Spain Invades Gibraltar in 1969

Franco died peacefully in his bed in either 1975 or 76 from as far as everyone is aware natural causes and the regime collapsed shortly afterwards so an invasion of Gibraltar would have had little effect unless it had resulted in a Spanish withdrawal in which case it may have resulted in a collapse of the regime?
Eh? Picking a fight with one of the world's major military powers, which in addition is part of one of the two largest and mightiest defensive alliances, which both are in principle opposed to your system of government - I can't think of a better way to provoke them in ousting you from power. Compare Videla - an unlike the Falklands, Gibraltar was an important military asset for the UK and the NATO.

... with the only opposition from the Tory and far right
Is there any historical basis that the Tories would have opposed going to war against Spain over Gibraltar. I always thought that the British right was quite nationalistic in this respect.
 
Franco would have his ass handed to him.
After a brief democratic interlude, I think there would be a socialist uprising in Spain.
 
As a Gibraltarian I think this is a fascinating discussion.

An active resistance movement by locals would have sprung up (and I would have been part of it) which could have travelled relatively freely in Spain unhindered by language barriers or foreign appearance. You'd have terrorist incidents across the region which would keep the occupation at the top of the international agenda.

Remember that the 1967 referendum was 12,138 to 44 so opinion on the Rock was (remains!) militant and there would be no collaborators.

Also an invasion would be very difficult. In WW2 Operation Tracer was a plan to leave troops undiscovered inside the Rock indefinitely in the event of an occupation.

I'd suggest that the occupation would be unsustainable militarily without ethnic cleansing of the whole area - and either doing that or withdrawing would in different ways both destroy Franco.
 

Cook

Banned
An active resistance movement by locals would have sprung up (and I would have been part of it) which could have travelled relatively freely in Spain unhindered by language barriers or foreign appearance. You'd have terrorist incidents across the region...


Armed and equipped by who?
 
Armed and equipped by who?

The whole place was one big military base at the time. There'd be a vast amount of guns, ammunition and explosives readily available from Day One.

The Royal Gibraltar Regiment had been formed for 11 years by this timeline and had the skills, the access and the local knowledge to pull this off.

Stockpile weapons inside the Rock, which is a honeycomb of half-forgotten tunnels, and you'd have a medium-term supply which would be hard to discover.
 
An active resistance movement by locals would have sprung up (and I would have been part of it) which could have travelled relatively freely in Spain unhindered by language barriers or foreign appearance.

Travelling freely through Franco's Spain? Well, excuse me while I laugh a little.
 
Top