by Ronald Weber
Of course declaring neutrality was not the same as having it observed by the belligerents. Hitler’s position was rhetorically straightforward: those not for Nazi Germany were against it. In practical terms, Portugal’s freedom ultimately rested on the perception of both Berlin and London that having the Portuguese out of the conflict was of more benefit than having them in.
The British wished for a position of benevolent neutrality under the alliance but accepted that Portuguese neutrality in any form was better than having the country in league with Germany or needing protection under the alliance at a time when Britain, fighting for its own life, was in no position to provide it. (With the fall of France and German troops on the Spanish border, Britain’s ambassador to Portugal, Walford Selby, realized he “could not appeal for assistance of any kind from home.” He could only advise members of the large English communities in Lisbon and Porto to stay put and “in no circumstances add to the alarm and confusion by flying about in all directions in search of refuge and escape.” He also pointed out that, owing to Nazi Germany’s lack of respect for diplomatic immunity, the embassy could not be regarded as a safe house “if the worst happened.”) The British also hoped that Portuguese neutrality might also aid in keeping Spain clear of the conflict, a consistent British and Anglo-American wartime policy.
For the Reich, neutrality was acceptable if it was what Foreign Minister Ribbentrop termed “impeccable neutrality,” Germany’s important trade with mainland Portugal and the colonies remained open, and Portugal did not appeal to the British alliance. The day before the Nazi invasion of Poland, Ribbentrop instructed the German legation in Lisbon to stress to the Portuguese government that Germany would not allow any such appeal. In his dissembling response to the German minister, Salazar maintained that the pact placed his country “under no obligation whatever to render assistance, not even in the case of a defensive war,” and he could not see “the slightest reason which might compel Portugal in the future to render assistance.” At the same time he was bowing to Ribbentrop, Salazar was assuring the British ambassador in Lisbon that Portugal’s neutrality would be benevolent toward Britain, and shortly thereafter he publicly proclaimed Portuguese “friendship and complete fidelity to the English Alliance.”
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With the fall of France and German divisions at the Pyrenees, Spain was the immediate threat to Portugal’s neutrality. Among the ways Salazar promoted his country’s noninvolvement was with the idea that Europe at war needed zones of peace since, as he stated, “it will be with such peace reserves that future peace will be built.” In the early years of the war he apparently believed there would be no clear-cut winner or loser. The end would come with a compromise settlement followed by a postwar European realignment in which the Iberian peninsula, as one of the peace zones, could be in position to play a central role.
This assumed Franco also stayed outside the war. He had declared neutrality after the German invasion of Poland, but a decided tilt toward the Reich—among other things, Spain would allow the resupplying of German submarines from her ports—left Portugal wondering how long Spain would stay even technically uninvolved. The two countries had signed a friendship and nonaggression treaty after the Spanish Civil War and an added protocol in 1940 in which Madrid and Lisbon pledged to consult in the event of security threats. Spain’s abrupt switch to “nonbelligerence” in June 1940—a wartime status not recognized by international law but effectively a step toward support for the Axis—added fuel to Portugal’s concern. (In October 1943, the winds of war now favoring the Allies, Spain returned to a formal position of neutrality.)
Salazar had kept a neutral stance during the civil war, though his unyielding opposition to the Soviet Union and international communism had allied him with Franco and the Nationalist cause. When Hitler intervened on the Nationalist side in July 1936, Portugal quickly and openly became a supply depot for German arms on their way into Spain. The Reich’s post–civil war influence in Spain had, however, disturbing implications. Germany’s swallowing up neighboring Austria was a particular warning of what might be in store for Portugal from German-backed Spain.
Following the defeat of France and the meeting of Franco and Hitler in October 1940 (Salazar and Hitler never met), Mussolini’s Italy invaded Greece. Subsequently the prospect of parallel war emerged in Madrid. French Morocco beckoned, but Hitler had ruled out a Spanish incursion. That left Portugal, as the historian Stanley G. Payne has put it, as “Spain’s Greece.” Hitler had not opposed an attack that, presumably, Madrid could at least initiate with its own military capability.
A plan set out in a 130-page study ordered by Franco called for a swift assault to reach Lisbon and the Atlantic coast. The cover for this obvious act of aggression would be a statement from Madrid about a “delicate situation” existing in Portugal that was being exploited by Britain and required Spanish action. The invasion would trigger the Anglo-Portuguese alliance and bring into the situation British air and sea power, negating Spanish troop superiority and requiring Axis military aid, which might or might not be forthcoming. In the event of success, it also demanded of Spain the continuing defense of Portugal’s Atlantic coastline.
The planned conquest of Portugal never went beyond the paper of the report, and if a plan at all it was part of broader Spanish ambition that embraced British Gibraltar and French Morocco. While the scheme was still being put together, the Italian attack on Greece turned into a quagmire requiring German intervention, and for the moment Spanish military action on all fronts was held in check.
Still, there remained the possibility of German intervention in Portugal with or without Spanish involvement. Soon after meeting Franco at Hendaye, Hitler signed off on Operation Felix, a plan meant to drive the British out of Gibraltar, close the Straits, occupy French North Africa, and effectively turn the Western Mediterranean into an Axis-controlled lake. At a later stage of the operation, a German armored division and a motorized infantry division would screen off Portugal from Spain and, if required, invade the country. At the time, press reports out of Washington said Germany was clearly “telegraphing” the drive, and headlines blared that the “Nazi Iberian Drive Is Expected Soon” and that “Berlin Push Through Spain and Portugal into French North Africa Forecast.”
When Franco resisted joining the operation and Hitler’s attention turned to the east and Russia, Felix was shelved and ultimately abandoned. A less ambitious German plan in May 1941, Operation Isabella, called for the occupation of important Spanish and Portuguese ports to forestall possible British landings on the peninsula intended, among other things, to enhance the range and efficiency of its air and naval forces. A following plan, Ilona, excluded Portugal but called for German occupation of nearby northern Spanish ports to protect the Atlantic coastline. Well into the wartime years Portugal remained wary of German intentions. But with Hitler’s thrust into Russia in June 1941 (of which Salazar heartily approved, though not to Franco’s high point of collaboration in putting his so-called Blue Division of some 45,000 troops into the conflict, of whom some 5,000 were killed), and with Italy now on German hands, the threat of any offensive incursion was reduced.
With the Anglo-American landings in North Africa in November 1942, and especially the British victory at El Alamein in Egypt, the perceived threat to Portuguese neutrality switched from a Nazi attack to Allied operations extending to the Iberian peninsula and German defensive responses. Although the war had now come close, both Churchill and Roosevelt assured Portugal that the country’s neutrality would not be broached, nor would Spain’s. Yet as late as the summer of 1943 top-level American military officers had discussed with Roosevelt the merits of invading Europe through Portugal and Spain rather than across the English Channel. Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s chief of staff, thought the “Iberian route might be less expensive in casualty lists as well as in material.” But with the landings in Sicily that same month, Salazar could begin to have confidence that the peninsula had no plac
e in Allied invasion plans.
Hitler, on the other hand, clung to the possibility of the Allies opening a second European front in Portugal. American experts had long been reading diplomatic traffic between Berlin and Tokyo, and in early 1944 they recorded an exchange between the Japanese ambassador to Germany, Hiroshi Oshima, and the Führer about the front’s likely location:
Oshima: Does your Excellency have any idea where they might land?
Hitler: Honestly, I can say no more than that I do not know. For a second front, beyond any doubt, the most effective area would be the Straits of Dover, but to land there would require great readiness and its difficulty would be great. Consequently, I don’t think the enemy would run such a risk. On the other hand, along the Bordeaux coast and in Portugal, the defenses are relatively weak, so this zone might be a possibility.
Oshima: When you say Portugal, do you have any basis for suspecting something there?
Hitler: No, only I consider it a theoretical possibility and we Germans are preparing for any event, with air bases and submarines. We Germans have plenty of plans, and listen, I don’t want you to say anything about them to a living soul.
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Wartime developments on the battlefield brought inevitable shifts in Portuguese public opinion about who would come out on top, with the country’s management of its neutrality shifting accordingly from collaboration with the British to something more evenhanded to, for a brief while, a swing toward Germany. At the same time wartime events opened long and bitter disputes within the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, deeply straining the relationship. A continuing irritant on Portugal’s side was Britain’s enforcement of the sea blockade, which obliged Portuguese exporters (and those of other neutral nations) to apply to British consuls for navicerts that certified ships were not carrying contraband cargo. Vessels intercepted at sea without the documents were liable to be seized as prizes of war. Portuguese imports were equally controlled by the navicert system, which allowed needed domestic supplies to enter the country but tried to prevent a buildup of stores that might be reshipped to the enemy. Despite repeated Portuguese cries that the blockade infringed on both its neutrality and sovereignty, it remained in place.
A notable low point in Anglo-Portuguese relations came in December 1941 when an Allied force of about 350 Dutch and Australian troops entered the island possession of Timor in the Far East to resist a presumed Japanese invasion. War had made the island, divided between the Dutch and the Portuguese, strategically important, and Dutch and Australian troops were already stationed on the Dutch part of the island. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Dutch chargé d’affaires in Lisbon offered Portugal the aid of the troops, and Salazar, ever mindful of Portuguese neutrality, responded that Portugal would accept help only after the Japanese struck the island. The troops did not wait, and over objection by the governor of Portuguese Timor the possession was occupied.
After Salazar complained that Portuguese sovereignty had been breached, Britain expressed official regret over the Allied action and said troops would withdraw if Portuguese reinforcements arrived. Portugal mustered a force of some seven hundred men at Lourenço Marques, but before it could arrive Japan settled the issue by invading both Portuguese and Dutch Timor. The Japanese minister in Lisbon explained that the action was necessary to drive out “foreign troops”; Japan’s troops, in any event, held the island for the duration of the war. Hugh Muir reported that German legation and consular officials in Lisbon were downcast that Salazar’s irritation over the violation of Portuguese rights in Timor had not reached the boiling point of ending the alliance with Britain.
A greater challenge to Portugal’s neutral-yet-Allied status arose over British and, after the United States joined the war, American use of the string of Portuguese islands some 800 miles out in the Atlantic and a third of the way from Lisbon to New York. Collectively known as the Azores and an integral part of Portugal rather than a colonial possession, the nine volcanic outposts, mountainous but with lush fertile areas and 250,000 inhabitants, had strategic air and naval importance and were coveted by both warring sides.
Following the landings in North Africa and Sicily, and with the cross-Channel invasion ahead, the Allies stepped up pressure on Portugal for military use of the islands. Britain led the way in negotiations through its ambassador in Lisbon, Ronald Campbell. Salazar repeatedly deflected his requests, typically distinguishing between the British actually invoking the Anglo-Portuguese alliance or only appealing to its spirit. Difficult enough in themselves, the Azores talks were conducted against a background of the prime minister’s lingering annoyance over the Timor incident.
In the United States the State Department supported the British effort for base rights in the Azores during talks with the Portuguese ambassador to Washington. In April 1943 the United States also assigned Vernon A. Walters (later an army lieutenant general, deputy director of the CIA, and holder of many diplomatic posts, including ambassador to the United Nations) to accompany two Portuguese military officers on a two-month inspection tour of American wartime production facilities. The officers had recently visited the Eastern Front in Europe and were much impressed by German military might. The purpose of the journey with Walters, who had a command of the Portuguese language, was to put what they had seen in perspective by showcasing American capability and, by implication, how use of the Azores would enhance it. One of the officers doubted the Allies could successfully invade Europe through Germany’s Atlantic wall until, at the Curtiss-Wright factory in Buffalo, he saw C-46 aircraft on the production line, all with tail hooks to tow gliders. As Walters recalled, the officer “looked at me, startled, and said, ‘Now I see you are going over the Atlantic wall.’ ‘Over and through,’ I replied. These hooks greatly impressed him, and he never challenged the fact that we would land in Europe.”
Finally in June 1943 Britain made unmistakably clear that it was invoking the alliance. Prime Minister Churchill had favored a British-American invasion of the islands if the Portuguese failed to turn them over—“simply taking the Azores one fine morning out of the blue and explaining everything to Portugal afterwards,” as he said in a letter. But Anthony Eden, his foreign secretary, and Clement Attlee, a member of the war cabinet, had argued for the alliance as the wiser course, and Churchill had reluctantly gone along. “Salazar’s temperament being what it is,” Eden and Attlee told him, “he is less likely to give way to an ultimatum. We feel it would be better to invoke the Alliance and state our case. If he rejects that he will have shown that the Alliance is of little value.”
For both sides, invoking the alliance was understood as a solemn measure with grave consequences. If Portugal refused the British request, the long record of friendship would be over; if it accepted, it might well be cast into the war on the Allied side. As it turned out, Portuguese refusal was never a possibility, though long and hard bargaining went on before an agreement was reached ceding the bases to Britain in return for guarantees of military aid if Germany retaliated, supplies of war materiel, and protection of Portuguese shipping. The secret talks were concluded in August 1943, but the deal went into effect in October, when British forces entered some of the islands to prepare the military installations.
In the interval there was fear that if news leaked out, Germany would not only loudly protest but also begin attacking Portuguese ships at sea. British vessels bringing troops to the islands would also be vulnerable to assaults by submarines and surface raiders. Such concerns, in any case, kept the Azores agreement from public awareness until four days after the first troops landed. Churchill, informing Parliament on October 12, used a bit of theater to underscore the astonishing endurance of the old agreement that had brought about the accord. In his multivolume history of World War II, he was still savoring his performance that day.
“I have an announcement,” I said, “to make to the House arising out of the treaty signed between this country and Portugal in the year 1373 between His Majesty King Edward II
I and King Ferdinand and Queen Eleanor of Portugal.” I spoke in a level voice, and made a pause to allow the House to take in the date, 1373. As this soaked in, there was something like a gasp. I do not suppose any such continuity of relations between two Powers has ever been, or will ever be, set forth in the ordinary day-to-day work of British diplomacy.
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The American counterpart to Ambassador Campbell during the Azores negotiations was George Kennan. After passing through Lisbon as part of a diplomatic exchange with Germany and then a two-month vacation at home, Kennan was reassigned to Lisbon as counselor of the legation. The American minister at the time, Bert Fish, was a political appointee from Florida who seldom left his Lisbon residence for appearances at the legation’s offices. Kennan’s morning meetings with him were usually held in Fish’s bedroom, where in an armchair the minister spent his time listening to BBC broadcasts and receiving visitors. Despite Fish’s confined life, Kennan found him remarkably well informed about Lisbon events and personalities.
After Fish suddenly took ill and died in July 1943, Kennan became chargé d’affaires of what wartime conditions had elevated to a key diplomatic post. (Fish’s funeral service in Lisbon was conducted with full diplomatic honors, the casket draped with an American flag and borne from the legation to the English Church of St. George on a gun carriage escorted by cavalry and given a seventeen-gun artillery salute. Among the mourners in the accompanying procession to the church were Salazar and high Portuguese officials. Fish’s burial took place in Florida.) Over the next year and a half a major issue facing Kennan was American involvement in the Azores accord, a task complicated by the surprising fact that despite United States entry into the war there had been little political contact with the Portuguese government. “Ah ain’t goin’ down there and get mah backsides kicked around,” Fish had replied when Kennan urged a direct meeting with Salazar. “He’s too smaht for me.” When Kennan tried to move the State Department to greater interest in Portugal, there was no reaction from Washington.