Page 73 - BBC History - September 2017

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The fight for Gibraltar

JULES STEWART enjoys a new book exploring the role
that a tiny plot of land played in defeating Hitler

Defending the Rock control of the entire Mediterranean, left
by Nicholas Rankin the British Army in the Middle East
isolated and deprived of supply lines and
Faber & Faber, 672 pages, £20
Members of the SS in Berlin mark closed an entire future theatre of war.
Sonnwendfeier, the summer
solstice celebration, 1938 The subtitle of Nicholas In such a scenario, Britain’s chances of
Rankin’s book – How victory would have been drastically
Gibraltar Defeated Hitler reduced, if not irretrievably lost.
not so convincingly addressed. Kurlander – unquestionably stands Gibraltar’s fate rested on Franco’s
is rightly wary of making grand claims in up to scrutiny. Indeed, appetite for joining the European conflict.
this regard, but his subtext is nonetheless Hitler himself unwit- Spain had just emerged from three years
one of an influence made increasingly tingly acknowledged in a of civil war and he was reluctant to once
prevalent as the war progressed. letter written in February again turn his country into a battlefield.
Yet concrete evidence of this is still 1941 to Spanish dictator Franco that: What ultimately soured Operation Felix,
lacking. Nazism was hardly a rational “The attack on Gibraltar and the closing a highly detailed German plan to take the
creed, but it is difficult to believe that the of the Straits would have changed the Rock, was the list of Franco’s terms for
melange of nonsense that constituted Mediterranean situation in one stroke.” Spanish entry into the war. Apart from
the German occult fringe was ever more The Nazi leader lamented the fact that foodstuffs for his hungry people and
than one of many ideological drivers Franco had refused to join the Axis and equipment for his army, he demanded all
behind it. allow the Wehrmacht to cross Spain and of Morocco and Oran in Algeria. The
This should not detract from an take Gibraltar with German land forces. führer’s response was a resounding Nein.
impressive whole, however. Despite a few “Two months have been lost,” Hitler said, The author also highlights the
exaggerations and extrapolations, “which otherwise would have helped fascinating episode of Churchill’s bribes
Kurlander’s is a thoughtful, well-written decide world history.” to high-ranking Spanish generals in
and extremely welcome contribution. Never in the course of modern warfare exchange for undertakings that Franco
has so small a plot of land played so would not drag Spain into the war.
Roger Moorhouse is the author of The Devils’ pivotal a role in deciding a major This meticulously researched book
Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939–1941 international conflict. This is especially is well timed, as this year marks the
(Vintage, 2016) significant when considering the array of 50th anniversary of Gibraltar’s 1967
foes menacing its doors: Nazi Germany, referendum, which yielded a 99.6 per
Fascist Italy, Vichy France and Falangist cent vote in favour of continued
Spain. The immediate threat to Britain’s British sovereignty.
who exploited her skills – whose discover- war effort was, of course, Germany.
ies revolutionised British geology. The loss of Gibraltar – a disaster that Jules Stewart is a historical author whose
As Maddox explains, Lyell’s Churchill confessed caused him sleepless books include Madrid: The History
18th-century predecessors had already nights – would have given the Axis (IB Tauris, 2015)
discarded any literal interpretation of the
Bible. Even so, by putting Lyell centre
stage, she reinforces the misguided view Gibraltar evaded
enemy capture
that before Darwin everybody believed
during the Second
the Earth was only 6,000 years old. She World War
neglects Darwin’s own grandfather
Erasmus, who, almost 10 years before
Charles was even born, wrote that the
world resembles “one great slaughter-
house, one universal scene of rapacity and
GETTY IMAGES injustice”, articulating a view strikingly
similar to evolution by natural selection.

Patricia Fara is the president of the British
Society for the History of Science

BBC History Magazine 73