LA GUERRA HA TERMINADO
75 years ago the Spanish Civil War came to its end.
Ever wonder why Franco did not involve Spain in WWII, apart from the Blue Division in the USSR? William Shirer and others assume that Hitler was not willing to grant the demands that FF asked for in exchange for his aid, but I do not believe that was the real reason. Consider: what was Franco that AH and Mussolini were not? A professional military man who had risen through the ranks and had won two wars, something that was not the case with Hitler and BM. That meant that he was very conscious of the big mistake that the Germans, Italians and Japanese committed during WWII: they dissipated their strength by fighting in too many fronts at once. That was contrary to what FF had done in his war: he would fight one battle at a time until it was won, and only then would he move to another battle, and if the Republicans tried to take the offensive in battles such as Teruel and the Ebro he would stop everything else and concentrate fully on those battles until the Republicans had been beaten back. The results prove that that was the right policy for victory, instead of the Axis' policy of spreading their forces too thinly by fighting in too many battles at once, a policy that Franco obviously foresaw would lead to defeat.
Hugh Thomas says that Spain will never recover from the 1936-39 War because that war transformed the country. Imagine what a wreck Spain would be if it had also had to endure WWII and, perhaps, being a satellite of Stalin and his successors.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)