The Year of Development
Part 7: Cracks in Europe, November – December, 1937
The first ideological fissures within Europe itself began to show in late 1937. It was the first time that the major differences in ideas between the Allies and the Axis were showcased. For the first time in nearly two decades, talk had failed in Western Europe. Questions of ideology and power were not being settled in neat conference rooms with compromise but on the battlefield, with blood and iron. Many saw opportunity in this dramatic change, especially Mussolini.
It was on one blustery November morning, the 11th of that month, dissident elements of the Spanish Army, in league with socially conservative political factions, rose up against the Socialist who had won electoral victory early the previous year after two failed rounds of very strenuous political talks between the two sides. Many regions of Spain were seized by the rebels, including most of the north. In the south, however, their foothold was scarce. In the east, they held only a bridgehead at Valencia. Madrid was within striking distance. Tarragona and Barcelona were in danger. The Spanish Civil War had begun. Right on schedule, construction on Italy’s first two carriers finished the following day.
The Spanish Civil War has begun!
Mussolini was eager to take advantage of the chaos that had erupted to the west, right on the eve of the most dramatic increase in Italian military power since the Risorgimento in the 1860s and 1870s. He anticipated that Spain could be the perfect testing ground for his new maritime strategy. He had important interests in Iberia, interests which could decide the fate of the Mediterranean. These interests, were, of course, centered around the British fortress of Gibraltar. If Mussolini could set himself into a position from which he might be able to, on a later date, take Gibraltar and close the gate between the western Mediterranean and the Atlantic, he would certainly deem both his strategy and his diplomacy a success. Partially in pursuit of this goal, he immediately announced a major intervention effort to aid Franco and the Nationalists, as the Spanish rebels styled themselves, against their enemies, the self-styled Republicans.
Italian intervention into the Spanish Civil War!
Furthermore, Mussolini ordered the embargo of the Republican faction and a general mobilization of the Italian population, citing the Republicans as the greatest threat to the peace and stability of Europe since the Bolsheviks on the outskirts of Warsaw in 1920. The embargo was purely symbolic as there was no trade between Italy and Spain, but Mussolini hoped that it would exacerbate tensions. Records show that he may have been mistaken on this. Mussolini also readied Pintor’s 7a Armata for action, so that it could board transports and, in tandem with Campioni’s fleet, steam to the coast of Spain to begin littoral combat operations.
Mobilization of the Italian armed forces!
To take advantage of what was almost certainly going to be the high point of Nationalist-Italian relations, given Mussolini’s designs on certain areas of Iberia, Mussolini personally requested transit rights for his troops from Franco. Thus he hoped to insure himself against being thwarted. If he could not intervene in time to secure land around Gibraltar, transit rights would hopefully open up to him the necessary land for an assault on Gibraltar. Mussolini was trying to be careful. Gibraltar was central to his plans of minimizing British power by denying them access to the theater of warfare most important to Italy: the Mediterranean.
Franco’s grant of transit rights to Italian armed forces.
By the end of the first month, that is by the 11th of December, Mussolini had begun regretting his hasty decision to send supplies to the Nationalists. This regret was not born out of any political spat, but simply because the Nationalists seemed to be too successful, Mussolini was afraid that he would not be able to move against the environs of Gibraltar. Barcelona had fallen. The southeast had fallen into Franco’s lap. Tarragona had become a Republican fortress, isolated and besieged. The northeast was Franco’s as well, only the very north still resisted in that area. Madrid was in danger. Valencia remained a Nationalist possession. The Republicans did not look like they would be able to keep a hold on the center for long, as it was being encroached upon from both the northeast and the southeast. Only the southwest still seemed inviolable, but a single word could send the Nationalists from Seville dashing toward Murcia instead of Madrid. Mussolini was worried.
The frontlines in Spain on 11 December.
During the month of December, Mussolini was reputed to have spent more time in the Foreign Ministry than in his own offices. He was very anxious to begin operations but he could not feel sure that the population would support another war. The Ministry of Intelligence was doing the best it could, however, to raise awareness in the Italian populace of the Republican threat, and to decrease their desires for neutrality. It was working, but agonizingly slowly. However, by the end of December, the gap between hope and reality had nearly fully closed. Another few weeks, another month or two and Pintor’s 7a Armata would be storming ashore in Spain! Mussolini could only hope, in the meantime, that the Republicans did not fall, that their cause did not collapse. He needed them strong enough to withstand the Nationalists a little longer.
Relations between the Republicans and Italy were deteriorating to a point where soon Mussolini would be able to act.
And thus the year came to a close, with the greatest turmoil Europe had seen since Eastern Europe was set ablaze by conflicting Bolshevik and German ambitions in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Mussolini was watching the conflagration carefully, eager to partake but hoping that it would still be going on by the time he would be able to. He envisioned Spain as the perfect testing ground for his strategic vision. He just needed the opportunity.
