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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2008
The military coup of July 1936 against the Republican government of Spain, which rapidly developed into civil war, required an urgent response from the authorities of the United Kingdom. This was as much on account of its effects on British interests in Spain as due to its repercussions on the unstable situation in Europe. During the nearly three years of war, the Conservative-dominated Cabinet adhered to the Non-Intervention pact signed by all European governments in August 1936, which prescribed an arms embargo towards the combatants without a parallel recognition of their rights as belligerents. This peculiar neutrality, which combined respect for the legal status of the recognized government with de facto equal status for the rebels, was defended by British officialdom on the grounds of the over-riding need to restrict the war and avoid its escalation into a general European conflict. The argument served to deflect accusations of hidden antagonism towards the Republic and to justify the continuation of this policy of neutrality despite the support of Italy and Germany for the insurgent forces, so tolerating in practice the sabotage of the policy of non-intervention by the fascist powers. In the face of these official explanations, which have been accepted at face value by many historians, this article will attempt to show that British non-intervention had its origins in antirevolutionary pre-occupations rather than in strictly diplomatic considerations. Furthermore, it will be argued that during the first six months of the war it adhered consistently to a political strategy based on the expectation that the war would be short lived.
1 Further details are to be found in Edwards, J., The British Government and the Spanish Civil War (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Moradiellos, E., Neutralidad Benévola. el gobierno británico y la insurrección militar española de 1936 (Oviedo, 1990).Google Scholar Thereafter, Moradiellos, Neutralidad.
2 In addition to the two studies mentioned above, see Little, D., Malevolent Neutrality. The United States, Great Britain and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War (Ithaca, 1985).Google Scholar
3 The conspirators had informed the Foreign Office on 29 May of their intentions regarding a coup ‘designed solely to restore order and to place in power a civilian, right wing government’. A memorandum from the Western Department (23 June) warned that ‘the chances of Parliamentary Government surviving are becoming very slight’ and ‘the Communists have at the same time been busy arming themselves and strengthening their organisation’. On 6 July, the Foreign Secretary referred to ‘the weakness’ of Spain in a meeting of the cabinet. Records of the Foreign Office, General Correspondence (FO 371), file 20522, documents W4919 and W5693. Thereafter, FO 371/20522 W4919, W5693; Records of the Cabinet Office, Cabinet Minutes and Conclusions, file 85. Thereafter, CAB 23/85. All British archives referred to are in the Public Record Office (Kew, Surrey).
4 Pratt, L. R., East of Malta, West of Suez. Britain's Mediterranean Crisis, 1936–1939 (Cambridge, 1975).Google ScholarSchmidt, G., The Policies and Economics of Appeasement. British Foreign Policy in the 1930s (Leamington Spa, 1984).Google Scholar
5 Thomas, H., The Spanish Civil War (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Preston, P., The Spanish Civil War (London, 1986).Google Scholar
6 Telegrams, 18, 20, 21 July 1936. FO 371/20522 & 20523 W6534, W6619, W6575. One of these is reproduced in Documents on British Foreign Policy, 2nd ser. Vol. 17 (London, 1979).
7 In addition to the studies referred to in note 5, see: Coverdale, J., Italian Intervention in the Spanish Civil War (Princeton, 1975).Google Scholar Thereafter, Coverdale, Intervention. Saz, I., Mussolini contra la Il República (Valencia, 1986).Google Scholar Thereafter, Saz, Mussolini; Viñas, A, La Alemania nazi y el 18 de julio (Madrid, 1977).Google Scholar Therafter, Vinas, La Alemania. Wheatly, R., Hitler and Spain. The Nazi Role in the Spanish Civil War (Lexington, 1989).Google Scholar Thereafter, Whealey, Hitler and Spain.
8 FO 371/20523 W6753, W6754, W6591, W6758.
9 CAB 23/85. Minute, 23 July 1936. FO 371/20523 W6754. The telegram to the Dominions in FO 371/20525 W7223.
10 ‘The future of the League of Nations, by Sir M. Hankey’. FO 371/20475 W 11340.
11 Regarding French vacillation and British influence on the eventual decision, see: Warner, G., ‘France and non-intervention in Spain’, International Affairs, Vol. 38 (1962), 203–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stone, G., ‘Britain, Non-Intervention and the Spanish Civil War’, European Studies Review, No. 10 (1979), 129–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Renouvin, P., ‘La politique extérieure du premier gouvernement Léon Blum’ in Léon Blum, chef du gouvernement, 1936–1937 (Paris, 1967), 329–53Google Scholar; and Young, R., In Command of France. French Foreign Policy and Military Planning, 1933–1940 (Harvard, 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Viñas, La Alemania, ch. 5; Saz, Mussolini, 178 passim; J. Coverdale, Intervention, ch. 3.
13 Baldwin admitted to his confidant and former cabinet secretary that he had given this directive. Jones, Thomas, A Diary with Letters, 1931–1950 (Oxford, 1954)Google Scholar, 231; FO 371/20525 W7492. The Times, 1 Aug. 1936.
14 Telegrams from the consul in Barcelona to the FO and vice versa, 30 July, 1 Aug. 1936. Minute from Mr Jebb, 25 Nov. 1936. FO 371/20525 & 20570, W7244, W15925. In Dec. 1937 it was estimated that 39 British companies had been collectivised or expropriated since the beginning of the war. FO 371/21382 W22259.
15 The Spanish desk officer in the FO would recapitulate (10 Sept. 1936): ‘The political consequences of giving the legal Government the facilities to which it is undoubtedly entitled would have been too grave to be risked … “non-intervention” means in fact denying to the legitimate Govt. the means of combating a rebellion.’ Mounsey, Assistant Under-Secretary, added: ‘While it is true that from the legal point of view the Spanish Govt. has a strong case, it is undeniable that in fact, even if not in theory, they were, long before this outbreak occurred, a Govt. which was failing to govern; they were merely giving way, in one direction after another to the extreme demands of labour let loose, and were unable to keep order unless those demands were met. It was moreover no encouragement to civilised Powers to assist them, when the outbreak occurred, that the Spanish Govt. at once proceeded to arm all the workers and the rabble, including irresponsible young boys, with the consequences we are now witnessing of savage brutalities and counter-reprisals.’ FO 371/20575 W10779.
16 There is unequivocable proof of this lack of alarm: on 30 July the Committee of Imperial Defence dealt with ‘Gibraltar as a link in Imperial Communications’ and the possibility of building an aerodrome on the base, without expressing any concern at the Italo-German presence across the straits. CAB 2/6 (Cabinet Records, Committee of Imperial Defence, file 6).
17 Two cases reflect this: (1) on 22 July Salazar ordered the Portuguese representative to ask the FO what it would do to avoid ‘the establishment of a communist regime in Spain’. Wellesley, Assistant Under-Secretary, replied: ‘England would not intervene militarily in Spain, whatever situation developed in that country. The British Government would not have the support of public opinion.’ (2) To a similar Italian enquiry on 29 July, Margesson, Conservative Chief Whip, replied: ‘Our interests, our desire is that the [military] revolution should triumph and communism be crushed, but on the other hand, we do not wish to emerge from our neutrality … This is the only possible way of counteracting labour agitation.’ Dez Anos de Política Externa, 1936–1947 (Lisbon, 1964), Vol. 3, documents 20, 23. Saz, Mussolini, 204–5.
18 On 12 Aug., a crucial memorandum from Sargent, Assistant Under-Secretary, concluded that Italo-German intervention in Spain responded to their ‘fear of the spread of Communism’ and signalled two British objectives in this regard: ‘(1) Our preventing France by hook or by crook from “going Bolshevik” under the influence of the Spanish Civil War; and (2) Our freeing Italy from the feeling of isolation and vulnerability which the Abyssinian affair has left her with.’ Mounsey added that ‘the best if not the only’ means of obtaining that end was the signing of the Non-Intervention Pact: ‘Whether they observe it or not, that is the first step.’ Eden noted in his agreement with both notes. FO 371/20534 W9331.
19 On 18 Aug., Baldwin's private secretary noted: ‘I warned [Eden] that Mr Greenwood [Labour deputy leader] might ask what justification there was for the British Govt. to forbid producers in this country from supplying a friendly Govt. with armaments in the ordinary course of business. He admitted this was a difficult point, but proposed to say that the original initiative in the neutrality proposals had come from Monsieur Blum, who, if anyone, might be expected to be willing to supply the Spanish Govt. with warlike stores for the purpose of crushing the rebellion. If the French Popular Front Govt. thought that strict neutrality was the best course, Mr Greenwood could hardly argue that the British Govt. should decide upon another course’. Records of the Prime Minister's Office, file 360 (PREM 1/360).
20 Quoted in Gilbert, M., Winston Churchill, Vol. 5 (London, 1976)Google Scholar, 782. Two days earlier, Sir Samuel Hoare, First Lord of the Admiralty, had expressed a similar idea: ‘For the present it seems clear that we should continue our existing policy of neutrality … When I speak of “neutrality” I mean strict neutrality, that is to say, a situation in which the Russians neither officially or unofficially give help to the Communists. On no account must we do anything to bolster up Communism in Spain, particularly when it is remembered that Communism in Portugal, to which it would probably spread and particularly to Lisbon, would be a grave danger to the British Empire. FO 371/20527 W7781.
21 On 24 Aug. a report from the Chief of Staff Sub-Committee established as strategic objectives: the preservation of Spanish territorial integrity and ‘such relations with any Spanish Govt. as will ensure our benevolent neutrality in the event of our being engaged in any European war’. It also advised warning Mussolini of the existing tolerance threshold: the respect for ‘the status quo in the Western Mediterranean’. CAB 24/264 (Cabinet Papers and Memoranda, vol. 264). This warning (‘discreetly worded’) was sent to Rome on 12 Sept., receiving the guarantee that ‘the Italian Govt. had no designs on Spanish Morocco or on the Balearic Islands.’. CAB 27/626 (Committee on Foreign Policy, file 626). FO 371/20532 W8997.
22 CAB 2/6.
23 On 10 Aug. Franco refuted ‘supposed promise of bases in Morocco to any Power’. Two days earlier, London had received reports of rebel disappointment over the fact that ‘His Majesty's Govt. had not followed the lead of the Italian and German Govt. in furnishing concrete aid’. FO 371/20528 W8158, W8120.
24 Minute, 9 Oct. 1936. FO 371/ W 12454. A report of 30 Oct. confirmed this confidence in the diplomacy of sterling: ‘The natural tendency is to use up all available stocks of consumption goods in Spain such as oil, coal, motor cars etc, with the result that when the war is over Spain will be in need of imports considerably above her normal requirement … will be short of foreign exchange and there will be a grave need for extensive foreign credits … In any case the obvious country in which to obtain such foreign credits will be Great Britain. The inference is that we shall, in the future, be in a very strong position for negotiating any commercial agreement with the new Spanish Govt., even though we may have offended them in the course of the war.’ FO 371/20519 W 14919.
25 Minute, 18 Sept. 1936. FO 371/20538 W11263.
26 Moradiellos, Neutralidad, 261–7.
27 Minute, 4 Oct. 1937. FO 371/21401 W 11535. A note of 14 Aug. 1936 reflected the obstacles to the recognition of belligerency: ‘The French Govt. are against recognition, and such a step would of course be strongly resented by the Madrid Govt. and would also arouse considerable public feelings as being tantamount to an encouragement of the insurgents.’ FO 371/20530 W8566.
28 Memorandum, 8 June 1937. Records of the Board of Trade, Commercial Relations and Treaties Department, file 833 (BT 11/833). Thereafter BT. Minute on Anglo-Spanish Clearing, Dec. 1936. FO 371/21383 W 3018.
29 Consular instructions, 8, 14 Sept. 1936. BT 11/652. Minutes and memorandum, 2, 23 Oct. 1936. FO 371/20518 W 12844, W 14719.
30 Minutes, 11 Sept. 1936. FO 371/20576 W 11131, W 11308. For British banks' sabotaging of the Republic, see Viñas, A., El oro de Moscú (Barcelona, 1979), 218–27.Google Scholar
31 FO 371/20577 W 11520. Records of the Non-Intervention Committee, file 1, Notes of the first and second meetings, 9, 14 Sept. 1936. FO 849/1.
32 Intelligence Summary for Sept. 1936. FO 371/20541 W12873. The first summaries (10, 13 Aug.) had reported that ‘[the war] seems to be resolving itself into one of Rebel versus Rabble’ and ‘prolonged resistance in Madrid is therefore unlikely’. Records of the War Office, Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence (WO 106/1576).
33 Cattell, D., Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War (Berkeley, 1957)Google Scholar; Haslam, J., The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe (London, 1984)Google Scholar, ch. 7; Watkins, K., Britain Divided. The Effects of the Spanish Civil War on British Political Opinion (London, 1963), 163–6.Google Scholar
34 Minute, 11 Nov. 1936. Treasury Records, T 161/928. The FO acknowledged internally (16 Nov.) that ‘we have considered the continued existence of the Agreement and of the supervising Committee as of more importance than the actual efficacy of the embargo itself’ and ‘the consideration of such a scheme appeared to be the only thing the Committee could do to show that it genuinely, desired to make the Non-Intervention Agreement effective’. FO 371/20585 W15624.
35 CAB 23/85, Cabinet Meeting, 21 Oct. 1936. Intelligence Summary, 1 Nov. 1936. FO 371/20546 W15261.
36 A minute from the Admiralty (23 Oct. 1936) clearly reflects this fear: ‘There is no reason why we should go out of our way to look for trouble in defence of a British ship which is engaging in a disreputable trade (carrying arms for the Govt.) at her own risk. It was also felt that it is desirable to do everything possible to dissuade British shipowners from engaging in this traffic, and the Board of Trade representative undertook to take the matter in hand’. ADM 116/4084.
37 In early November, Hitler sent the Condor Legion (5000 soldiers, 100 planes, 48 tanks and anti-aircraft equipment). Mussolini followed in December with an initial batch of 3000 soldiers, with the total reaching 49,000 in February 1937. Whealey, Hitler and Spain, 48–50. Coverdale, Intervention, 165–81.
38 Eden admitted to his colleagues: ‘The policy proposed would be very like saying that we would have granted General Franco belligerent rights, but we should prefer to stop the ships ourselves.’ Chamberlain supported him: ‘Franco's object was not to quarrel with us but to prevent munitions coming from Russia to the Spanish Govt. He could, therefore, hardly object if we ourselves took action in execution of our own policy of non-intervention for this purpose.’ CAB 24/265, Notes of a Meeting of Ministers, 22 Nov. 1936. CAB 23/86, Cabinet Meeting, 25 Nov. 1936.
39 Proof of the success of the agreement is that, within nine months of its being signed, the insurgent zone took up 75 per cent of British exports to Spain, FO 371/21384 W20546. A minute from the Board of Trade (12 Feb. 1937) states with regard to the negotiations with the Republic: ‘Events in the last few days seem to make it desirable not to conclude the Agreement too soon. Every addition to Franco's territory makes the Agreement with Valencia less valuable. If in fact the Spanish Govt. are on the run, the Agreement is not likely to be of very much practical use and although when, last November, we felt inclined to sit on the fence for a bit to see what would happen we found that nothing decisive did happen, nevertheless I should be inclined on the present to go slow.’ BT 11/652.
40 CAB 27/268. Cabinet Committee on Foreign Policy: Memorandum by Mr Eden. The other two attempts by Eden took place in the Cabinet meetings of 9 and 16 Dec. CAB 23/86.
41 ibid. Hoare criticised Eden's proposal for being technically unfeasible and, above all, due to its political implications: ‘As a first preliminary observation, we appeared to be getting near a situation where, as a nation, we were trying to stop General Franco from winning. That was the desire of the Parliamentary Parties of the Left; but there were others, including perhaps some members of the Cabinet, who were very anxious that the Soviets should not win in Spain’. Likewise, Hankey also disagreed with a similar analysis from Vansittart: ‘I take a less serious view than he of the German and Italian adventures in Spain. General Franco is still a long way off victory, even if he captures Madrid, and, even if he wins, he may easily quarrel with his erst-while supporters. Gratitude is not a strong tie in Politics.’ CAB 63/51. Hankey Papers.
42 CAB 27/628, Notes of a Meeting of Ministers, 9 Jan. 1937.
43 The strategists backed this policy on 11 Jan.: ‘We should not, in any circumstances, go to the lengths of fighting to keep the Italians out of the Balearic Islands, since it was not really a vital interest to us, as it was to the French.’ CAB 53/6. Records of the Chiefs of Staff Sub-Committee.
44 Harvey, J. (ed.), The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey, 1937–1940 (London, 1970), 40.Google Scholar