Caudillo José Sanjurjo

kenmac

Banned
POD is this José Sanjurjo doesn’t die in an air crash in 1936 and he instead of Franco becomes Caudillo of Spain.
The war goes the same as OTL.
By October 1940 Hitler meets Sanjurjo.
Sanjurjo agree's to enter the war and with German help attack Gibraltar in January 1941.
In accordance with this and Mussolini's difficulties in the Balkans and N Africa at the end of 1940 Hitler postpones the invasion of the USSR till 1942 and begins a major commitment to the North Africa campaign.
How would this change the course of the war?
 
Well, without Franco in charge and his 'centimetre by centimetre' policy during the Civil War, it's most likely that the war would have ended much sooner. In 1936 Sanjurjo was in effect the leader of a planned coup by the armed forces; he wasn't a card-carrying fascist (of course, neither was Franco).

But accepting your scenario that the Civil War ran as in OTL, an attack on Gibraltar would be comparatively soon after the end of the Civil War. The rooting out of people opposed, or thought to be opposed, to the new regime would be far from complete, so I see a vague possibility of the Brits arming/encouraging those 'bandidos', particularly in Andalucia. Even were Gib to be lost, the RN would still be a force to be reckoned with in the western Med, particularly were the 'Vichy' North African regimes to declare for the Allied cause or be overthrown/replaced by Free French administrations. The Germans might have to commit more troops to Spain.

Couple that with (in your scenario) substantially beefing up the Afrika Korps and Hitler would be left dangerously short for a delayed Barbarossa in 1942. Assuming Pearl Harbour remains as in OTL, shortly after a 1942 'weaker' attack on Russia I wouldn't be surprised if WW2 were to end in tears for the Fuehrer sometime in 1944.
 
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