Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Wars and ConflictsΒ  permalink

What was the WW2 International area?

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by GINGERSID (U10684874) on Tuesday, 18th December 2007

  I have heard people talk of the international area at the start of WW2 as being part of North Africa. Can anybody explain please?

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message1

• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 18th December 2007

  Gingersid,
  
  "Tangier"? And welcome to the boards.
  
  Warm regards,
  
  Paul.

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message2

• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 18th December 2007

  "In 1912, Morocco was effectively partitioned between France and Spain, the latter occupying the country's far north (called Spanish Morocco) and a part of Moroccan territory in the south, while France declared a protectorate over the remainder. Tangier was made an international zone in 1923 under the joint administration of France, Spain, and Britain, joined by Italy in 1928.
  
  After a period of effective Spanish control from 1940 to 1945 during World War II, Tangier was reunited with the rest of Morocco following the restoration of full sovereignty in 1956."
  
  
  
  

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message3

• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by GINGERSID (U10684874) on Saturday, 22nd December 2007

  Thanks for the info and link on Tangiers. Any idea what languages would have been used during WW2 there?

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message4

• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 22nd December 2007

  Gingersid,
  
  I think Spanish, French, English, Moroccan, Portuguese?
  Tangier during WWII remembers me of Humprey Bogaert's "Casablanca".
  
  Warm regards,
  
  Paul.

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message5

• Message 6

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 22nd December 2007

  Writing a novel, are we?

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message6

• Message 7

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Saturday, 22nd December 2007

  Tangier during WWII remembers me of Humprey Bogaert's "Casablanca".Β 
  
  Casablanca was in French Morocco and run by the Vichy French until Operation "Torch" in November 1942.
  
  According to this the Spanish took over Tangiers by armed force immediately on the Fall of France:
  
  "We might mention the case of Tangiers, then an international city. On June 14, 1940. Spanish troops occupied it. Franco said it was just a wartime measure, and Britain accepted this explanation, while reserving its rights. Some Falangistas were keen to keep it Spanish as a base for further expansion in Africa, and Rafael SΓ΅nchez Mazas made a speech promoting this, but the Spanish government made it clear that this was not official policy. With the defeat of the Axis, Franco had to withdraw from Tangiers."
  
  
  
  I wonder if there was any discussion of Tangiers at Hitler's notorious meeting with Franco at Hendaye in October 1940 as it was by then under effective Spanish control. Franco could have given naval facilities to Axis ships without actually entering the war and this might have neutralised the British naval base at Gibraltar at the opposite "Pillar of Hercules" thus closing the western end of the Mediterranean and would have prevented Hitler from developing his own version of Napoleon's "Spanish ulcer" in North Africa but maybe Tangiers wasn't suitable as a naval base.
  
  
  
  

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message7

• Message 8

  , in reply to message 7.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 22nd December 2007

  Re: Message 7.
  
  Allan,
  
  I knew about Casablanca. I took part on a French history messageboard in the heated discussion of "Operation Torch". I only wanted to mention about the same "atmosphere" of conspiracy between several Secret Services, that excisted also in Casablanca. And yes the same in Spain and Portugal. Our Belgian Prime minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs were smuggled from the Vichy France border to Spain and via Portugal to London in September (if I recall it well) 1940. In a van with double bottom.
  
  Thanks for the URL. I read that Franco wanted to join the Axis, but the boat was held off by Hitler because he didn't want to disturb the Vichy French. The French as a Nogues wanted to invade Spanish Morocco and the Spaniards wanted to invade French Morocco. Yes dear Hitler had it not easy with his so-called allies. I read it in a historybook, one of those that I recommended here on the messageboards for the history of modern Spain. I have also a vague remembrance of the "tin"? ore deliveries to Germany and at least for some part? diverted to Britain? after Torch?
  
  Warm regards,
  
  Paul.

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message8

• Message 9

  , in reply to message 8.

  Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Saturday, 22nd December 2007

  Yes, it seems contrary to the popular myth partially perpetuated by Franco himself after the war that Franco had refused to participate on the Axis side in WWII despite incurring Hitler's wrath on the grounds of ingratitude El Caudillo was quite eager to take part in the war but simply set a price that was too high. His demands for parts of the French Empire in North Africa, parts of Pyrenean metropolitan France and above all for massive subsidies at a time when Hitler's mind was turning towards the invasion of Soviet Russia simply proved exorbitant as the Fuhrer did not wish to provoke discord among his more reliable Romance dictatorial allies, Petain and Mussolini.
  
  After the Nazis occupied Vichy France and French North Africa fell into allied hands Franco adhered to a policy of strict neutrality whilst his Fascist neighbour, Salazar in Portugal, granted the Allies naval and air facilities in the Azores - a decision that proved crucial in the Allies gaining the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic and which was characterised by Churchill as the most generous act by any non-belligerent towards the Allied cause in the whole war apart from the passage of the Lend-Lease Act. Consequently, despite the war to end fascism, both regimes remained in place until a military coup and death removed them in the mid-1970s.
  
  However bearing in mind the fate of Hitler's allies: Mussolini of Italy, Petain of France, Horthy of Hungary and Antonescu of Rumania due mainly to the actions of Hitler himself Franco did well for himself and Spain to keep his distance, whatever his motives.

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message9

• Message 10

  , in reply to message 9.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 22nd December 2007

  Allan,
  
  thank you very much for this interesting reply. I learned a lot from it.
  
  Warm regards,
  
  Paul.

  Link to this forum: What was the WW2 International area?

  Report message10

Back to top