WI: Falangist Coup D'etat in 1942

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In 1942, membership in the FET y de las JONS Party (The party union of Falangist and Carlist factions) peaked at nearly 1 million active party members. (932,000 approx.)
At the same time, tensions between the two intra-group factions reached a boiling point with the Begona Incident.

The Begoña Bombing was an attack in the Basilica of Begoña in the Bilbao neighbourhood in Begoña on August 16, 1942, during the first period of the Franco regime (1936–1959), in which a hand grenade, thrown by the Falangist Juan José Domínguez Muñoz, caused seventy minor injuries. The act was interpreted as a failed attempt on the life of Carlist General José Enrique Varela, the Minister of War.

Francisco Franco used the incident at Begoña to unseat the Falangists from power, including his brother-in-law Ramón Serrano Suñer, Foreign Minister, Valentín Galarza Morante, Minister of the Interior, and General José Enrique Varela, Minister of Defense.He also removed Head of the Falangist militia, José Luna Meléndez, despite having declared his loyalty to Generalísimo. His replacement was Manuel Mora Figueroa.

So what if a different course of action took place? Say Juan's grenade ends up killing a number of major Carlists, and a harsher Franco-crackdown prompts the Falange to move against him.

How successful could this be?
And if it is, what would a Falange-led government look like post 1942?
 
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Archibald

Banned
Dang that's interesting. A Franco - Carlist - Falangist - three-way civil war, right in the middle of WWII. Imagine the chaos.
 
I think if this happened the British would sit back have tea, and periodically stir the pot. Gibraltar will still be safe..
 
It depends on the strength of the Falangist movement in the Spanish military. We know the Falangists would have the support of Germany and Italy, and considering it's 1942 they may be willing to free a few divisions to tip the balance in the favor of the Falangists. The Carlists are a bit of a wild card, but they'd probably ally with Franco. If the Falangists do win, the Spanish would probably enter the war and seize Gibraltar cutting off Britain from a critical supply and transit line into the Mediterranean which might have a considerable effect on the desert campaign. Later on Spanish reinforcements could prove integral there too, their colonial troops earned a reputation for high quality desert fighting during the Rif War and Civil War.
 
To add, we'd probably see the incoming Falange government lead by Foriegn Minister Ramon Serrano Suner.
He was a popular figure, and a brother-in-law of Franco. He was also the progenitor of the Blue Division and deeply favored entering the war on the side of the Axis.

However, the Carlists would almost certainly revolt if Franco was swiftly ushered aside. (and that's a big if)

They, as well the House of Bourbon would have to be purged as quickly as possible.
 
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Archibald

Banned
So - Franco purge the Falange, splitting the spanish "fascists" (than won the 36-39 civil war) into two opposites factions. Then this triggers the old Bourbon - Carlist rivalry that got all those wars in the 19th century.
And then the two fights converge into one, single, big chaotic war. Four-way civil war. This will be ugly.
It's a big like the movie "the perfect storm" but with four storms instead of three.

Suner: falange
Franco: Francoists
Carlists
Bourbon
And of course whatever is left of the Republicans after 1939. They would happily throw oil on the fire, since they equally hated Royalists and Fascists (since they had ended the monarchy in 1931 only to suffer a fascist coup in 1936).
So it is a kind of five-way civil war.
I think we can reasonnably agree that Spain is screwed for decades.
 
A tad complicated (thanks for warning me @Stenz), as Franco had already "tamed" the Falange in 1937 when he merged them and the Carlists. Hedilla, the only one who may have tried to keep the legacy of Primo de Rivera, was removed from the leadership of the Falange because he opposed the unification process, tried and sentenced to death (changed to a life sentence later on). From then on, Falange, under the leadership of Raimundo Fernández Cuesta, was Franco's pet.

If you want the Falange rising against Franco, you need an earlier POD or a big change to have this going on in 1942.
 
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I heard the Falangists wanted to also bring the war to Portugal and try to conquer the American Continent again. How true is that?
 
Assuming the Falange takes power in a coup and manages to suppress opponents in a few months. You are now looking at roughly 1 January, 1943. Even under the best of circumstances the coup and limited fighting afterwards has further damaged Spanish infrastructure which was already in crap shape, and the military now has to recover from both physical damage and the inevitable purging of the "wrong" elements from the military. The day before the coup the Spanish military was in no shape to take Gibraltar, which now has American support readily available so now after the coup the Spanish are in even worse shape. In January 1943, even if the Germans wanted to do it, they simply do not have the spare resources to attempt to take Gibraltar. Even if they did, the Spanish infrastructure is in terrible shape and transporting the troops and equipment would be extremely difficult. Furthermore the Allies would know this is happening, even if Spain remains "neutral" until the last moment and fighters and bombers flying out of Gibraltar would trash any trains heading south.

If Spain formally joins the war on the German side, their oil and food from the western hemisphere comes to a screeching halt, and Spanish society soon has few wheels turning and not enough to eat.

If the Falange succeeds and all they do is internal to Spain, then Spain gets through WWII pretty much as OTL as far as the Allies are concerned. Afterwards, with a fascist dictatorship in spain rather than the mixed bag Franco regime, things could be quite different.
 
Perhaps things are bad initially for Spain but if the Falange join the Axis at war's end with an Allied victory the Allies support non-fascist forces in Spain and the country is better off post-WWII
 

Archibald

Banned
Not anymore, man.

Putain... this is a great loss of a writer for this forum. Looks like the Catalunya independance quagmire spread to this forum. I remember when i joined 10 years ago, he had a couple of amazing TLs (one about the spanish civil war, the other about ICBMs).
 
So - Franco purge the Falange, splitting the spanish "fascists" (than won the 36-39 civil war) into two opposites factions. Then this triggers the old Bourbon - Carlist rivalry that got all those wars in the 19th century.
And then the two fights converge into one, single, big chaotic war. Four-way civil war. This will be ugly.
It's a big like the movie "the perfect storm" but with four storms instead of three.

Suner: falange
Franco: Francoists
Carlists
Bourbon
And of course whatever is left of the Republicans after 1939. They would happily throw oil on the fire, since they equally hated Royalists and Fascists (since they had ended the monarchy in 1931 only to suffer a fascist coup in 1936).
So it is a kind of five-way civil war.
I think we can reasonnably agree that Spain is screwed for decades.
I think that the Alfonsists would have allied with Franco rather than going alone; their interests were pretty convergent (and Franco itself was not opposed to a Bourbon restoration, just that he wanted it after he passed away so he could remain the ruler of Spain).
The Alfonsists I think that would have allied with the Carlists. The Carlists had a lot more influence than the Alfonsists (and a lot more firepower; the Requetés were a relatively big and well-trained militia, and the Alfonsists had none, the little number of voluntaries fighting for the Bourbons having been integrated into the Francoist military). Also, even with their past of fighting one another, during the Republic both had good relations between them due to their very opposition to a republic in the first place (better collaborating with another monarchist than with a filthy falangist republican). This plus the republicanism of Falange (from here comes the main flashpoint between Falange and the Carlists) could have put them in an alliance against Falange. So I think that in the end the ensuing conflict would have been more like:
Monarchists (both Carlists(who were rather extremist) and Alfonsists(who were moderate)) + Francoists + moderate republican right-wing groups
vs
Falangists + other extremist republican right-wing
vs
Republican remnants with a "damn both of you" attitude, stirring problems for both sides in form of guerrilla warfare and banditry.
 
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