France, the Allies and Franco's Spain, 1 943-1 948 David Andrew

333 Pages·2001·18.08 MB·English

France, the Allies and Franco's Spain, 1 943-1 948
David Andrew Messenger
A thesis submitted in conformity with the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, Craduate Department of History of
the University of Toronto
O Copyright by David Andrew Messenger, 2000
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Abstract
France, the Ailies and Franco's Spain, 1943-19 48
Doctor of Philosophy, Pûûû
David Andrew Messenger
Graduate ûepartment of History, University of Toronto
The end of the Second World War in Europe meant that the appcarance of new security man,o ements
coincidcd with the arriva1 of transformcd states. Emerging from the collaborationist Vichy era. rebuilding from the
dcvastation of war. and facing the dcveloprnent of the Western bloc behind the United States and, to a lesser extent
Grcar Britain. France was one such country. The question of relations with Franco's Spain engaged the various
Iorccs that in the aftcrmath of the Libention wcre in the proccss of rcbuilding France as a democncy at home and
as a power with influence and prestige abroad.
Promincnt Government officiais argued that maintaining relations wiih Spain would be beneficial for
France's own economic reconstruction and its re-ernergence as an equal western ally. By contrast. those who were
dctermined ami-fascists. particularly those from Icft-wing organizations of the intcrnal Resistance. were set on
dcvcloping a ncw policy fashioned by the experiencc of defeating fascism in war. They werc opposed to any sort
of diplornatic or economic relationship with Franco's Spain. Over the course of 1931-1945, these two visions
compcted. until the Government attcmpied to reconcile them in a new policy. from 1946 to 1938.
Chaptcr One examines the wartirne relations of the French governrnent-in-exile with Spain. Chapter Two
is a study of the Rcsistance position from Liberarion in August. 1944 through 1945. Chapters Three and Four focus
on the Governmcnt's various attempts to create a policy which appeased domestic opinion white not isoiating France
from ils western AIlies, initiatives which resultcd in the closure of the Franco-Spanish border. FinalIy, Chapter Fivc
assesses French relations with the Spanish opposition and thc 1948 decision to end sanctions against Spain.
The cxpericncc of war and resistance did not offer the French one single legacy. Rathcr. different visions
of France and its rolc in postwar Europe competed- The effort to rcconcile domcstic and internationat concems,
howcvcr. fxed cven greater constraints imposed by the onsct of the CoId War and by France's position within the
Western Alliance. The history of French relations with Franco's Spain in this period highlights the narrow
boundarics within which policy could be made in postwar Europe.
Acknowledgments
For my Grandfathers, Maurice O. Messenger and John W. Murray, who passed ont0
me. at an early age, one of the greatest gifts i have known: a love of reading and writing
history, most especially the history of their time, the Twentieth Century.
1 have the great pleasure to acknowledge the generous assistûnce received over the
course of preparing this dissertation at the University of Toronto. General funding for my
dissertation came from the School of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto in the form of
Open Fellowships, 1994-1999. Travel funding was provided by the Department of History
( 1996- 1999). the School of Graduate Studies Associates' Travel Grants ( 1997- 1999) and
from the Centre for international Studies, University of Toronto in the form of Sir Val
Duncan Travel Grants ( 1997- 1998).
While doing research, I benefitted from the assistance and support of the staffs at
numerous archives and libraries. The efficient and helpful staff at the Foreign Ministry
Archives, Paris, made the Quai d'Orsay a wonderful base for my research. I would also like
to thank the archivists and staff of the Section XXe si2cle at the National Archives of France,
Paris; the I~zstirrtrd 7HisroireS ociale, Paris: the National Library of France, Paris; the Service
historiqcte de 17Ann&ed e Terre (SHAT), Vincennes; the Bibliothèque de Documentation
/r~renmtionaleer Cottremporaine, Nanterre; the Municipal Library, Toulouse; the Archive of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Madrid; the National Library of Spain, Madrid; the
F~tndacz'orzP ub10 Iglesias, Madrid; the Churchill Archive Centre, Churchill College,
Cambridge: the Cambridge University Library, Manuscripts Room; the Public Record Office,
Kew: the United States National Archives and Record Center. College Park: and. of course,
the staff and inter-library loan office of the John P. Robarts Research Library at the
University of Toronto.
The completion of this project would have been impossible without the
encouragement, criticism and support of my dissertation supervisor, Professor Denis Smyth.
He has been a mentor and a friend in every sense and both this work and my development as
a teacher and scholar have benefitted from his insight, good humour, patience and trust.
The collegial and welcorning atmosphere of the Department of History, University of
Toronto was a great source of strength in my years as a graduate student. 1 would like to
thank the other members of my dissertation committee. Professors Sidney Aster and Michael
M m s f or their constructive criticism and support. Other members of the faculty, including
Professors Robert Accinelli, Peter Blanchard, Richard Helmstadter, David Higgs, John
@hm, Eric Jennings, Francine McKenzie, and Ron Pruessen have contributed to my
development as a historian and university teacher. 1 am greatly indebted to my fellow
oraduate students who provided constructive criticism of my work and rewarding friendships
C
both on and off campus: Edwin Bezzina, Lorne Breitenlohner, Hilary Earl, Robert Hanks,
JuIia Kinnear, Trish McMahon, and Alison Meek, among others.
Outside of the Department of History, 1 have benefitted frorn the support and
encouragement of fellow graduate students and fnends Andrew Barros, Robin Gendron, Sam
Kalman, Ian Petrie and Gary Wilson. Michael Cox, Jennifer Purves, Cheryl Riddel and Gary
Wilson were al1 kind enough to provide me with housing in London and respite from the
archives. Patty Fischer and Joe Pigott were of great assistance in finding a wonderful little
apartrnent in Paris. Other friends from al1 waiks of life are to be thanked for putting up with
my stones of graduate life.
Finally, 1 must thank my family for giving me the support needed to follow this path.
My parents. David and Anne Messenger, and my grandfathet, John W. Murray, al1
contributed financiaily in the years that 1 have been preparing this work, but their 1-ole, and
that of my grandhther Maurice O. Messenger, has been much more significant, as has that of
my siblings and other relatives. Without their love, and their encouragement for my
endeavors. nothing would have k e n accomplished. My wife, Maureena Waiker, has lived
with this project since she met me, and her patience, good cheer and love were necessary on a
daily basis in order for my dissertation to be researched and written.
Any errors or misinterpretations are, of course, completely my own.
France, the Allies and Franco's Spain, 1 943- 1 948
David Andrew Messenger
Table of Contents
.
....................................................................................................
Abstract I*I .
...
....................................................................................
Acknowledgments III-
.....................................................................................
Table of Contents vi.
.............................................................................................
Introduction 1
........................
1. The Agents of Non-Vichy France in Spain, 1942-1 944 1 7
li. The Consequences of Liberation: The Resistance, the Quai d'Orsay
...................................................................
and Franco in a New France 69
III. Reconciling Home and Abroad: The Quai d'Orsay and French Policy
..............................................................................
Toward Spain, 1 946 1 30
IV. Desperation and Defeat: France and the Spanish Question at the
............................................................................
United Nations, 1946 188
....................................
V. France, the Allies and the Spanish Opposition 239
............................................................................................
Conclusion 298
..........................................................................................
Bibliography 307
In rrodttction
Upon leaving Barcelona in the rnidst of the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell found
it impossible to abandon the spell of the city or the time. 'We thought, talked, dreamed
incessantly of Spain,' he wrote of the time he and his wife spent in Banyuls, France
imrnediately after fleeing over the Pyrenees.' Spain and its civil war did indeed captivate
man y. whether they saw it as 'the last great cause', a dress rehearsal for the world war which
followed or the first open battle of the twentieth century conflict fought between capitalism
and comrnunism.' The influence of the conflict, and its various interpretations, lasted well
beyond the victory of General Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces in 1939. The 'Spanish
question' was revived in the aftermath of the Second World War. influenced by a heavy dose
of nostalgia connected to the initiai conflict of 1936- 1939, further shaped by the seminal
conflict of a generation between 1939 and 1945, and imbued with a dynamic of its own, the
'Spanish question' of the early postwar era engaged politicians, bureaucrats and the public as
it had a decade earlier.
This was especidly so in the France of the Fourth Republic. The end of the Second
World War meant that the emergence of new European securiry arrangements coincided with
the arriva1 of transformed States. Emerging from the collaborationist Vichy era, rebuilding
tiom the devastation of war and occupation, and facing the development of a new western
bloc behind the United States and, to a lesser extent, Great Britain, France was also in the
--
George Orwell. Homape to Catalonia (New York, 1980) 229.
Paul Preston. A Concise Historv of the Soanish Civil War (London, 1996) 6.
1
midst of its own political redefinition. Led by the wartime Resistance leader Charles de
Gaulle, in coalition with a nurnber of non-Gaullist resistance groups, the French political
scene was at a moment Jean-Pierre Rioux has described as 'unique' in the nation's history,
for 'the Right had collapsed with Vichy, and the Left, invested with al1 the moral authority of
the Resistance, was now the natural spokesman for the national interest." The sarne Left that
had been engaged with the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s had another opportunity to
consider the role of General Franco's semi-fascist regime in the world order.
During the latter part of the 1930s, France, like most of Europe, was enmeshed in a
polarization that has been described as 'the politics of either/or'." One of the consequences of
such a cleavage was the formation of the Popular Front coalition of Communists, Radicals
and Socidists, and its election to government under Léon Blum in June, 1936. Just as the
Govemment was coming into office, the Spanish Civil War broke out. The Spanish Republic,
also governed by a Popular Front coalition, requested French military assistance in the form
of arms shipments in order to defend itself against a rightist military upnsing that soon had
the support of Fascist Italy and Nazi Gerrnany. Blum reluctantly refused, and France instead
promoted a policy of foreign non-intervention in the conflict. The reluctance of France's
primary aily, Great Britain, to get involved in the conflict sipificantly influenced Blum's
decision, yet the decisive factor in the decision not to aid Spain's Second Republic was the
fear that such support would lead the collapse of his government and perhaps even a sirnilar
'Jean-Pierre Rioux. The Fourth Re~ublic.1 944- 1958 tram. G. Rodgers. (Cambridge,
1987) 48.
"
Eugen Weber. The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s (New York, 1996) 141.
3
civil war between left and right within France, dthough now it is ciear such a threat was
exaggeratedmW5 hile Blum's decision may have saved his government for the short term, it
did not end the division within France. That division was complicated by the fact that the
French Left, committed to the struggie of Republican Spain, was infuriated with the Blum
government for having abandoned the front line in the democratic battle against fascism. The
sense of resentment did not die, nor did the Left's conviction that the fate of Republican
Spain was an essential element of the fight against fascism. After the end of the Popular Front
in France, Blum himself mulled over the missed opportunities for confronting fascism that
had existed in Spain? Popular leftist disappointment persisted beyond the war itself. As the
Civif War ended, the Spanish film maker Luis Buiiuel remembered that 'in contrast to the
...
French Government, that consistently refused to intervene in favour of the Republic the
French people, and, in particular, the workers ...g ave us their considenble assistance."
With the onset of world war and the collapse of France in June, 1940, the Spanish
Julim Jackson. The Po~uIarF ront in France: Defending Democracv. 1934-1938
(Cambridge, 1988) 208; Robert J. Young. In Command of France: French Foreign Policv and
Militarv Planning. 1933- 1940 (Cambridge, MA, 1978) 139- 140; Geoffrey Warner, 'France and
Non-Intervention in Spain, July-August 1936' International Affairs 38:2 (1962). See aIso Helen
Graham and Paul Preston, 'The Popular Front and the Struggle Against Fascism' in Paul Preston,
ed. The Popular Front in Europe (London, 1984) 12.
David Wingeate Pike. Les Francais et la Guerre d'Espagne, 1936- 1939 (Paris, 1975)
337.
'
Cited in Narciso Alba and Jacques Issorel, 'La France des libertés vue par les
inteIlectuels espagnols avant et après la guerre civile' in Jean Sages and Slyvie Caucanas, eds.
Les Français et la Guerre d'Es~agne:A ctes du Colloaue de Pemiman (Perpignan, 1990) 414.