Good morning!
Fine topic today .. my opinion is that without Spanish help Hitler couldn't have taken Gibraltar.
Churchill states in his memoirs that the British had a treaty dating back to the 1300s with Portugal which allowed British use of the Azores for naval bases, and they were prepared to use them in the event of the fall of Gibraltar.
However, Franco's intention was to keep Spain out of the war, meaning the Germans couldn't have attempted an assault from the landward side. I can't imagine a seaward assault being successful, and by 1941 the Crete operation had soured Hitler on large-scale airborne operations.
But the benefits would have been enormous. Churchill also writes about the difficulties inherent in bringing reinforcements for the Desert Army all the way around Cape Horn to the Suez Canal due to the presence of the Italian fleet in the Mediterranean - and this was even with British control of Gibraltar. Without it, holding Malta would have been even more difficult. Its fall would have opened the way for easier German supply to Africa, with all the danger to British forces and possessions in the Middle East that might have entailed.
Hitler (or at least some in the German High Command) did want to close the Straits of Gibraltar. In fact, preliminary negotiations took place with Franco on German troop movements through Spain, but Franco flatly refused and the plan was dropped.
Taking that into consideration, do we assume that further negotiations would have borne fruit and allowed German forces free passage through Spain, or do we assume that Spain would resist a German invasion?
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on June 18:
1681 Feofan Prokopovich theologian, archbishop of Novgorod, westernizer
1799 William Lassell discoverer (satellites of Uranus & Neptune)
1809 Sylvanus William Godon, Commander (Union Navy), died in 1879
1839 William Henry Seward Jr, Brig General (Union volunteers), died in 1920
1877 James Montgomery Flagg illustrator "I want you" recruiting poster
1886 George Mallory England, mountain climber ("because it is there")
1901 Jeanette MacDonald actress/singer (When I'm Calling You)
1904 Keye Luke Canton China, actor (Kung Fu-Master Po, Gremlins-Grandfather (Mr. Wing))
1906 Kay Kyser Rocky Mount NC, orch leader (Kay Kyser's Kollege)
1908 Bud Collyer NYC, TV emcee (Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth)
1910 E.G. Marshall actor (Defenders, Nixon, Absolute Power)
1913 Sammy Cahn lyricist (3 Coins in a Fountain)
1913 Sylvia Porter financial writer (Sylvia Porter's Money Book)
1915 Red Adair, oilman (fought oil fires)
1917 Richard Boone LA Calif, actor (Paladin-Have Gun Will Travel)
1926 Tom Wicker columnist (NY Times)
1937 Vitali M Zholobov cosmonaut (Soyuz 21)
1939 Lou Brock one-time baseball stolen base leader (St Louis Cards)
1942 Paul McCartney rocker, Beatles, writes silly love songs
1942 Rogert Ebert Urbana Ill, film critic (Siskel & Ebert at the Movies)
1952 Carol Kane Cleveland Ohio, actress (Dog Day Afternoon, Simka-Taxi)
1963 Bruce Smith NFL defensive end (Buffalo Bills)
Gooood Morning.
Now I can go try some of this "food" that I've been hearing so much about. I hear it's all the rage in Hollywood, everyone simply EVERYONE is trying it.
Gibraltar could have (and should have) been taken. The islands provide a more difficult question, since it would, at that point, have been difficult for either side to supply them. A determined British attack could have taken them, but German U-boats and perhaps surface ships operating out of Gib would have made life very difficult.
If they remained in Spanish/German hands, they would have been exposed to raids from the British surface fleet and would have faced the continual threat of invasion. In the end, however, they may not have been worth the cost to England at that stage of the war.
Interesting question. I'll need to ponder that for a while.
Could the Germans have taken Gibraltar?
With, at minimum, free passage and airbasing through Spain, yes. It would have been better, however, to go at a later date than January 1 (say, April), when the Pyrenees aren't snow-covered. The Brits had a very small, very isolated chunk of land, and though there was only 1 land route in (making land attack bloody), the Germans would have enjoyed air supremacy with only an airbase under artillery attack and carriers available to the British.
Should the Germans have taken Gibraltar?
Definitely. Even though they had only a delayed "if-then" plan for North Africa, the closing of Gibraltar and the weatern Med would have pretty much secured their southwestern flank and allowed the Afrika Korps to finish the job the Italians started in Egypt.
How might it have changed the war?
While it doesn't seem to have been strategically important at first glance, having control of North Africa would have greatly improved the Axis Powers' chances. First, it would have secured the soft underbelly of Europe, especially the Romanian oil fields. A secondary benefit would be that the Afrika Korps and the forces that were used to try to defend Italy could have been used elsewhere. I don't see those forces as being a make-or-break item like the eventual loss of Romanian oil, however.
A benefit of a formal alliance with Spain would be that the U-boats would have had access to a couple bases that were sligtly less vulnerable to attack than those in western France (at the cost of distance to the British Isles).
Hitler's much-publicized meetings with French, Spanish, and Italian leaders during October appear to have been a personal attempt to lay a groundwork for this "fraud." Nevertheless, in the end this undertaking proved too much for even Hitler's mastery of the art.33 What Hitler apparently hoped to do was to satisfy everyone after Britain's defeat at the expense of Britain's African empire. He conferred with Mussolini on 4 October, and thereafter he talked with German Army and Navy commanders about military plans for Gibraltar and Africa. On 22 October, he discussed prospects for French collaboration with the Vichy vice premier, Pierre Laval. On the following day, Hitler met General Franco at the Spanish border. During their conversation Franco gave an oral pledge that Spain would join the Axis and enter the war at an undetermined future date-provided Germany promised approximately the same considerations that Spain had demanded in August.34 On 24 October, Hitler talked with Marshal Pétain. The marshal agreed to issue an official announcement stating that France had an identical interest with Germany in seeing the defeat of England, and that the French Government would "support, within the limits of its ability, the measures which the Axis Powers may take to this end." 35 Actually, Hitler's conferences had failed to produce an explicit agreement on the terms of collaboration or on the subsequent division of the spoils, and Spain had not really committed itself to enter the war in the near future. Nevertheless, on 4 November the Fuehrer instructed his commanders to go ahead with detailed planning for the Gibraltar operation.36Operation FELIX, as the Gibraltar project was christened, contemplated a German entry from occupied France into Spain about 10 January 1941. Simultaneously, German planes from France would attack British shipping at Gibraltar in order to drive British naval support away from the fortress; they would then land at newly prepared Spanish airfields to provide air support for the attack. An artillery barrage-primarily by German guns secretly emplaced in advance-would begin at the same time. About three weeks later (on or after 1 February), German ground forces would arrive before the Rock to spearhead the attack. The Gibraltar assault force would be followed through Spain by two German divisions-one armored and one motorized-that would cross the strait into Morocco to seize control of its Atlantic littoral. Three more German divisions were to cross Spain to the Portuguese frontier, where they would be in position to counterattack a British landing in Portugal. Spain, with the aid of German guns, would reinforce the Canaries to guard them against an anticipated British attack. After Gibraltar's capture, the Germans planned to garrison it themselves and also to maintain German artillery on both sides of the strait to insure that the western exit of the Mediterranean remained closed to the British. Only after Britain's defeat would Gibraltar be turned over to the Spaniards. Plans and the necessary reconnaissance for subsequent operations in northwestern Africa and against the Atlantic islands had not been completed when FELIX was presented to Hitler for his approval on 5 December. By then, the German Army, Navy, and Air Force had reported to Hitler that their plans for FELIX were complete, and the German High Command on 2 December informed its staff that General Franco had agreed that operations should be launched at the beginning of February. 37
At this point, the Germans demanded that Franco give his express approval to the commencement of operations on or about 10 January 1941. The Spanish dictator on 7 December refused to do so, or to agree to Spanish entry into the war at any early date in the future. 38 Since the Germans had throughout considered Spanish collaboration an essential to the execution of their project, Hitler felt he had no alternative but to
postpone FELIXmake Franco an offer he couldn't refuse.
Gen. Ludwig Kuebler's XLIX Corps proceeded according to plan assisted by Ju88As, Stukas, 150 radio-controlled Goliath tanks packed with explosives and a fleet of flying saucers from the secret base in the Arctic the feared saucertruppen.
During a patrol around four blocks in Fallujah, Iraq, a soldier of the Iraqi Intervention Forces, 1st Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, searches a driver of a van that refused to stop, June 14, 2005. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Michael J. O'Brien
U.S. Marines with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, patrol through the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, June 14, 2005. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Robert R. Attebury