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Spain and Portugal, 1837–1974: British Foreign Office Confidential Print Coming Soon Overview

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A collage of photographs of Madrid, military illustrations, including text reading "Vigilancia en la Retaguardia", and a postal stamp.

Crisis, civil war, dictatorship, and economics on the Iberian peninsula

Our immediate interest is to keep the Germans out of the Peninsula, and our future interest to have a Spain that is not dominated by our enemies. Provided that these two points are firmly maintained, we can, I suggest, look dispassionately at the marches and counter-marches of the Spanish leaders.
Sir S. Hoare to Mr. Eden, 22 February 1943, FO 498/40: Miscellaneous Papers, 1895–1973,
image 508.

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Explore how British officials understood—and navigated—the dramatic changes which Spain and Portugal experienced through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

A map of North America with Portuguese colonies on top of it, titled Portugal is not a small country.

Britain’s relationships with Spain and Portugal have been among its closest, and most complicated, ties to the European continent for hundreds of years. This collection comprises 84 items, including diplomatic correspondence and reports, amounting to over 27,000 pages. It offers unrivalled insights into the changes and reconfigurations that Spain and Portugal experienced in this period. Key topics are covered in particular depth, such as imperial tensions surrounding territories such as Cuba and Gibraltar during the nineteenth century; the development of normalised economic and trade arrangements between Britain, Spain, and Portugal; Britain’s controversial policy of non-intervention during the Spanish Civil War; and the management of complex relationships between Britain and the right-wing regimes of Franco and Salazar in the years after the Second World War. This collection will be of interest to historians of Spain and Portugal. It will also prove valuable to students, educators, and researchers interested in political thought and diplomacy, as well as in key historical themes, such as empire, totalitarianism, and war. It will likewise appeal to those situated within the fields of economics, international relations, and political science.

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Contents

Spain and Portugal, 1837–1974: British Foreign Office Confidential Print...

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A collage of photographs of wars in Spain.

Highlights

Section of a document titled Report by Consul Carden on the Political Condition of Porto Rico.

Licensed to access The Spanish-American War (FO 498/40)

The United States and Spain went to war for approximately four months in 1898, a conflict which ended in a resounding victory for the USA. This marked the decline of Spain as a global empire and the rise of America as a world power. British officials monitored these events carefully, as seen in this report which detailed the fighting and political context in Puerto Rico. 
Section of a map titled Map showing natural boundary of port of Gibraltar as claimed by Canning in 1826 to have been laid down by Admiral Tofiño.

Licensed to access Gibraltar (FO 498/13)

This small territory at the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula has been in British hands since 1713. It is of vital strategic importance as it commands the narrow straits separating the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean, through which half the world’s seaborne trade passes. Control of Gibraltar has long proved a contentious issue in Anglo-Spanish relations, as this document details. 
Title page of a document titled International Committee for the Application of the Agreement regarding Non-Intervention in Spain.

Licensed to access Spanish Civil War Non-Intervention Agreement (FO 498/50)

When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, many feared that it could easily spill over and trigger a wider European, or even global, conflict. Britain and France tried to avoid this by devising an international agreement on non-intervention (shown here), to which 28 countries signed up. Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union, soon violated the agreement, however, exposing its futility. 
Section of a document titled Portuguese Foreign Policy, sent from Sir Charles Stirling to Mr. Macmillan on 6 June 1955, and received 13 June.

Licensed to access Anglo-Portuguese Relations (FO 494/8)

In 1373, the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance was signed. It remains in force to this day, making it the oldest extant alliance in the world. As late as 1955, diplomats of Portugal’s Estado Novo regime were citing the alliance as the “keystone” of their country’s foreign policy. As noted in this document, they described relations with Britain as of paramount value. 

Insights

  • Spain and Portugal had been major players in the first great wave of European imperialism, responsible for colonising vast swathes of the Americas, as well as substantial parts of Africa and Asia. By the nineteenth century, they had been surpassed in their imperial might by Britain and France, but they still remained major players at a global level. Spain governed Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines until the 1898 Spanish-American War, while Portugal maintained colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Goa, among others, into the 1960s and 1970s. 
  • The Spanish Civil War was a critical moment in the fractious diplomatic landscape of the 1930s. It began in 1936, when right-wing military officers, who were soon headed by General Francisco Franco, staged a coup against the democratically-elected left-wing government. The war lasted for three years, during which time the liberal democracies (led by Britain) refused to support the legitimate government materially, and tried to sustain a flimsy international non-intervention plan. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sent troops, vehicles, and supplies to aid Franco, who eventually emerged victorious. 
  • In spite of the support that they had given to his side during the civil war, Franco did not join the Axis powers during the Second World War, choosing instead to remain neutral (as did Salazar’s regime in Portugal). This meant that, when the war ended in 1945, the Iberian countries survived as the two principal quasi-fascist states in Europe. In the polarised atmosphere of the Cold War, Britain chose to overlook their problematic ideologies and to see them instead as allies in the struggle against communism—Portugal was even a founding member of NATO. 
  • The Confidential Print series offers some of the most fascinating British Foreign Office material. It is of extremely high value to scholars and students situated within a range of academic fields. Significantly, these files represent the reports and correspondence which the Foreign Office deemed most important to preserve for posterity. In many cases, the material is clearly printed and organised chronologically, often in volumes which feature detailed contents pages, making it simple to navigate. As such, this collection offers an easy entry point into this rich and detailed archival content. 

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