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Portugal

The Estado Novo regime of Portuguese Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar played an important role in supplying Francisco Franco 's forces with ammunition and logistical help.

Manuel Azaña president of the embattled Spanish Republic had financed and armed those seeking to topple Salazar's conservative regime. Radicals in Spain and Portugal had long advocated for peninsular unity. Salazar was concerned that the Spanish left's internationalist views and support for Iberian federalism posed a threat to Portugal's independence, fearing that a leftist Spain might seek to dominate Portugal. Many middle-class radicals in Portugal supported this idea, believing that their country needed to integrate with Spain to achieve agricultural modernization and industrialization.

While the Nationalists lacked access to seaports early on, they secured control of the entire border with Portugal by the end of August 1936, thus giving Salazar and his regime a free hand to render whatever assistance to Franco they saw fit without fear of Republican interference or retaliation. Salazar's Portugal helped the Nationalist side receive armaments shipments from abroad, including ordnance when certain Nationalist forces virtually ran out of ammunition. Consequently, the Nationalists called Lisbon "the port of Castile".

However, despite the border being secured, on 8 September 1936, a naval revolt took place in Lisbon. The crews of two naval Portuguese vessels, the NRP Afonso de Albuquerque and the NRP Dão, mutinied. The sailors, who were affiliated with the Portuguese Communist Party, confined their officers and attempted to sail the ships out of Lisbon to join the Spanish Republican forces fighting in Spain. Salazar ordered the ships to be destroyed by gunfire. Both Afonso de Albuquerque and Dão received direct hits and were grounded.

Salazar supported Franco primarily to ensure the survival of his own regime. He feared the Republican side would threaten the stability and independence of Portugal. Salazar's strategy was the support Franco in its struggle against the Republic, the preservation of the two Iberian states as independent but in association with the Atlanticist foreign policy of England, and the survival of the Portuguese regime.

Despite its discreet direct military involvement—restrained to a somewhat "semi-official" endorsement, by its authoritarian regime—a "Viriatos Legion" volunteer force was organised, but disbanded, due to political unrest. Between 8,000 and 12,000 Salazar's desire to maintain a prudent distance from initiatives that could threaten the image of neutrality that the government sought to maintain at all costs in the eyes of the international community meant that the idea of an exclusively Portuguese volunteer corps was never put into practice. Salazar and the military leadership did not look favorably upon misplaced adventurism and, in general, any plans for direct intervention from which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to clearly distance themselves in front of the International Non-Intervention Committee. The Viriatos were integrated into various units and battle fronts (The Spanish Legion, Falange militias or requetés, rebel aviation, or regular army brigades), without forming any specific unit.

There were also Portuguese militiamen fighting in the defense of the Spanish Republic, although their participation was much smaller. Some were anti-Salazarist exiles belonging to the Portuguese Popular Front in Spain, the Iberian Anarchist Federation, or the Portuguese Communist Party; they were workers, intellectuals, and politicians allied against the dictatorship in Portugal.

While fully supporting Franco's side in many ways, the Portuguese regime spared no efforts at dissociating itself from their own citizens enlisted in the Spanish in order to maintain the non-intervention façade.

In February 1937, under pressure from the London Committee, the Salazar government was forced to publish a decree prohibiting the enlistment of volunteers on either side of the conflict.

In March 1937, the Portuguese Military Observation Mission in Spain (MMPOE) was created with three essential objectives: to gain knowledge of new weapons and military techniques, to ensure a privileged position for Portugal in the new European scenario, and to assist Portuguese combatants.

In January 1938, Salazar appointed Pedro Teotónio Pereira as special liaison of the Portuguese government to Franco's government, where he achieved great prestige and influence. In April 1938, Pereira officially became a full-rank Portuguese ambassador to Spain, remaining in this post throughout World War II.

Propaganda about the military achievements of the 'viriatos' spread throughout the Portuguese press after peace was signed in April 1939 but the government did not take responsibility for the fate of the Portuguese soldiers in the Spanish Civil War because, officially, Portugal did not participate in the conflict. Although encouraged by the anti-communist and pro-Franco propaganda of the Estado Novo, the Portuguese combatants went to Spain of their own free will and, therefore, all responsibilities arising from their participation in the battle were theirs alone, according to the regime's political position. The government considered that ex-combatants in Spain should accept their precarious condition as volunteer soldiers and, therefore, had no right to any official assistance upon returning to Portugal.

The Francoist authorities were ungrateful for the help provided by the 'viriatos.' Many of those who returned to Portugal after the war were forced to deposit all their savings at the Spanish customs, accused of currency evasion.

Portugal was instrumental in providing the Nationalists with organizational skills and reassurance from the Iberian neighbour to Franco and his allies that no interference would hinder the supply traffic directed to the Nationalist cause.

Just a few days before the end of the Spanish Civil War, on 17 March 1939, Portugal and Spain signed the Iberian Pact, a non-aggression treaty that marked the beginning of a new phase in Iberian relations. Meetings between Franco and Salazar played a fundamental role in this new political arrangement. The pact proved to be a decisive instrument in keeping the Iberian Peninsula out of Hitler's continental system.

In May 1939, in a speech delivered to the National Assembly, Salazar emphasized that Portugal had acted as 'a factor of peace' amidst the growing chaos in Europe. He asserted that the country had taken all necessary steps to prevent its neighbor from falling under 'communist enslavement'.

Later, Franco spoke of Salazar in glowing terms in an interview in the Le Figaro newspaper: "The most complete statesman, the one most worthy of respect, that I have known is Salazar. I regard him as an extraordinary personality for his intelligence, his political sense and his humility. His only defect is probably his modesty."