Republican spain win

drakle

Banned
What if Nationalist Spain lost the Spanish civil war? They would win around the same time as OTL Nationalist Spain won.

Would Spain end up being invaded by the Third Reich? Would this help the Allies (Another front) or hinder them (Blocked from the western Med)
 
IIRC, the majority of Republican forces at the time were militia and volunteer brigades. Although I suspect some were formal army units, and some of the army units under Franco may have switched to them, I don't seem them having a serious standing army in the same sense the Germans did. So I would think that were Hitler to invade, it wouldn't take as many numbers as say the invasion of France did. However I would expect that other operations may be delayed (this however depends on the timing, although I don't see him delaying Barbarossa for invading Spain). Another reasonable outcome would be Hitler using the Vichy regime in southern France as a buffer state between him and potential enemy Republican Spain.

Either way, I don't think the Spanish would join the allies straight away. The only reason they would is if they were attacked first. The country was destroyed and they couldn't risk another war so soon.
 
For Republican Spain to win, you really need Hitler and Mussolini to limit the aid given to Franco's cause. For that reason, if Republican Spain won, it would be due to a lack of aid to Franco from the Axis powers, and if that is he case then I wouldn't see the Third Reich invading the country they didn't invest in.
 
For Republican Spain to win, you really need Hitler and Mussolini to limit the aid given to Franco's cause. For that reason, if Republican Spain won, it would be due to a lack of aid to Franco from the Axis powers, and if that is he case then I wouldn't see the Third Reich invading the country they didn't invest in.

They might invade it in order to close the Straits of Gibraltar.
 
In WW2 terms:

Assuming the Germans wanted to invade France then wouldn't there be an issue of getting around the Pyrenees?

Another point would be that perhaps the operational range of subs might be limited due to no friendly spanish ports there to resupply them.

Were any German forces ever stations in Spain at all in OTL?
 
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One of Dr. Strangelove's ( I have not seen him in awhile. Maybe he graduated got a real job and has no time for internet AH) WAS No Spanish Civil War. Ht had an Iberian front during World War II. I could see the Republic joining the Allied side. maybe not voluntarily.
 

Cook

Banned
What if Nationalist Spain lost the Spanish civil war? They would win around the same time as OTL Nationalist Spain won.

Nope, the only hope the Republicans had was a quick win, where the extra resources the Italians and Germans were providing couldn’t come into play, and before the various factions discovered that they were better at fighting each other than they were at fighting the Nationalists.
 
For Republican Spain to win, you really need Hitler and Mussolini to limit the aid given to Franco's cause. For that reason, if Republican Spain won, it would be due to a lack of aid to Franco from the Axis powers, and if that is he case then I wouldn't see the Third Reich invading the country they didn't invest in.

This scenario can mean that the Italian armed forces are in a somewhat better situation, the intervention in Spain was costly for the italian economy and frankly much material given to Franco, even if old, was necessary to the Italian army and aviation (not counting the fact that Italy learned the wrong lesson from the war), not a game changer but things will be a little harder for the allies.

In any case a Repubblican Spain will be a target for the Axis when the invasion of the Urss start, so to cover the rearside.
 
IIRC, the majority of Republican forces at the time were militia and volunteer brigades. Although I suspect some were formal army units, and some of the army units under Franco may have switched to them, I don't seem them having a serious standing army in the same sense the Germans did.

I think you are mistaken. More than half of the land army remained loyal to the republic, and almost the whole navy and air forces. The problem was that the most leftist elements of the Republic government were not quick to use them against the rebels because they were afraid they would switch sides in contact with the enemy (which was just an unwarranted, stupid fear).

Also, and with exceptions, the Republic decided not to start large-scale offensives, favoring a defensive war. Yes, exactly the opposite of what would have benefited them, as you have pointed out. Why? again, political considerations: the most leftist elements of the government wanted not simply to win against the rebels, but to turn that victory into a country-wide revolution. The moderate core of the government ended up agreeing, because they overestimated the effect of German and Italian help, underestimated their own forces, and by prolonging the war they were hoping to hook it up with the WWII, which everybody knew was coming.

Even if the Republican Spain had decided to be neutral, it's difficult to think that they could have remained neutral. Seeing how the government was had sympathies with the left, it would have probably been invaded on the same schedule as Barbarossa. An independent republican Spain was an obvious point for the Allies to start their assault on the continent. And even after the Nazis would have invaded Spain, it's more than likely that Avalanche would have taken place in southern Spain, rather than Italy.
I think the effect on the whole would be helpful to the allies:
-forces and resources spent by Germany securing Spain are not being used elswhere.
-a front in Spain by 1943 could be used as main western front, much better than Italy.
-the advance of the western allies could have been jumpstarted between 6 months and one year, making the disembark of Normandy a secondary operation to reinforce it.
-a faster advance of the Western Allies might have meant that the Europe under Soviet control would be significantly smaller.

For Spain it would have been a mixed bag:
-Being wiped by war 3 times over the space of 7 years: this is doubtlessly the worst, not only the dead in the wars, but also the lost generations, and the loss of harvest which could cause terrible famines all along the 40s (which were quite bad for agriculture due to persistent drought).
-Spain never leaving the international community, and receiving the American help from the Marshall plan, which could mean that Spain would have kept up with the rest of European nations.

Also, if the WWII in Europe finishes significantly ahead of OTL schedule... what would that mean for the Pacific theater? would have the US launched a land invasion before the nuclear bombs were ready?
 
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Didn't the British have the opportunity of blocking the Army of Africa's movement from North Africa to Spain? IIRC most of the navy remained loyal to the government so it had to be carried out by airlift, without the troops from the Army of Africa do the Nationalists stand a chance if the regular army has split roughly fifty-fifty along Nationalist-Republican lines? And if the Nationalists look like they're going to lose then I could see it going one of a couple of ways, Mussolini and Hitler decide to prop them up or just as likely they decide not to throw away resources on a lost cause.
 
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