Why Didn't the Allies Get Rid of Franco After the Second World War? (Short Animated Documentary)

as you'll know spain under francisco franco was neutral in the second world war despite this it obviously had a preference for the axis as well as ideological sympathies towards the regimes in italy and germany given franco's preference this raises a question after the fall of the axis why didn't the allies get rid of franco as well so towards the end of the war franco could tell which way the wind was blowing and knew that the axis wasn't going to win as such he began to make friendly overtures towards the allies now he wasn't going to join the war on the ally side or anything because one spain was still recovering from the civil war and two germany was still in control of the south of france until late 1944 and so could have launched punitive actions against spain although after the fall of germany the spanish government did consider declaring war in japan to improve relations with the allies after the war was over and europe was divided franco was pretty nervous about his position and with fairly good reason the ussr demanded that franco be ousted first by economic embargo and if that failed then via military action now the soviet union made these demands because for them it was a win-win if the allies removed franco then there would be a fair shot that a communist government could be installed in spain and if franco stayed well then the west wouldn't be able to criticize the ussr's occupation and treatment of any eastern european nations since at that point it would be hypocritical the western powers refused to do this because they couldn't justify another war to their people in a rough country for fighting against a country that hadn't really done much to oppose them so franco's main worry after the war was france who disliked him for three reasons first he existed and openly coveted french lands in africa second france had recently been invaded by a neighboring fascist country and it really wanted to make sure that that could never happen again and third franco's government killed a famous member of the french resistance in late 1946 which outraged the french public who demanded that franco be removed by force now franco had been busy for the past few years making friends with the other major western allies which he used to his advantage he was particularly nice to the british and had made arrangements to hand over germans for trial to them and also he promoted nonphalanges to government to assure the british that his regime could change the americans didn't really buy it but britain wanted a stable spain especially one that wasn't going to invade gibraltar and thus britain made it clear that they would oppose any french intervention there as such the french turned to the americans to ask franco which they agreed to do by forging a military coup against him and replacing him with a democratic government however britain again refused to back this plan and strongly argued against it britain was concerned that spain would enter into another second bloody civil war and at the end of it there could be a communist government in madrid and in the end the americans decided not to go ahead with it this was because truman felt that western unity in the face of communism was much more important than removing franco and in the end franco's gamble of simply waiting paid off the allies soon turned their attention to the east in combating the spread of communism something that franco could help with i hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching with a special thanks to my patrons james bissonette kelly moneymaker anthony beckett the pastry section danny maloney rob waterhouse mo aaron the white james castaneda jordan longley jerry lamdin marcus asner gustav swan john bailey colin castleman rasheed ali spinning three plates fielder oink oink izzy david silverman maggie paxkowski winston k wood spencer lightfoot robert wetzel fortunate calf lexi schwinn sky chappelle and marvin cassell

Channel: History Matters

Views: 2,637,158

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Id: F6yeqA2zYug

Length: 3min 16sec (196 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020