British Espionage and Franco in the Second World War From Hendaye until Torch

Introduction: How Did the Countries’ Organizations Spy?

Part One: Spy Games to Maintain Spanish Neutrality (1940)

1. Espionage in Spain before the Second World War

2. Covert British Operations to Maintain Spanish Neutrality

3. The Six Months of Maximum Danger

Part Two: Spies in North Africa (1941)

4. Spanish British Espionage during the Battles of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean

5. Tension in the Balkans, Eastern Front Mediterranean

6. British Intelligence and Operation Barbarossa

Part Three: Espionage in the Decisive Operation Torch (1942)

Introduction to Part Three

7. Tungsten and Oil to Win the War

8. Stalingrad and the Free Spain Movement

9. Torch: The Key to Spain's Forced Neutrality

Epilogue: A New Policy of Espionage in the Iberian Peninsula (1943)

Biography

Luis Horrillo Sánchez holds a PhD in History. His area of research is Spanish foreign policy and its links with the intelligence services. He has also written several articles, including: ‘How the Allies’ diplomatic dialogue influenced Franco’s foreign policy in the context of Operation Backbone’.

"Luis Horrillo Sánchez is part of a fascinating generation of young Spanish researchers who are transforming transnational historiography. His study of the three tense years of Anglo-Spanish relations, from 1940 to 1942, is an original and valuable contribution.  He clearly analyses the clandestine strategies employed by Churchill’s government to keep Franco’s Spain out of the clutches of the Axis."

Paul Preston, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics, UK

"In this groundbreaking study Luis Horrillo-Sánchez demonstrates how Britain’s secret agents operating in Spain made a critical contribution to their country’s struggle to survive in the war against Nazi Germany, during the fraught years between 1940 and 1942. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified secret documents from the British archives, he reveals how these shadow warriors complemented the official diplomatic efforts of the British Government to restrain the Franco regime from joining the Axis Powers at war – and, also, to insure against the massive strategic damage (including the loss of the vital naval base at Gibraltar), which Spanish belligerency would entail. The author reaches a paradoxical conclusion, namely, that in helping curb Franco’s warlike inclinations, Britain’s clandestine operatives also enabled the Spanish dictator to survive into the postwar era, when he could pose as an astute statesman who had saved his country from the horrors of the Second World War."

Denis Smyth, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada

"[This] research adds important details that modify some aspects and undoubtedly manages to offer a unified and in-depth account of British sabotage."

Stanley Payne, Hilldale-Jaume Vicens Vives Professor of History Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US

"This book is excellent. It is a very valuable contribution. Very well researched with excellent use of primary and secondary sources."

David Messenger, Professor and Chair of the Department of History, University of South Alabama, US; and President, Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies