Whose advantage?
Sir: Phillip Knightly's review of The Distant Drain (17 July) indicates where his own sympathies lie, but do these justify his describing as 'contentious' Mr Crozier's claim that Franco's victory, and subsequent neutrality, worked in the end to the military advantage of the Allies ?
It has always seemed to me, as one who was contemporary with these events and directly involved with Spain during the Second World War, most unlikely that, if the Left had won, Hitler would have halted his armies at the Pyrenees (as he did), or that an enfeebled and divided Republican Spain would have been able to prevent them reaching Gibraltar—with incalculable results for, in particular, the North African landings of 1942.
Martin Carmichael County End, Bushey Heath, Herts.
Previous page
