Changes in french North Africa and Middle East scenarios

[zechi]

This is not correct. When Spain joins the Axis the hexes in French Morocco and Gibraltar will get to Spanish control and not German / Italian once these hexes are occupied or were already occupied.

OK, then the justification for Spain entering the war seems more plausible. Thank you for the clarification.

The point is that we're talking about a hypothetical situation. The Hendaye meeting is not very relevant because Vichy France was already created and the Allies were quite strong at the time. So Franco had probably no interest joining the Axis, but wouldn't say no outright to Hitler. it was better to make so crazy demands that Hitler himself had to accept that there would be no deal.

The Allies were not strong (or did you mean the Axis). Britain stood alone in October 1940 and did not even realised that the Battle for Britain has been won. It would be really interesting to know what Franco exactly demanded from Hitler.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I meant the Allies. In October 1940 the threat of a 1940 Sealion was gone. The Battle of Britain was lost for the Germans. No German presence in Libya yet and no threat against Gibraltar or Malta either.

So the British had survived the most critical period. So it was not like Britain was on the brink of collapse as Hitler told Franco. Franco wanted French Morocco and he knew that Vichy France had been created as a neutral power. So in order to get that territory then somebody had to fight for French Morocco.

So Hitler actually didn't have much to offer Franco at that time.

The situation would have been different it the Germans had already taken French North Africa and could immediately give French Morocco to Spain without the need to fight for the territory.

So I think that Franco just didn't want to alienate Hitler at the meeting by outright saying no for Spain to join the Axis, but instead he made conditions he knew was out of German reach at the moment, like control of the Suez. This way he didn't have to commit to anything without having to say no to Hitler.

The point is that Germany was not in an overwhelming position in October 1940 that would cause Spain to join. We can only speculate on what would have happened if the Germans had invaded French North Africa and not accepted the creation of Vichy France.

[PionUrpo]

Suez canal was mentioned by Franco in Hendaye as an important condition to enter the war. Franco demands some territories in Morocco but it seems that he says to Hitler something like this: "You can´f offer anything when it is not yet in your hands". Hendaye conversations lasted 9 hours in which Hitler crashed again and again into Franco´s wall negatives of entering at war. No way to buy anything here.

This has been my impression of Franco. He wasn't falling for promises of something when a) there was a serious chance he might not get them b) he would likely lose some other territories in process. He wanted 100% quarantees to join.

The Allies were not strong (or did you mean the Axis). Britain stood alone in October 1940 and did not even realised that the Battle for Britain has been won.

Britain stood alone but everyone else had just seen that they weren't going to give up and they had just given the 1st bloody nose to the Germans. More importantly for Franco, UK still had a strong position on the Mediterranean. No Germans had landed yet in Libya and the Italians weren't exactly proving themselves to anyone.

[gerones]

This would be interesting indeed. I could not find any detailed list as well. In the French wikipedia 100.000 t of wheat are mentioned as one demand. It seems this is backed up by the Spanish wikipedia. Both versions refer to following Spanish article as a source: http://revista.libertaddigital.com/1-qu ... 67998.html

Perhaps leridano could give us a short feedback if more details of the Spanish demands are explained there.

The following are the main concerns of Hendaya meeting:

1. Hitler starts talking about Gibraltar. He refers to it to Franco as "a bit of ground that still is in enemy hands". He also refers as "the most important point for sailing in the Mediterranean Sea". He also comment to Franco that closing the Gibraltar Strait is needed. Then it is when Hitler promises Franco to give him French Morocco and Oran based on historical arguments. Finally, he refers to Canary Islands as a vital strategic point for thesubmarine warfare.

Franco replies to Hitler recognizing that Gibraltar is "a bit of spanish territory". But later, the spanish dictator argues that it would be an excessive sacrifice for the spanish people to enter at war against UK because of this little bit of ground. He refers to the huge destruction caused by spanish civil war as a major reason for not entering at war. This is when Franco refers to the importance of also controlling the Suez Canal. This has been interpreted as a Franco evasive comment since actually it was very difficult for the Axis to do such a thing.

This is when Franco, overwhelmed by the führer arguments and offers, says to him: "To offer things you need to already have them in your hands, and actually, the Axis does not have them available"

Franco finally refers in this first phase of the meeting to the "lack of armament available in Canary Islands" but later pointing that "I don´t expect an allied attack to the islands". Hitler replies to him saying that Germany will send to Canary Islands enough troops and armament to properly defend them.

2. Hitler refers to the spanish entry at war as "a great chance" for the country arguing that "Spain wouldn´t have a better or similar chance like this". So hoping to get some results from Franco, the führer asked him for what would be the position of Spain regarding the inminent meeting with Petain about France. Then, Franco replies that "Spain has nothing to do with the conversations of a major power that has just made some offers since this would mean that those offers are a fodder for a possible entry of Spain at war or that there is no real intention of fulfilling those offers if the german attitude is not excessively hard with the defeated France government".

This last Franco reply really dislike to Hitler. So the meeting becomes a tense one with the german dictator asking repeatedly to Franco to clarify if Spain was going to enter at war or not and Franco replying that Spain was not prepared for war and that the spanish civil war losses don´t allow the country to enter in such a war.

3. Hitler finally asks Franco to sign a compromise of joining the Axis later in the war "when Germany estimates". Franco replies to him that "the war will not result in any benefits to Spain, keeping in mind that the country is not ready for war at all".

Conversations ended with Hiler losing his patience and abandoning the meeting in an abrupt way.

These were the main concerns in this meeting. It has been said that Franco asked Hitler for great amounts of wheat, aircrafts, etc. in this meeting but the main political and strategical points are the ones exposed above.