Sept 1940, Argentina invades the Falkands!

Without the benefit of hindsight, the best time for Argentina to have taken the Falklands would appear to be Sep-Dec 1940. By this time the British army has been smashed and sent packing at Dunkirk, the Royal Navy has lost both Courageous and Glorious plus is fully occupied in Norway, the Battle of Britain and the growing battle of the Atlantic, while isolationists are preventing direct USA aid.

So, in Sept 1940, a force of 500 Argentinean soldiers invades the Falklands, followed by a large group of engineers and support teams. This group forces the surrender of the small British garrison, declares the liberation of the Malvinas, collects all the British civilians and sends them in a ship to South Africa, and sets about building an airstrip near Stanley. Argentina claims that their seizure of the islands is justified since Britain will likely fall to Germany, meaning the Falklands may become German (not that they'd officially mind this anyway).

In the late 1930s, Argentina bought 29 fixed-undercarriage Hawk 75s from Curtiss with additional 200 built under license locally by Fabrica Militar de Aviones in Argentina. In this POD, by Dec. 1940 (summer) two squadrons of Hawk 75, a squadron of Martin 139 (B-10) bombers plus two Curtiss Condors and a half dozen Focke Wulf 44-J are stationed at Stanley field. In Stanley harbour are two Consolidated P2Y-3A flying boats for long range recce, plus the battleship Rivadavia, light cruiser Argentina, and destroyers Cervantes and Juan de Garay. Meanwhile the Argentine army deploys troops, artillery, communication systems, builds barracks and fortifications, expecting some sort of British response.

Some good images of Argentina's home built airforce aircraft at http://www.militariarg.co...ry-aircraft-factory.html I particularly like the I.Ae.24 Calquín. Also images at http://www.ww2incolor.com...-Navy-gallery-1930-2000.

What is Britain's reaction? If Britain declares war on Argentina, what does the USA do? Does this impact the Monroe Doctrine, or anglophile/interventionist supporter FDR in the Nov 1940 presidential election, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1940
 
The question is: how important were for the UK the food imports from Argentina? And, conversely, is there any other market where Argentina can sell her imports once the British Empire is closed to them? Because it looks like there will be people screaming WTF in both London and Buenos Aires.
 
Very unlikely if not impossible

1. The British Empire was Argentina's largest export market and its largest investor. 35.9% of Argentine exports went to the UK, British investors owned most of the extensive railway system, tramways and 90% of meat packing plants.

Conversely, 80% of beef consumed in the British Isles came from Argentina, and much of the wheat and corn as well.

Argentina's economy would suffer a painful depression. This is the reason the 1943 coup stayed neutral in WW2 even as it had powerful fascist sympathizers in its midst. Neutralism is as close to the Axis as it gets if Argentina wants to keep some semblance of an economy in the 1940s.

2. The Falklands were not an issue. The claim was there, it was never abandoned, but few among the population really cared about it. The claim was heavily promoted after 1943 to ramp up nationalist sentiment against the British.

3. The Justo and Ortiz governments were Anglophile, signing the Roca-Runciman Treaty in 1933 and the Eden-Malbrán Treaty in 1936 to remain inside the Imperial Preference System and the British sterling area. You would need to butterfly away these governments entirely. Much of the population was Anglophile as well, particularly the upper classes, over 4,000 Argentine volunteers joined the RAF alone, and thousand others joined the Canadian, South African and Free French forces during WW2.

Due to these internal factors, I think a Falklands invasion would be a realistic scenario after the 1950s, but not before.
 
Not formally joining, but taking the opportunity.
The problem with these "Axis Argentina" or "WW2 Anti-British Argentina" tropes which pop up very often in alternate history is that they completely ignore the reality in the 1940s, and extrapolate from 1982, when in reality 1940 and 1982 Argentina were like night-and-day.

1940 Argentina was an open economy, one of the largest exporters of the world, and one of the world's wealthiest countries, allied to the British in an unofficial "Honorary Dominion" type of relationship, almost like a Spanish-speaking Canada, relying on the Royal Navy to keep the sea lanes open for its foreign trade. Granted, there were some beginnings of political instability and two military coups, but these were a new phenomenon in the country starting in 1930, the country was still very much linked to the British Empire economically. In 1933 Vice-President Roca Jr. went as far as calling Argentina "an integral economic part of the British Empire".

By 1982 Argentina was a closed economy, internationally isolated, with a depressed stagnating economy that had veered off course, several decades of nationalist propaganda, with a tradition of political instability and authoritarian rule, and a brutally repressive regime trying to cling for survival in the face of a population fed up with them.

In OTL the 1943 military coup dictators tried to veer Argentina away from the Allies as much as they could, but they had all these important historical and internal constraints to work with.
 
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Is this Argentina joining the Axis or a neutral Argentina just trying to take advantage of the situation?

If it is Argentina joining the Axis then the US joins the war. The extreme isolationists will still oppose it but the more mainstream isolationists will be on board (people Senator Taft) because while they did not want to get involved in a European war, they did believe in hemispheric defense and now suddenly there is an active member of the Axis pact in the hemisphere.

If it is a neutral Argentina, then I expect British intelligence to cook up some information that will then find its way into FDR's hands that clearly shows that Argentina is secretly in league with the Nazis. Kind of like that map of South America that supposedly showed Hitler's plan to divide up the continent.
 
What if Argentina joined the Allies and invaded Falklands anyway, just after the DoW against Germany? Would Britain be open to negotiations about the islands if Argentina have an active participation on the war?
 
Well according to Clive Ponting they might not have had to invade

From Clive Ponting’s '1940 Myth and Reality' Page188-189

In other areas, though, Britain did consider making significant concessions in order to obtain support. British possession of the Falkland Islands had long been a sore in relations with Argentina, an important source of wheat and beef for Britain’s wartime food supply. Argentina has never recognised Britain’s claim to sovereignty over the islands. In the decade before 1940, the British consistently refused to submit the issue to any international tribunal because of doubts as to whether their claim would be upheld. As one senior Foreign Office official wrote in 1936: ‘The difficulty of our position is that our seizure of the Falkland Islands in 1833 was so arbitrary a procedure as judged by the ideology of the present day that it [would not be] easy to explain our position without showing ourselves up as international bandits.’ Exactly what happened in 1940 is yet another closely guarded secret, since all the relevant Foreign Office files remain closed. It seems clear, however, that the Churchill government did consider giving the title of the islands back to Argentina under a leaseback scheme. The contemporary index to the closed files refers to ‘[an] offer by HMG to reunite Falkland Islands with Argentina and acceptance of a lease’. Doubts about the British title are confirmed by the use of the word ‘reunite’ to describe the transfer of the islands to Argentina



Ponting’s book was first published in 1990, i've never seem this brought up in ‘discussions’ over the islands?
 
Well according to Clive Ponting they might not have had to invade

From Clive Ponting’s '1940 Myth and Reality' Page188-189

In other areas, though, Britain did consider making significant concessions in order to obtain support. British possession of the Falkland Islands had long been a sore in relations with Argentina, an important source of wheat and beef for Britain’s wartime food supply. Argentina has never recognised Britain’s claim to sovereignty over the islands. In the decade before 1940, the British consistently refused to submit the issue to any international tribunal because of doubts as to whether their claim would be upheld. As one senior Foreign Office official wrote in 1936: ‘The difficulty of our position is that our seizure of the Falkland Islands in 1833 was so arbitrary a procedure as judged by the ideology of the present day that it [would not be] easy to explain our position without showing ourselves up as international bandits.’ Exactly what happened in 1940 is yet another closely guarded secret, since all the relevant Foreign Office files remain closed. It seems clear, however, that the Churchill government did consider giving the title of the islands back to Argentina under a leaseback scheme. The contemporary index to the closed files refers to ‘[an] offer by HMG to reunite Falkland Islands with Argentina and acceptance of a lease’. Doubts about the British title are confirmed by the use of the word ‘reunite’ to describe the transfer of the islands to Argentina



Ponting’s book was first published in 1990, i've never seem this brought up in ‘discussions’ over the islands?

Interesting! I didn't know about this information but I always felt the WW2 was a great opportunity for Argentina to negotiate the Falklands on peaceful terms, considering the close relations they had with the UK at the time, the necessities the war caused on London and the significance of argentinean help (even if symbolic) during the dark times of 1940. If Argentina actively joined the war in british support, I always considered the possibility of Britain transfering the Falklands, after the war, quite big.
 
First Question in any POD like this.

What is in it for Argentina?

If Britain makes a deal under duress in 1940 - along the lines of - bugger it we need Beef more than we need the Falklands and we have not the forces to spare to do anything about it - is the same still true 5 years later when a task force centered around 2 Armoured carriers, 5 light carriers and 3 battleships with a Royal Marine Division that has nothing else to do turns up to conduct operation 'Sling your bloody hook' probably without a shoot being fired.
 
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