Abstract
This article analyses the Portuguese Estado Novo's knowledge of, and policy towards, the Spanish famine of 1939–1942. While historians have broadly acknowledged that Spain's economic difficulties and Germany's refusal to supply its ally prevented General Franco from joining the Axis, there is a dearth of studies on Portugal's economic strategy towards its larger Iberian neighbour. Based upon dozens of confidential documents, the article presents new information on the state of hunger in Spain. It demonstrates that the Portuguese dictatorship was aware of both its magnitude and its political reverberations. Meanwhile, it contextualizes Portuguese aid to Spain through an exploration of broader social and economic conditions within Portugal. In light of the evidence presented, the article presents a strong critique of the rationale for, and subsequent effects of, the foreign policy of Portugal's dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar, towards Spain.
Keywords
Introduction
The conclusion of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) represented a rare occasion in the first half of twentieth-century Iberian history when Portugal and Spain converged politically. The far-right dictatorships now ruling both countries each rejoiced at what they perceived as their victory. For his part, on 22 May 1939 the Portuguese autocrat, António de Oliveira Salazar, offered a self-congratulatory speech praising his regime for having covertly (in his view) supported the rebels during the conflict. 1 Meanwhile, the new Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco, was in jubilant mood, having finally destroyed the democratic Second Spanish Republic. This convergence of interests between Portugal and Spain would prove to be short-lived, however, as Portugal's sense of contentment would soon clash with Spain's new hunger for empire. Salazar viewed the obliteration of the Spanish Republic as having saved the Iberian Peninsula from the dual menace of communism and democracy, while simultaneously securing Portugal's peninsular and imperial borders against Iberian federalism. Although Franco shared the first premise, he regarded victory in the civil war as the first step towards the restoration of a Spanish Empire.
In reality, Portuguese involvement in the civil war had been dwarfed by Italian and German intervention, but Salazar's ploy of keeping a semblance of neutrality in order to make his regime appear moderate proved to be doubly counterproductive. On the one hand, it was still widely acknowledged that the Estado Novo had assisted the insurgents. On the other, Salazar's refusal to recognize the Franco regime officially until very late in the conflict was perceived negatively by the Spanish rebels, who viewed Portugal as being subservient to Britain. 2 Franco's disinterest towards Portugal during this period contrasted with his multiple and explicit declarations of friendship towards the Axis, leaving little doubt as to where his political sympathies lay. 3
Historians have painstakingly documented the two fundamental and interrelated reasons that impeded Spain from entering the Second World War. First, the ruinous state of the country, plagued by mass hunger, prevented Franco from throwing his lot in with the Axis without substantial external backing. The second factor was Germany's unwillingness to meet Spain's exigencies. 4 A flourishing and thought-provoking historiography on the Spanish famine of 1939–1942 and 1946 – which claimed perhaps as many as 200,000 lives – has now overcome the veil of silence imposed by Francoism. Using a multiplicity of sources, it has confirmed that food insecurity was caused primarily by the dictatorship's double pursuit of autarky and a pro-Axis foreign policy. 5 Curiously, however, and despite the fact that two of the four Spanish regions worst-hit by the famine (Extremadura, Andalucía, Murcia and Castilla la Mancha) bordered Portugal, scholars have largely overlooked the Estado Novo's awareness of the scale of starvation in neighbouring Spain, as well as its economic support to the Franco regime. 6
For their part, historians who have looked at Portugal during the Second World War have focused almost exclusively on political diplomacy. 7 Existing studies on Portugal's economic relations abroad have centred on the country's commercial ties with either Great Britain or Germany. 8 Meanwhile, the few excellent published works on social and economic conditions within Portugal throughout the 1940s have largely failed to link these to the Estado Novo's foreign policy towards Spain. 9 Finally, beyond diplomatic studies, there is a dearth of transnational studies on Iberian relations during the Second World War. Indeed, many still uphold the myth, constructed by the Estado Novo, that Salazar was not only sceptical of Franco, but also skilfully managed to neutralize Spain's pro-Axis foreign policy. 10
Through analysis of the information that reached the Estado Novo about the Spanish famine, the present article will begin to address these overlapping historiographical gaps, and shed further light on the social, economic, political and diplomatic repercussions of the famine on both sides of the border. 11 Certainly, as we shall see, Lisbon was fully aware of major population displacements across the border, the tensions emerging within the Franco regime as a result of famine conditions, and an increasing reliance upon food supplies from Portugal. Combined with the evolving external situation as the global conflict raged on, this parlous economic state would force Franco to shift his priorities away from building an empire – even if it meant risking Spain's food security – to securing his own political survival. This article will demonstrate how the myriad reports reaching Salazar on these developments expanded his foreign policy options. Even so, Portuguese policy towards Spain and towards the war would remain conditioned primarily by Salazar's broader political objectives and unshifting ideological presuppositions.
In truth, Spain and Portugal's divergent foreign policies became evident even before the outbreak of the Second World War. A new, Axis-led European order was a sine qua non if Spain was to fulfil its expansionist territorial aims at the expense of Britain (Gibraltar) and France (French North Africa). 12 Even though Portugal had sided, and identified ideologically, with the Axis powers during the Spanish Civil War, Salazar was conscious that his country's sovereignty would be endangered in a Nazi-dominated Europe. Nonetheless, the Portuguese dictator was also unenthusiastic about an unconditional Allied victory and the possible spread of democracy throughout Europe, which might pose a threat to his rule. Accordingly, Salazar hoped that the democratic powers would strike a peace deal with the Axis that would free Germany to crush the USSR. 13 Salazar also hoped and believed that the war would conclude with the emergence of three powers blocs: a democratic, a fascist and an authoritarian ‘Latin bloc’ formed by Portugal, Spain, France and Latin America. Maintaining Iberian and Latin American neutrality was seen as crucial for the viability of this project, as it would augment both the power and solidity of the alliance, in which Salazar would play a leading role. The plan remained vague and was never fully developed, however, not least because the Estado Novo failed to seduce key players, such as Spain and Brazil. 14
The Outbreak of the Second World War, and of the Spanish Famine
When the Second World War erupted, Spain's parlous economic state left it unable to enter the conflict. Not only had the country been ruined by three years of civil war, but Franco's merciless persecution of the defeated republicans meant that the ‘new’ Spain would be characterized by mass executions, overflowing prisons and enforced labour. 15 Equally important was the fact that, even before hostilities broke out, Germany lacked the economic resources to support its ally. Consequently, while Spain remained politically pro-Axis, it remained economically dependent upon Britain, its main trading partner. 16 Post-conflict devastation within Spain was further aggravated by the Franco regime's pursuit of economic autarky. The focus on self-sufficiency, coupled with a pathological distrust of foreign institutions, led to the withdrawal of all humanitarian agencies from Spain by 1941. 17 The inevitable outcome was famine.
Although the first deaths caused by hunger in post-civil war Spain had been recorded as early as May 1939, it was not until the end of that year that the shockwaves of the famine were first felt on the Portuguese side of the border.
18
The obliteration of basic labour rights, blanket wage freezes, and price-fixing in Spain led to the development of a black market that accounted for as much as 50 per cent of trade in foodstuffs and triggered an abrupt rise in the cost of living, which, according to Francoism's own conservative estimates, increased fivefold between 1935 and 1947. While a sizeable part of Spain's population starved and while many resorted to smuggling or prostitution to survive – in particular those constituencies comprising the vanquished from the civil war – the Franco regime's new elites controlled the lucrative black market.
19
Indeed, such was the scale of corruption in Spain that on 20 June 1939 the General Command of the Portuguese Fiscal Guard (Guarda Fiscal, a paramilitary force tasked with the control of Portugal's borders) warned that Spanish tinned fish and fruit was flooding into northern Portugal where ‘there are people everywhere selling canned food’ at extremely low prices. It added that ‘the situation is serious’ due to the financial ‘losses incurred not only by the Portuguese canning industry but also by the Nation's economy and the state's coffers’ due to low sales and loss of tax revenue.
20
Such goods were already badly needed in Spain and the Estado Novo was aware of this. For instance, the consulate in Vigo (Pontevedra) reported that prices rose by around 80 per cent between 1938 and 1939 and noted that ‘bread goes missing day after day’.
21
Portugal's Economic Ministry reacted swiftly after the outbreak of the Second World War by decreeing a suspension of free commerce within Portuguese territory from 7 September and stipulating that traders in the border region could now only acquire specific quantities of codfish, sugar, pasta and soap at designated markets, which nevertheless failed to put a stop to a flourishing contraband industry.
22
By November, the Ministry of Agriculture ordered ‘the intensification of border surveillance’, this time because large quantities of cattle were being trafficked into Spain from northern and central Portugal.
23
That same month, Spain had requested to purchase 50,000 tons of wheat from Italy.
24
The Portuguese consul in Tuy (Pontevedra) gave a bleak yet accurate report of the deteriorating situation, which also affected his own citizens: destitute Portuguese nationals regularly present themselves [at the consulate], in the most extreme misery, often starving and without having eaten for over a day or two, exhausted and in rags, after having walked, on foot, dozens of kilometres, begging along the way, until finally getting here. This constitutes, in all respects, a distressing and truly regrettable spectacle.
25
Spanish Imperial Hunger and Portuguese Vulnerability: September 1939–October 1940
Notwithstanding the worsening economic situation, in the early months of the Second World War Franco's attention was focused largely upon foreign affairs. Showered with adulation by his own propaganda, which routinely compared him to the monarchs of Spain's imperial age, the Generalísimo developed an inflated sense of his international prestige, to the point of believing that he would be asked to mediate peace between Britain and Germany. 26 Rather than an arbitrator, however, Franco dreamed of becoming an emperor. 27 To that end, he maintained a standing army of over 300,000 men while continuing to provide logistical and intelligence support to the Axis. 28 Franco's fantasy nearly materialized in June 1940, when Italy joined the war and France surrendered to Germany. Spain would move from neutrality to non-belligerency on 12 June, and two days later would send troops to occupy the international city of Tangier. Thereafter, Franco would offer Spanish entry into the war to Germany, and even commissioned plans for an invasion of Portugal. 29 Such moves notwithstanding, for some time – and in a practice that would escalate in the months after June 1940 – Franco and his entourage had deliberately been passing false information to Portuguese diplomats in the hope of deceiving the Allies into thinking that he desired peace. For instance, in a meeting on 23 April between Franco and the Portuguese ambassador in Madrid, Pedro Teotónio Pereira, the Generalísimo had declared that he was ‘a sincere friend’ of Portugal, pledged Spain's neutrality and stated his belief that Mussolini would not enter the conflict, despite being aware of Italy's imminent belligerency. 30 The tactic bore fruit. On 12 May, Salazar explicitly told Teotónio Pereira, ‘I remain sincerely convinced that the Generalísimo is working towards neutrality’. 31 A month later (13 June), Salazar also assured his ambassador in London, Armindo Monteiro, that far from a prelude to war, Spanish non-belligerency represented a shrewd manoeuvre on the part of Franco aimed at appeasing both the Axis and Germanophiles within Spain. 32 In a scathing reply, Monteiro did not mince his words, warning the dictator that he ‘should not harbour illusions about Spain's attitude’. 33 Nonetheless, this was precisely what Salazar did, continuing to assure an unimpressed Monteiro that Spain ‘seeks to maintain neutrality’. Meanwhile, Franco carried on making insincere declarations of friendship towards Portugal. In July, for example, the Generalísimo told Teotónio Pereira that he hoped that Portugal would be able to uphold its territorial integrity, at the very moment he was ordering plans for an invasion of the country. 34 Salazar's optimistic views were passed on to the British. On 6 June, Teotónio Pereira informed Britain's ambassador to Spain, Sir Samuel Hoare, ‘that Franco and his closest collaborators, although believers in German victory, deserved to be trusted with their policy of neutrality. They should be aided and only through their staying in power can we expect an attitude of loyalty.’ 35 In order to reconcile Spain's bellicose actions with their faith in the Generalísimo's moderacy, Salazar and Teotónio Pereira developed the belief that the drive for Spanish belligerency was spearheaded by a minority faction within the Spanish government, led by Franco's brother-in-law and Minister of the Interior, Ramón Serrano Suñer, and supported by Germany. 36 Ironically, this belief was reaffirmed by Teotónio Pereira to Salazar merely a day after Spain, under no compulsion whatsoever to do so, had offered to join the Axis. The ambassador reported that Franco was demonstrating ‘good faith’ towards Portugal, but that ‘brutal pressure’ emanating from the Axis could force him to enter the war. 37
As Spanish-German negotiations progressed, Franco remained impervious to both basic diplomatic etiquette and his people's immense suffering. To be sure, the Generalísimo was fully aware of the existence of mass hunger in Spain, but, as we shall see, he nonetheless refused several offers of foreign assistance on ideological grounds. On 22 June, Franco met the newly appointed British ambassador to Spain, Sir Samuel Hoare, for the first time. Hoare was asked point-blank: ‘[w]hy […] do you not end the war now? You can never win it.’ Earlier in the discussion, Hoare had ‘made a cautious reference to the economic needs of Spain’, only to be left speechless by Franco's reply that ‘[a]lthough it was common knowledge that the country was on the verge of starvation, he brushed aside my remarks by declaring that Spain needed nothing from the British Empire’. Hoare could not help but feel ‘astonished at this unshakable complacency and at his evident conviction that he had been marked out by Providence to save his country and to take a leading part in the reconstruction of a new world.’ 38 Hoare's amazement was not unfounded. Britain's ongoing naval blockade was starving Spain of supplies, with devastating consequences. 39
If anything, famine was aggravated by an ever-expanding network of corruption. The stories told by returning Portuguese immigrants were grim. According to the consul in Orense, for example, between 1940 and 1941 ‘[w]orkers complain that their wages are of no use if they cannot find foodstuffs, or if they can the prices of such products are far above what they can afford with the little pay they earn’. He also pointed out that ‘[t]here is a total absence of essential products such as rice, beans, grains, coffee, etc.’, the sale of meat was permitted only twice a week and bread went missing for days. The consul not only blamed the scarcity of products, but also, in a veiled reference to corruption, poor logistics and ‘incompetence’.
40
A June 1940 report produced by the Portuguese embassy in Madrid was unequivocal about the consequences of this ‘incompetence’: We know of Civil Governments who have stored, in the town halls under their jurisdiction, considerable quantities of basic foodstuffs, some of which have already been spoiled by the effect of time, while in the towns and cities huge queues assemble from dawn to collect two to three meagre loaves of bread of 100 grams each.
It was precisely in the months when Franco came closest to joining the Axis that Spain's food crisis started to put intense pressure on Portugal. The dual challenge faced by the Portuguese authorities was to prevent the exit of foodstuffs from their country while blocking the influx of thousands of starving Spaniards. In both cases they failed, because the despair of the population on the Spanish side of the border made it impervious to the Estado Novo's repressive measures. Already in February 1940, Portugal's Customs Authority had tightened restrictions on the opening of shops near the border to curb the illegal flow of products to Spain. 42 This was to no avail. On 21 March, 10 and 23 April, and 10 July, the Fiscal Guard reported that large quantities of cattle were still being smuggled out of the country. 43 In April, the Ministry of Agriculture had called on the Fiscal Guard to ‘enforce the most rigorous repression of food smuggling, especially bread, which is taking place on a large scale along the border with Spain’. Clearly overwhelmed, the Fiscal Guard conceded on 1 May that many incidents had taken place, caused by Spaniards looking for ‘means of subsistence that seem to be lacking in their country’. In an act bordering on insubordination, one desperate battalion commander let the head of the Fiscal Guard know that the best way to put a stop to the chaos would be to ‘feed those who are hungry’. He was correct. By 15 May, the situation had become so dire that even Spanish border guards (carabineros) were crossing into Portugal to try to acquire bread. Before the end of the month, they were joined by large groups of women who poured into the towns and villages on the Portuguese side of the border. Outnumbered and exhausted, some posts resorted to unconventional measures, such as in northern Portugal, where they used huge stones, logs and even ox carts to raise roadblocks, which only resulted in several major road accidents. But not even the most violent methods could repress contraband. By July, the price of wheat and rye in Spain had reached the astronomic price of between 22 and 35 pesetas per alqueire (approximately 12 kilograms), at a time when the average working-class daily salary was 8–9 pesetas. 44 It was becoming evident that the ‘price’ General Franco would have to pay to keep his imperial aspirations alive was proving to be unaffordable.
By the early summer of 1940, Portugal was playing an increasingly significant role in Spanish foreign policy, but one that was both unintentional and antipodal to Portuguese interests. Despite receiving regular and meticulously accurate reports on the famine in Spain, Salazar appeared to have no clear plan to use Spain's desperate shortages to seduce Franco into neutrality through some form of carrot-and-stick relief programme. Put simply, there is no evidence that the Portuguese dictator felt that any such economic pressure was necessary. Rather, he felt that diplomacy alone would maintain Spanish goodwill. Meanwhile, efforts to build a meaningful Portuguese military deterrent proved half-hearted. Portugal's military vulnerability was directly attributable to Salazar himself who, through a series of reforms carried out in the late 1930s, had fulfilled his ambition of asserting control over the army at the expense of turning it into an effective fighting force. 45 Moreover, Salazar's ignorance of military matters did not impede him from assuming the role of Minister of War between 1936 and 1944. While holding this post, the dictator left his country further exposed to invasion when he disregarded the plans presented by his generals throughout 1939–1940 and insisted on an unfeasible scheme that envisaged the military defence of the entirety of Portuguese territory, despite being told explicitly that the army lacked both the men and materiel to implement such a strategy. 46
Portugal's defencelessness not only sharpened Franco's warmongering inclinations, but also hindered Britain's food-for-neutrality policy. For instance, on 22 June, when the American ambassador to Madrid, Alexander Weddel, told Franco of the USA's willingness to send supplies to Spain, Franco simply retorted with a ‘feeble smile’. 47 Likewise, on 6 July, he showed no interest in Salazar's offer of assistance, financially backed by Britain, which was presented by Teotónio Pereira. 48 This was yet another clear indication that Franco prioritized his imperial ambitions over the survival of his own population.
Such rebuffs aside, Salazar continued to hold faith in Franco’s peaceful intentions and maintained that diplomacy alone could keep Spain out of the war. As noted above, this was refuted in June, when Spain formally offered to join the Axis. Further evidence of Salazar’s misjudgement came in July. At the same time as Franco agreed to sign the Amendment to the Luso-Spanish Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression, he was informing Admiral Canaris that Spain was prepared to invade its Iberian neighbour should Portugal enter the war, or should Britain pre-emptively seize Portuguese territory. 49 In short, Spain was using Portugal to defuse international tensions as it prepared for war.
On 24 July 1940, Britain, Spain and Portugal signed a tripartite trade agreement handing Spain £600,000 of British credit to buy Portuguese colonial goods. 50 The treaty – both masterminded and implemented by Britain – represented a far more viable policy that vague and hollow pledges of Iberian friendship, not least because it was part of a broader Anglo-American plan aimed at using food aid to pressure Franco into upholding neutrality. 51 This strategy had been theorized as early as May 1939 and was first put into effect in March 1940, when Spain was granted a loan of £2 million to buy products in the Sterling Area on the condition that these would not be re-exported to the Axis. 52 Salazar's awareness of Anglo-American intentions – indeed Portugal would provide one means of implementing them – and his knowledge of the sheer scale of mass starvation in Spain could potentially have incentivized him to prioritize the food-for-neutrality strategy over simple diplomatic overtures. As we have seen, however, the Portuguese dictator believed that Franco's desideratum had always been to abstain from war.
Even if based on this false assumption, on 23 May 1940 Salazar had nonetheless agreed to mediate the delivery of 100,000 tonnes of wheat to Spain in exchange for assurances of neutrality, a scheme designed by David Eccles, the economic advisor to the British ambassadors in Portugal and Spain. 53 This was followed by the tripartite agreement in July. Once more, negotiations were initiated and directed by Britain on 8 June and developed swiftly until a deal was clinched on 24 July. The list of products included corn, copra, castor bean seeds, flax seeds, peanut oil, sisal, sugar and coffee. 54 Over 25,000 tonnes of corn would be exported to Spain until 1942. 55 On 14 November 1940, the total amount of credit was covertly increased to £728,000, and Portugal agreed not to give ‘publicity to this event due to Spanish sensitivity in such matters’. 56 Such agreements confirmed that Spain's international isolation was never total, as claimed by later by Francoist propaganda. Still, the British and Americans were more conscious of Spain’s bellicose predisposition and therefore less accommodating than Portugal. For instance, in October both powers decided to provide food supplies to Spain via the Red Cross on the conditions that it would not be re-exported and that this gesture be made public. 57 The key factor in making such measures a success was Germany's reluctance and incapacity to support Spain, made patently clear in a memorandum produced on 8 August by the German Ambassador in Madrid, Eberhard von Stohrer. Stohrer noted that Spain’s food and fuel deficit was so extreme that its entry into the war would impact Germany’s own military supplies. Spain’s Foreign Minister tried assuring Stohrer that his country possessed grain reserves until March 1941, which the ambassador tactfully (and correctly) considered ‘too optimistic’. 58 When Serrano Suñer arrived in Berlin in September to negotiate Spanish belligerence, he reiterated to Ribbentrop the urgent need for supplies, including a shortage of 600,000 tonnes of grain, as well as Franco's territorial demands. 59 Germany's double refusal to supply Spain and satisfy Franco's imperial ambitions was what ultimately safeguarded Iberian neutrality, something subsequently confirmed at the Hitler-Franco meeting of 23 October in Hendaye, in which both dictators agreed that Spain would join the Axis at an unspecified date to be agreed by both countries. 60
Franco's Empire of Hunger and Salazar's Abundance of Options: November 1940–August 1941
By November 1940, it was now Hitler who pressed for Spanish entry into the war in order to secure Gibraltar, while Franco had become more cautious. There were good reasons for the Generalísimo's newfound prudence. Spain's internal situation had deteriorated still further, while the Caudillo now understood that Germany would not hand him an empire on a plate. On 14 November, ambassador Stohrer estimated that because of poor harvests Spain's grain deficit now stood at one million tonnes, while reporting the existence of ‘outright famine’ in parts of the country. 61 The Portuguese were even better informed. On 30 November, Teotónio Pereira reported to Salazar that Madrid had been ‘without bread for several days’ and, on 5 December, that there were ‘regions where bread has not been eaten for three months’, leading to political turmoil as civil servants were walking out of their jobs. 62 Three days earlier (2 December), Serrano Suñer had confessed to the US ambassador that police escorts were keeping watch over several bakeries in Madrid to stop them from being looted by starving residents. 63 On 11 December, Stohrer informed the German Foreign Ministry that he had seen people fainting in the streets of the capital because of hunger and reiterated that Spain's needs were so great that German aid was not a viable option, since it would disrupt its war machine. 64 The full measure of Spain's requirements had been outlined clearly to Hitler by Serrano Suñer as early 19 November, when he had stated that Spain relied on British supplies to feed itself, and that although 400,000 tonnes of Canadian wheat had arrived in the past two months, it still fell short of the country's one-million-ton food deficit. Hitler simply retorted that supplies would be forthcoming once Spain had joined the Axis. 65 In December, Germany officially requested passage across Spain as part of an invasion of Gibraltar, but Franco refused and Operation Felix, the planned attack upon Gibraltar, was abandoned later that month. 66
In truth, the Franco regime was already consumed by an internal social war against the constituencies that had supported the Second Republic. The Estado Novo's diplomatic and secret police agents in Spain, as well as the Fiscal Guard at the border, produced many extensive and accurate dispatches detailing the scale of the Spanish famine. For instance, the predicament of the poor left the Portuguese consul in Huelva ‘truly moved’. On 7 January 1941, he went to distribute goods among Portuguese inmates at the local penitentiary only to discover: the distressing condition of those who find themselves abandoned by their families and are fed by the Spanish state that, in the circumstances of true hunger that the province endures, provides them with almost nothing. Some are seriously debilitated, and two of them are almost naked. A few days ago, one has died of avitaminosis – this is how doctors classify hunger-related deaths – and others are in precarious health conditions. I will try by all means possible to remedy the terrible and inhumane state in which they find themselves.
67
We could go on without needing to beg our friendly [neighbouring] country – Portugal – for a bit of bread to eat, and all of this because of our government, for all we need to remedy our hunger is being exported to Germany and Italy.
69
The end of Spain's imperial dream turned the issue of food supplies into a priority for the Franco regime. In contrast to the Generalísimo's indifferent reply to Teotónio Pereira's offer of food relief in July 1940, by 14 December the Caudillo's own brother and ambassador to Portugal, Nicolás Franco, spoke openly of Spain's ‘great need for [Portuguese] colonial products’. 71 A new window of opportunity thus opened for the Estado Novo to influence the Franco regime, with the scope of options clearly outlined by the information passed on by Portuguese military, police and diplomatic agents. Nonetheless, Salazar continued to base his policy on the principle that Franco was committed to neutrality. He reiterated this point on 8 November, when he confided to Armindo Monteiro that Britain was to blame for international tensions for having refused to ‘give everything plus smiles’ from the outset, that is to say food supplies to Spain without any demands attached. Salazar confessed he had ‘meditated deeply’ on the subject, only to reach the same conclusion, namely that Spain's entry into the war would come ‘[n]ot because the facts allow us to assume a policy of cynicism towards Portugal on the part of the Generalísimo’, but as a result of ‘an irresistible external force [the Axis]’. Based on this erroneous premise, Salazar maintained that Portugal ‘should continue the same policy towards Spain’, as its serves ‘a supporting role for Spain's resistance to an aggressive action against us’. 72
On 29 December, Teotónio Pereira made clear to Eccles that Salazar's foreign policy was to provide unconditional aid to Spain rather than face the uncertain future that would follow the country's economic collapse. 73 Salazar's fears that Spain could enter the war out of desperation – a view shared by both the British and American ambassadors to Spain in October and November respectively (but who never went as far as to call for aid to be handed over unconditionally) – were unfounded since Franco lacked both the food and fuel stockpiles needed to engage in a protracted conflict. 74 The Portuguese had been aware of this since at least 24 September, when Spain's subsecretary of Commerce informed Teotónio Pereira that Franco ‘had been told that we literally have nothing to eat and that there are no reserves in storage’, adding that Spain's food deficit stood at ‘between 800,000 and one million tonnes and as for gasoline, the last reserves were being used up’. 75
In March 1941, Tovar de Lemos, Director-General for Economic and Consular Affairs, who had arrived in Madrid with a remit to expand trade relations with Spain, was again told the truth by Demetrio Carceller, Spain's Minister of Industry and Commerce, who stated bluntly: ‘It is not a question of wanting or not wanting: Spain, in its current state, could not enter the war without triggering an indescribable disaster’. 76 Serrano Suñer had stated as much bluntly to Hitler a month earlier, noting ‘Spain cannot enter the war at the present time because it has not yet fully recovered from its trials. We are short of wheat, we lack transport. We cannot throw ourselves into an adventure which could upset our economy and disrupt our civil order’. 77 These were no overstatements. On 9 March, the Portuguese ascertained that Spain's wheat consumption had been reduced to less than 50 per cent of its pre-1940 average. 78
The flight-to-war scenario projected by Salazar was not only unrealistic, but the Portuguese dictator should have been fully conscious of this fact, not least because food shortages were starting to be felt even by Portugal's diplomatic elites in Spain. On 12 January 1941, Teotónio Pereira informed Salazar that ‘living conditions in Spain are so difficult and the lack of basic necessities so great’ that he refused food rations in favour of importing supplies directly from Portugal. 79 Malnutrition-related epidemics were also an omnipresent risk. In February 1942, Teotónio Pereira himself fell seriously ill with diphtheria and had to convalesce in Portugal. 80 Some diplomats saw the chaotic situation as an opportunity to accumulate wealth, such as the Portuguese consul in Huelva, who was accused of smuggling goods from Portugal to Spain. 81 Others were less fortunate. On 14 December 1941, for example, the consul in Málaga requested to be transferred because he could no longer tolerate his living conditions. He pointed out that he had been in post since 1938 ‘with great personal sacrifice due to the lack of means to live decorously’. His situation had since become so dire, due to the ‘the scarcity of basic goods, as is widely known’, that he was twice forced to request an emergency subsidy. 82 For his part, the consul in Badajoz, a mere five kilometres from the Portuguese border, produced a shocking dispatch on 25 October 1942. He requested authorization to import goods from Portugal because he had been ‘[s]truggling to obtain certain foodstuffs’. He proceeded to present a harrowing depiction of life in the border city. The monthly rationing quota was sufficient to feed people for just one week. His report was substantiated by Francoist statistical data. In the province of Almería, for example, daily rations would only amount to 917.5 calories in 1943. 83 Not surprisingly, the consul concluded, ‘everyone survives by living above the law, acquiring what is indispensable but which they lack at fabulous prices on the black market, since many things, such as butter, potatoes, pasta, bacon, and soap have almost completely disappeared.’ The consul stressed that his family had endured ‘genuine hardships’, such as only being allowed to buy meat once per week, and some of his meals consisted of a vegetable soup, toast, a piece of fruit and some tea imported from Portugal. Nonetheless, he also acknowledged that he was part of a privileged class, since widespread food shortages and corruption ‘prevents people with limited resources, that is, the vast majority, from feeding themselves adequately’. There were, however, ‘those who, invoking natural law, supply themselves clandestinely’. 84 In Franco's Spain, hunger served to reaffirm ‘natural’ class hierarchies by granting the wealthy privileged access to, as well as control of, the profitable black market. 85
Contrary to Salazar's belief that Franco desired neutrality, on 8 January 1941 ambassador Stohrer acknowledged that Spain had only accepted Allied aid after failing to secure assistance from Germany. 86 In September, Carceller was sent to Germany to obtain approval for Spain's acceptance of Allied food relief. 87 Impervious to evidence, Salazar remained unimpressed by the Anglo-American carrot-and-stick approach and yet again tried to pressure Britain into handing unconditional aid to Spain. In a meeting with Eccles on 16 January 1941, he ‘expressed his hope that facilities would be granted, allowing for the export of raw materials from Portugal's colonies to Spain […] regardless of the export of olive oil [from Spain] to Germany’. On 10 February, the British replied that their position would remain unaltered as long as Spain continued selling olive oil to the Axis. Salazar then met Nicolás Franco that same day to inform him of Britain's negative response to his appeal. 88 A week later, Salazar expressed his exasperation with British intransigence in a letter to Teotónio Pereira: ‘The humiliations to which they [the British] subject Spanish pride, the obsessive manner in which they apply the blockade […] can only generate negative outcomes’, as Spain continues to ‘resist military pressure’ coming from Germany. 89 The fact that the dictator expressed such views confidentially to his officials, and not simply for the consumption of Allied diplomats, suggests strongly that these were his genuine beliefs.
The Portuguese dictator's warped perception of reality was certainly not helped by a deeply reactionary and sycophantic diplomatic corps where, with notable exceptions, ideological loyalty was favoured over competence. A study of 4 March produced by consul Anselmo Crespo concluded that Portugal had thus far pursued ‘a brilliant policy’ while Spain strove to ‘maintain, possibly against Axis pressure, its neutrality’. 90 Within days, on 9 March another report produced by an unnamed diplomatic agent, while acknowledging that Spain had been exporting olive oil to Italy, still managed to reach the verdict that ‘[t]here is no doubt that a good part of the blame lies with the Spaniards, but the greatest share must rest with the English because of their petty impositions’. 91 The underlying message, outlined by Salazar to Eccles back in January, was that Spain had always intended to remain neutral and that Britain should offer assistance without seeking any assurances. In other words, it was British inflexibility that had been driving Franco into the orbit of the Axis.
Rather than representing a sudden change of heart, Franco's growing prudence in foreign affairs in truth reflected his regime's impotence to solve a crisis of its own making, which was by now compelling Portugal to adopt even more radical measures. In March 1941, the head of the Directorate-General of Health for the border town of Elvas ordered the Fiscal Guard to exercise extreme vigilance on the border due to the expanding smallpox epidemic in nearby Badajoz. 92 By April, Teotónio Pereira told Salazar that ‘so great is the misery that is everywhere and so significant is what is happening along the Portuguese border’, that bread was being sold in Extremadura for 15 pesetas per kilo (nearly twice the average worker's salary), while Madrid had witnessed a typhus outbreak. In another report, he confirmed that the combination of malnutrition and disease was creating a ‘truly tragic situation’, especially outside the major urban centres, where he had received reports containing ‘excruciating details concerning hunger and misery.’ 93
In October, an epidemic of typhus originating in Galicia had already spread to northern Portugal. 94 The scale of the outbreak was such that, despite Francoism's practice of falsifying death certificates, the regime still registered over 1500 deaths from typhus – described by historian Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco as the ‘disease that defined the Spanish famine’ – between 1941 and 1942. 95
The spread of infectious diseases, as well as the illegal flow of people and goods, compelled the Estado Novo to restrict commerce even further by decreeing that all shops in the Elvas border zone be shut down, starting from 1 April 1941. Henceforth, the type and quantity of goods that could be sold would be determined by the Ministry of the Economy on a weekly basis and these could only be purchased by Spaniards in possession of a special permit issued by the Civil Governor of Badajoz. So serious was the decree that the sinister PVDE was entrusted with enforcing it. Nevertheless, many famished Spaniards continued to enter Portugal illegally in search of foodstuffs.
96
A report produced by the Portuguese Foreign Office on 9 March explained the context. It noted an ‘absolute shortage of some essential foodstuffs’, with devastating repercussions on the Portuguese border: [L]arge groups of people with a miserable appearance [walk] dozens of kilometres and enter Portuguese territory to obtain supplies, in spite of the [Portuguese] repression that is ineffective and sometimes unenforceable given the state of need in which men, women and children find themselves.
Far from basking in imperial glory, several Spanish military units now had to endure the minor humiliation of relying on Portuguese aid. On 19 April, Portugal's Ministry of Economy allowed for 3.5 tonnes of potatoes to be shipped to Spain. On 3 May, another 4 tonnes were sent directly to the Badajoz Cavalry Regiment. 98 The situation was equally desperate in the northern Spanish region of Galicia. According to a confidential PVDE report dated 22 June, the military ‘is experiencing major food shortages’. The PVDE agent also overheard people commenting that if the situation did not improve, they would have no choice but to revolt. The fact they had not already done so was only because ‘a large proportion of the population that lives in the border areas, and even beyond, is being supplied with foodstuffs that cross this border daily’. He added that the ‘misery that is spreading across a vast area and is increasing day by day, generates heartbreaking scenes and unfavourable comments’, stating that: ‘Franco has told us that there would not be a family without bread, but we see that hunger, misery and tragedy reign in every household, creating a country full of consumptives, as well as withering the race.’ The report also confirmed that prison doctors had been instructed to falsify the death certificates of inmates who had succumbed to malnourishment. Meanwhile, surviving prisoners, maddened by hunger, shouted to their guards: ‘[t]ell Franco that death by firing squad is better than dying slowly of hunger’. By August 1941, bread was being sold at between 10 to 12 pesetas per kilo in Galicia and, the following month, a bar of soap would cost 25 pesetas and a litre of olive oil 30 pesetas on the black market. Meanwhile, stockpiles of potatoes were rotting in warehouses in Orense because the local Civil Governor had prevented supplies from leaving the province. Not surprisingly, the agent also heard Spaniards saying: ‘[s]ince they don’t give [foodstuffs] to us in Spain, we have to come to Portugal’. 99
The problem for the Estado Novo, of course, was that contraband was starting to have a crippling effect on the Portuguese economy, namely, on inflation and food supplies. By August, sugar, codfish and rice were scarce in the northern border town of Valença do Minho, while corn had all but disappeared from local markets. 100 Only a handful of the two-hundred Portuguese traders that used to sell bread, rice, sugar and eggs remained in nearby Tuy ‘since the Portuguese did not authorize the export of those products, some of which are becoming very scarce’. 101 Others were simply blocked from working in an attempt to stop smuggling. The PVDE concluded, however, that such blanket prohibitions imposed by the regime effectively rendered many people jobless, especially ‘impoverished women, with many children and whose miserable life leads us to conclude that they profit nothing from their trade across the border’. 102
The growing desperation on the part of the Portuguese authorities was echoed in the increasing apocalyptic tone of the orders sent to the Fiscal Guard. For instance, on 3 August 1941 this paramilitary force was described as ‘an extremely important factor for our existence in these serious times when normal conditions of sustenance are becoming scarce’.
103
There was an evident risk that the frequent – and growing – border tensions, especially those involving Spanish military personnel, could spiral out of control. This was stated explicitly as early as March in a report that was passed on to Salazar himself. It offered a comprehensive and graphic depiction of the devastating consequences of Franco's domestic and foreign policy: We have long noticed the arrival along the entire border of a large influx of Spaniards – men, women and children – who seek to purchase foodstuffs that are scarce in their country. Lately and especially in recent days, this influx has been excessive and groups have entered our territory illegally despite the repression that has been exercised by the [Portuguese] authorities. On the Montalvão border, close to Castelo de Vide, for example, large groups of Spaniards are concentrated there with the intention of entering Portugal, saying that they are hungry and that, therefore, the Portuguese have an obligation to provide them with food, because they fed them during the Great War. And that, as soon as the waters of the River Sever lower, they will try to enter our territory at whatever the cost, even if means being shot dead. In Campo Maior, Elvas and Arronches, many individuals have appeared in an appalling condition, while half-naked children have also been found [in Portugal] begging for alms. In Arronches, Spanish women give themselves to any man in exchange for a loaf of bread. And there are individuals coming from as far as Mérida, tormented by hunger. From the Minho region, we have received information that Spanish military officers are entering Portugal in search of food. For now, and as long as they are not arrested by the [Portuguese] authorities, they [the military] are getting traders to sell them goods, but it is to be expected that these people, as soon as they run out of money, will take aggressive actions, which could reach serious and grave proportions.
104
Portuguese Help and Hunger
Contrary to Salazar's perception of Franco as a reliable partner, the Generalísimo regarded Portugal as a diplomatic asset to be manipulated. Accordingly, Franco ignored several Portuguese offers to meet with Salazar while he still contemplated joining the Axis in early 1941. It was not until December that Franco finally agreed to a meeting in the hope of reaching out to the Allies to gain access to much-needed US oil. 105 The July 1940 tripartite agreement was only implemented in full once the threat of war spreading to the Iberian Peninsula was seen as unlikely, and even then was rather modest in scale. Portuguese exports to Spain, for example, accounted for just 1.64 per cent and 1.93 per cent of total exports in 1941 and 1942 respectively. 106 In 1941, 30,000 tonnes of colonial products from Angola were bound for Spain, corresponding to 7 per cent of Angola's exports. In 1944 and 1945 figures would reach 70,000 tonnes (11 per cent of exports) and 56,000 tonnes (9 per cent of exports) respectively. From Mozambique, Spain went from importing a mere 3 per cent of the colony's products in 1940 to 4 per cent in 1941, but only 2 per cent in 1942. 107
Bizarrely, on 22 November 1940, Tovar de Lemos informed Spain's diplomatic representation in Lisbon of ‘our willingness to continue, as far as possible, to supply Spain with colonial products. The Tripartite Agreement is practically exhausted, but the goodwill of the Portuguese Government in helping Spain is not’. 108 This amounted to a major bluff, and Salazar was clearly aware of it. First, because of his habit of concentrating the decision-making process on himself and using his subalterns as mere representatives, Tovar's offer certainly came from Salazar, who also served as Portugal's Foreign Minister at the time. 109 Second, on 22 December, Salazar confessed to Teotónio Pereira that ‘Spain's needs [are] so great that they can only be satisfied by Britain’. 110 The dictator's anxiety was understandable not least because he had exasperated the British to the point that Eccles told the Portuguese Foreign Office on 5 December that London was unwilling to fund another deal, since Portugal was trying to sell its products at an inflated price. 111 No explanation was ever provided for the making of an offer that could never be honoured. A reasonable hypothesis would be to assume that Salazar hoped that by presenting a gesture of goodwill that he would never be called upon to fulfil, he would gain an advantage over Franco to consolidate his plans for a Latin bloc.
The favour was indeed called in a few months later, however, resulting in diplomatic embarrassment. On 10 March 1941, Spain proposed raising Portuguese credit to nearly two million pounds (£1,922,500). 112 Tensions came rapidly to a head in a meeting on 11 June to ‘quantify Portugal's ability to finance Spain’. The Portuguese representative told the Spanish delegation point blank that their request could not be met. Portugal could not export lard and beans from the metropolis (only colonial beans), nor could it satisfy Spain's need for peanut oil. The only requirements that could be accepted were those concerning sisal, castor bean seeds and copra. Two days later, the Portuguese added that they could only sell a maximum of £900,000 worth of colonial products (which excluded several that Spain had identified as essential imports), while maintaining that Portugal could not afford to grant such a large amount of credit. The Portuguese delegation then took the liberty of suggesting that Spain should export goods to Portugal to offset costs, and even presented a list of products to their counterparts. The Spanish delegation was mortified. On 14 June, the Portuguese now declared that they could sell up to 20,000 tonnes of peanuts (which amounted to 7000 tonnes of oil) – and this ‘by sacrificing [Portugal's] internal market’ – and that without any foreign involvement Portugal could not grant more than £450,000 of credit, a fraction of the original Spanish request. One Portuguese delegate could not help but note ‘a certain air of despondency’ in his Spanish colleague, so much so that he proposed involving Britain in negotiations, to which Spain's representative replied: ‘[i]t is in no way repugnant to my country to continue to be financed by England’, for ‘every single pound that the English grant Spain for its resupply would satiate a hungry mouth’, and that ‘such a balance of interests [between the Allies and the Axis] would suit Spain politically’. In view of Franco's pro-Axis stance, such statements can only be regarded as either a cynical attempt to curry favour with the Portuguese or, alternatively, an acknowledgement of powerlessness that corroborated Carceller's aforementioned statement to Tovar in March of that year. Ultimately, no British involvement was required. On 16 June, the Spanish delegation presented two lists, the first, considered to be ‘an aspiration’, amounting to £995,000, the second, ‘a realistic compromise’, worth £499,000. The second option prevailed and on 26 June a trade deal was signed. Portugal conceded a credit of 50,000,000 escudos that was used to purchase 20,000 tonnes of corn, 15,000 of copra, 3,000 of beans, 3,000 of sisal, 1,500 of castor oil beans and 300 of palm oil. The Spanish delegation stressed the country's urgent need to obtain copra and beans as quickly as possible. It was also agreed that all products were to be exported by 30 June 1942. 113
The volume of Spain's needs was indeed immense and proportionate to the failure of fascist autarky. In 1942, the Portuguese consulate in Madrid informed Salazar that Spain's food exports had decreased sharply from 67 per cent of total exports between 1931 and 1936 to 33.5 per cent in 1941, because of the imperative need to feed its population, whose diet had been ‘very much reduced’. 114 A second study concluded that Spain's food imports had increased from 7 per cent of total imports between 1933 and 1935 to 39 per cent in 1941. In 1940, 96 million pesetas were spent on wheat imports alone, and Spain was now importing traditional export products, such as rice and sugar. In 1941, Spain had imported 4,485,436 kilos of wheat and 2,564,305 kilos of corn. These figures decreased in 1942 due to better harvests, but they were still shocking: 3,055,347 kilos of wheat and 665,794 kilos of corn. 115 Demonstrably, Portugal's diplomatic corps was conscious of the nature and urgency of Spain's requirements, which represented a unique opportunity for the Estado Novo to exert a degree of influence over its neighbour, now that Franco's dreams of empire had become a mirage. However, the relatively parsimonious level of Portuguese exports to Spain precluded any possibility of Salazar seriously impacting Franco's foreign policy.
What Salazar failed to clarify in his correspondence with Teotónio Pereira in December 1940 were the reasons that prevented the Estado Novo from fulfilling its stated ambition of providing unconditional aid to Spain. Portugal was faced with the problem of its own food insecurity, which was exacerbated by poor harvests, the existence of a black market and the smuggling of food products across the border to Spain. Compared to the period 1936–1938, Portugal increased its wheat imports by 234 per cent in 1940, 572 per cent in 1944 and 545 per cent in 1945. 116 With most of the population living in poverty, the Estado Novo's priority was to keep the price of bread low to avoid a repeat of the food riots that had destabilised the First Republic of 1910–1926. This would in turn hamper any efforts to supply food to Spain. Unsurprisingly, on 6 December 1941 the Portuguese Foreign Office informed its Spanish counterpart that it was now unable to sell the amount of cattle promised in an agreement signed back in May. 117
Whatever his thoughts on the war and his ability to influence Franco, Salazar's plan for internal politics was clear, namely to avoid the imposition of rationing for as long as possible, combat inflation and reward the economic elites who sustained his regime through low taxes. Accordingly, the profits of the 67 largest Portuguese companies increased 115 per cent between 1934 and 1946 and Portugal's GDP increased 27 per cent between 1938 and 1946. 118 In contrast, in 1934 the average urban worker spent 83 per cent of his salary on foodstuffs, and this was only made possible because he would purchase the cheapest products available, which accounted in part for the country's high infant mortality rate. 119 Two years later, the director of the paediatric health clinic of Castelo Branco reported that childcare assistance in the country was so deficient that a ‘large proportion of Portuguese children die as a result of hunger and ignorance’. Around 75 per cent of children treated in his institution were ‘weak, rickety, abandoned, hungry, miserable’. In 1938, a doctor in north-western city of Viana do Castelo came to a similar conclusion. She had treated 1000 children only to ascertain that 72.5 per cent were malnourished. Their mothers were also ‘dirty, hungry, dressed in rags, poorly-fed pregnant women, already full of children, and their rooms, true burrows’. 120 Even so, the urban proletariat was considered to be privileged compared to rural day-labourers, who would often be reduced to begging in order to alleviate hunger. 121 These already dreadful living conditions were eroded further after the outbreak of the Second World War, as Salazar decreed wage freezes and an increase in working hours. When inflation and rationing eventually hit in the winter of 1941–1942, the outcome was the first wave of strikes and riots in Portugal in over a decade. 122 The Lisbon region was hit by starvation and stray dogs disappeared from the streets as the authorities encouraged residents to raise poultry and rabbits on balconies. 123 Meanwhile, there was an explosion of rural unrest, most of which was triggered by hunger, with 19 riots in 1941, 11 in 1942, 29 in 1943 and 43 in 1944. 124
The appalling situation of Portugal's working-classes was corroborated by a number of studies carried out in the early 1940s. In the Minho region, for example, a 1943 inquiry ascertained that the average household endured ‘a life bordering on misery’. 125 In the Douro region, a study carried out a year earlier (1942) established that most rural labourers endured calorific deficiencies. Their diet was based on corn bread occasionally supplemented by salted sardines, potatoes and cabbage. In 1944, the poorest strata of the peasantry in the Barroso region spent 87 per cent of its salary on food. In southern Portugal, the picture was equally bleak. In the Amareleja area, 70 per cent of the salary of a day-labourer was spend on buying food in 1941. Not surprisingly, these southern day-labourers suffered an animal protein deficiency of 89 per cent and only consumed 36 per cent of essential fats. With the average worker consuming only 72 per cent of the required daily calories, the report determined that most barely survived in a state of malnourishment. 126
These studies merely confirmed the obvious, namely that Salazar's domestic policies were as inadequate as they were ideologically motivated. The dictatorship was founded, and continued to rely throughout its long existence, on the support of Portugal's social and economic oligarchy, achieved through the crushing of labour rights, the absence of social welfare and an economy based on extreme austerity. Although the regime had succeeded in imposing such measures, they ensured that the country remained vulnerable to the slightest economic upheaval. To exacerbate matters, when the crisis did hit in 1941, Salazar instinctively sought not only to shield the wealthy, but also to create an economic climate in which they could prosper ever further, which he attained through intimidation and violence. Under such circumstances, Salazar could not afford to step-up economic aid to Franco and was left with no other option (since he refused to consider embracing the Anglo-American carrot-and-stick strategy) but to attempt to pressure Great Britain, in his own words, to ‘give everything plus smiles’ to Spain. Failure to do so meant that Salazar was unable to fulfil his own foreign policy ambitions, namely to bring Spain into Portugal's orbit with the objective of forging a neutral Latin Bloc that would arise as a power in the post-war era.
Conclusion
This article has presented new insights into the scale and nature of the Spanish famine, as well as the Portuguese Estado Novo's response to it. In so doing, it has also dissected Portugal's own social and economic troubles and the range of foreign policy options available to Salazar. Throughout 1939 to 1942, Portugal's military, police and diplomatic agents closely monitored rapidly changing social and political developments in Spain, producing extensive documentation that gave a full and harrowing portrayal of the magnitude of the Spanish famine. These reports corroborate the findings of recent Spanish historiography that maintains that General Franco was fully aware of the scale of famine conditions within Spain but still refused foreign aid on ideological grounds, thus prioritizing his own imperial designs over the survival of his own population. Furthermore, they reveal that Spain's international isolation was never total, and that mass hunger was instead aggravated by a combination of corruption, mismanagement and the pursuit of autarky. Finally, they shed further light on its consequences, including the movement into Portugal of thousands of starving Spaniards, both civilians and military, in search of foodstuffs, and the reliance of entire Spanish regions on Portuguese aid for survival, thus exposing what amounted to a societal collapse in several border areas.
As for Portuguese foreign policy vis-à-vis Spain during the critical years of 1939–1942, that is, simultaneously the period of the Spanish famine and the period when Spain came closest to joining the Axis, it can be divided in two broad phases. The first phase, ranging from the outbreak of the Second World War until October 1940, was conditioned by Salazar's earlier decision to support General Franco during the Spanish Civil War under the erroneous premise that the Estado Novo was gaining a valuable ally. On the contrary, Francoist Spain emerged from its internal crusade nurturing an imperial hunger that also encompassed Portugal. So long as Franco's imperial project remained a possibility, there was very little Portugal could have done to influence the Generalísimo. If anything, Salazar's refusal to acknowledge Spain's predatory ambitions towards his own country only increased Portugal's vulnerability, as neither long- nor short-term preparations were made to establish an effective deterrent. Portuguese integrity was eventually secured by Germany's refusal to supply its Spanish ally. This, combined with Germany's decision to shift the bulk of its war effort eastwards and the aggravation of the Spanish famine, opened a new window of opportunity for Portugal, but Salazar's actions were severely restricted by his own ideological prejudices.
Throughout this second phase, commencing in late 1940, the Estado Novo was aware that food scarcity was undermining support for Francoism. Moreover, mass starvation in Spain was also impacting Portugal's economy and food security. Widespread misery on the Portuguese side of the border had impelled many locals to join the contraband industry, while hunger in Spain drove thousands into Portugal. A genuine fear of border clashes prevented the Estado Novo from adopting more extreme repressive measures, especially given that several Spanish military garrisons relied on Portuguese supplies. Meanwhile, this was a clear indication of Portugal's growing influence on Spain's internal affairs. At this stage, Salazar found himself in a position where he could have refused to assist Spain and contribute to the erosion of a regime that had posed a serious risk not only to Portugal's foreign policy interests, but also to its own sovereignty. Alternatively, Salazar could have committed Portugal to the Anglo-American food-for-neutrality programme and contributed to bringing Spain into the Allied sphere of influence. However, Portugal's dictator had always, and against all evidence, regarded Franco to be a trustworthy partner.
Besides, Salazar also had his own imperial ambitions. The dictator hoped that the war would end with a negotiated settlement between the Allies and the Axis, followed by the eradication of the USSR and the rise of an authoritarian Latin bloc, in which he would become a key leader. This goal, coupled with Salazar's false beliefs regarding Franco's aims, meant that the Portuguese dictator neither fully grasped, nor supported, the Anglo-American carrot-and-stick plan. As such, he consistently pushed for aid to be granted unconditionally to this most valuable ally. The Portuguese dictator also attempted to gain greater leverage with the Franco regime by offering to supply Spain, despite being aware that he was unable to do so. In reality, Portugal's economy had been debilitated by a decade of austerity that had benefitted its social and economic elites, but which also sentenced the majority of the population to extreme poverty and made the country susceptible to economic crises. When living conditions became unbearable, the Estado Novo's repressive apparatus shielded the regime, but Portugal was in no position to increase aid to Spain. Ultimately, Salazar's ambitions of both influencing Spain's foreign policy and building a Latin bloc were undermined by both his short-term diplomatic actions and his long-term domestic policies. As for Franco, his hunger for empire was tempered by a very real, and devastating, famine.
