Operation Bribes: How Winston Churchill and Juan March Bought Francos Generals [Paperback]

1. Franco in the Elastic Neutrality Phase? 2. The Controversial Origins of Operation BRIBES? 3. Spanish Goodwill Is Expensive? 4. Bribes, Hendaye and Espionage? 5. Portugal and Serranos New Trip? 6. Nazi Pressure and British Strategy? 7. The Strengthening of the Bribing Operation Under Juan March? 8. New Difficulties in Spain and the United States? 9. Flanking Operation BRIBES and New Change of Government? 10. The Backdrop to Operation TORCH? 11. Nicol?s Franco Springs into Action? 12. The Unrecognised Significance of Juan March and His Gifts? 13. A Final Melancholic Reflection? 14. Appendix: The Icing on the Cake: Political Planning Against Franco

This forensic study of recently opened documents in Britains National Archives reveals for the first time the details of an officially unnamed secret operation authorised by Winston Churchill in 1940 to keep Spain neutral in the Second World War through the financial manipulation of Spanish generals.

Vi?as focuses on the crucial roles played by the British ambassador in Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare; the embassys naval attach?, Captain Alan Hillgarth and  hitherto unknown to Anglophone readers  the Spanish businessman, Juan March, perhaps one of the richest men in Spain at the time and a financial backer of the military conspirators sparking the Spanish Civil War in 1936. He identifies the likely recipients of the bribes, how they were paid and the influence they wielded on Spains dictator, General Francisco Franco, who together with his notorious foreign minister, Ram?n Serrano Su?er, was minded to enter the war on the side of the Axis. With masterly analysis, this book places the bribes paid by Britain in the jigsaw puzzle of why, after all, Spain remained neutral.

This volume is a pioneering and important contribution for scholars and students of Anglo-Spanish relations, Spanish-Axis relations and wider strategic aspects of the Second Wlã.