Negotiating Neutrality – Anglo–Spanish Relations in the Age of Appeasement, 1931–1940

The British government's policy of non-intervention in response to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War sought primarily to prevent the conflict escalating into a wider European war but also to ensure that it could maintain or establish cordial relations with whichever side emerged victorious. Due to General Franco's military successes, the support he received from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and the geostrategic importance of the Iberian Peninsula in Britain's Mediterranean strategy, non-intervention evolved into a policy of appeasing Franco. This sustained strategic programme remained in place beyond the Civil War and throughout the Second World War. It aimed to drive a wedge between Franco and the Axis Powers to prevent Spain's incorporation into the Rome-Berlin Axis and thereby ensure the neutrality of the Iberian Peninsula. The British government's diplomatic recognition of Franco and simultaneous abandonment of the Spanish Republic in February 1939 formed a concession comparable to British policy towards Abyssinia and Czechoslovakia.