighting with new hope and determination.
Based on what, your fantasies?
The only thing Wiking has for the early Spain option is the unproven assertion that Franco was for it.
Paul Preston's Franco biography is the source for this. He details Franco's repeated offers to join the war from June on to October. We've covered this already. Ian Kershaw even cites this book in his section about Hitler and Franco's relationship, I've already cited the page number in a previous post. This just tells me you don't know what you're talking about and haven't actually be paying attention to this thread.
But Franco didn't go for it in OTL where the chances for long-range Nazi victory seemed much greater. Why would he go for it in this FFO/Italian neutrality scenario? And what about the influence of Admiral Canaris? As to German troops being moved into Spanish Morocco by air, that could only be done with any hope of success if the Germans seize Gib first (either with Spain's help or by occupying Spain). If they do this, which will take considerable time, the French and British will have seized Spanish Morocco (as well as the Canaries and the Spanish Sahara) and will be ready for them. Spanish Morocco would not be Crete. Also, by that time, the French will have received American planes and tanks (a fact that Franco will take due note of, such note being reinforced by the U.S. ambassador) as well as some British reinforcements. The German scheme, which realistically would require many many months to (a) plan and prepare, (b) get down to Gib by land, and (c) conduct a lengthy siege (even if, as Wiking suggests there is no BoB) simply would not work.
Franco didn't get what he wanted in writing from Hitler: French colonies. IOTL Hitler didn't want to upset the Vichy treaty, so decided it wasn't worth it and just had Franco sign a treaty that he would join if and when he wanted to. Franco made it clear he wouldn't unless he got his French colonies. ITTL it isn't a problem because there is no Vichy and no treaty with France, so there is every incentive to grant Franco his colonial wishlist to get access to the region and shut down Allied ability to use the Gibraltar Strait.
Gibraltar by the way had no means to stop anything once Spain enters the war, they are suppressed by Spanish coastal guns that ringed the Straits on both sides. Once the defenders turtle up in The Rock they can only just hide there until rooted out. The French aren't in a position in Summer-Autumn 1940 to attack Spanish Morocco except with some naval and air harassment like they did in retaliation against the British for Mers-el-Kebir. As it was the French troops left in Morocco in summer 1940 were pretty demoralized and the left overs that weren't suitable to fight in Europe. They weren't in a position to take on the tough colonial garrison of Spaniards who fought in the civil war and the French didn't really have many organized troops to spare from Algeria, they did after all still have to hedge against Italian entry.
Canaris' 'influence' doesn't seem to have amounted to much IOTL. Franco was still pushing his same demands after Canaris supposedly tried to talk Franco out of joining the war.
American gear isn't going to be forthcoming in sufficient numbers in 1940. The US was rearming and Britain had their own priority orders that were being serviced. France is now the low man on the totem pole in terms of equipment from the US because of their enormously damaged influence in the US from losing their country. British reinforcements aren't forthcoming either, they lost so much in France that they had a handful of divisions left to defend against a potential German invasion. Troops in the colonies have to stay put to hedge against Italian entry and uprisings, so until 1941 the Allies are in a really bad position to counter a move into and out of Spain.
German troops really don't need all that long to prepare to move into Spain, the Spanish could shut down Gibraltar themselves, the only challenge would be storming The Rock itself, which can be done at the leisure of the Germans. The 22nd Air Landing division was set up to be air mobile, so it can fly into Spain quickly and leapfrog to where needed, eventually followed by the rebuilt paratroopers. Everyone else can filter in as needed, but the Luftwaffe would probably have priority since they were the most effective counter to Allied naval activity and any potential ground threat.
warfarehistorynetwork.com
