The Latin Bloc (Italian : Blocco Latino; French : Bloc Latin; Spanish : Bloque Latino; Portuguese : Bloco Latino; Romanian : Blocul Latin) was a proposal for an alliance made between the 1920s to the 1940s that began with Italy's Duce Benito Mussolini proposing such a bloc in 1927 between Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal (and possibly Romania), that would be an alliance based upon common Latin civilization and culture. [1] The proposal was publicly discussed between the governments of Italy, Spain, and France, during World War II. [2]
In the 1930s, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval alongside French conservatives expressed support for a Latin Bloc with Italy and Spain. [3]
During World War II the proposal was discussed between Mussolini, Spain's Caudillo Francisco Franco, and Vichy France's head of state Philippe Petain. [2] However the alliance failed to materialize. [2] The planned bloc would have united Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, and Vatican City together as a bloc alliance based upon unity of the Latin culture European states that would be within the Axis powers that was designed to balance the power between them and Germany in the Axis by combining together. [2] The main effort was to create a "Rome-Madrid axis", Franco took a major role in promoting the proposal, and Franco with Vichy French leader Petain in Montpellier, France in 1940 to discuss the proposal, and Franco met with Mussolini in Bordighera, Italy in 1941 to discuss it. [2] Germany supported the proposal for the Latin Bloc during World War II and German propaganda assisted Italian propaganda in promoting the bloc [4] However the alliance failed to materialize. [2] Germany's Führer Adolf Hitler promoted the Latin Bloc and in October 1940, travelled to Hendaye, France on the border with Spain to meet Franco in which he promoted Spain forming a Latin Bloc with Italy and Vichy France to join Italy's fight against Britain in the Mediterranean region. [5]
The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Empire of Japan. The Axis were united in their opposition to the Allies, but otherwise lacked comparable coordination and ideological cohesion.
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain, commonly known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain, was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of World War I, during which he became known as The Lion of Verdun. From 1940 to 1944, during World War II, he served as head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France. Pétain, who was 84 years old when he became Prime Minister, remains the oldest person to become the head of state of France.
The Pact of Steel, formally known as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was a military and political alliance between Italy and Germany.
Pierre Jean Marie Laval was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occupied the post during the German occupation, from 18 April 1942 to 20 August 1944.
"Perfidious Albion" is a pejorative phrase used within the context of international relations diplomacy to refer to acts of diplomatic slights, duplicity, treachery and hence infidelity by monarchs or governments of the United Kingdom in their pursuit of self-interest.
During World War II, the Spanish State under Francisco Franco espoused neutrality as its official wartime policy. This neutrality wavered at times and "strict neutrality" gave way to "non-belligerence" after the Fall of France in June 1940. Franco wrote to Adolf Hitler offering to join the war on 19 June 1940 in exchange for help building Spain's colonial empire. Later the same year Franco met with Hitler in Hendaye to discuss Spain's possible accession to the Axis Powers. The meeting went nowhere, but Franco did help the Axis—whose members Italy and Germany had supported him during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)—in various ways.
Xavier Vallat, French politician and antisemite who was Commissioner-General for Jewish Questions in the wartime collaborationist Vichy government, and was sentenced after World War II to ten years in prison for his part in the persecution of French Jews.
The Iberian Pact or Peninsular Pact, formally the Portuguese–Spanish Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression, was a non-aggression pact that was signed at Lisbon, just a few days before the end of the Spanish Civil War, on 17 March 1939 by Portuguese Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar, representing Portugal, and Ambassador Nicolás Franco, representing Spain. The treaty was ratified on 25 March 1939.
The French State, popularly known as Vichy France, as led by Marshal Philippe Pétain after the Fall of France in 1940 before Nazi Germany, was quickly recognized by the Allies, as well as by the Soviet Union, until 30 June 1941 and Operation Barbarossa. However France broke with the United Kingdom after the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. Canada maintained diplomatic relations until the occupation of Southern France by Germany and Italy in November 1942.
Vichy France, officially the French State, was the French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its territory occupied under the harsh terms of the armistice with Nazi Germany, it adopted a policy of collaboration. The Occupation of France by Nazi Germany at first affected only the northern and western portions of the country, before the Germans and Italians occupied the remainder of Metropolitan France in November 1942. Though Paris was ostensibly its capital, the Vichy government established itself in the resort town of Vichy in the unoccupied "Free Zone", where it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as its colonies.
The foreign relations of Third Reich were characterized by the territorial expansionist ambitions of Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler and the promotion of the ideologies of anti-communism and antisemitism within Germany and its conquered territories. The Nazi regime oversaw Germany's rise as a militarist world power from the state of humiliation and disempowerment it had experienced following its defeat in World War I. From the late 1930s to its defeat in 1945, Germany was the most formidable of the Axis powers - a military alliance between Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and their allies and puppet states.
French Somaliland, with its capital at Djibouti, was the scene of only minor skirmishing during World War II, principally between June and July 1940. After the fall of France the colony was briefly in limbo until a governor loyal to the Vichy government was installed on 25 July. It was the last French possession in Africa to remain loyal to Vichy, surrendering to Free French forces only on 26 December 1942. Pierre Nouailhetas governed the territory through most of the Vichy period. After aerial bombardment by the British, he instituted a reign of terror against Europeans and locals. Nouailhetas was eventually recalled and forced to retire. From September 1940, the colony was under an Allied blockade, and many of its inhabitants fled to neighbouring British Somaliland. After the territory's liberation, there were many governors and recovery from the deprivation of 1940–42 was only beginning when the war ended in 1945.
The diplomatic history of World War II includes the major foreign policies and interactions inside the opposing coalitions, the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers, between 1939 and 1945.
The Fédération Nationale Catholique (FNC) was a French movement that was active in the 1920s and 1930s, with the purpose of defending the Catholic Church against secular trends in the governments of the time. The Federation was founded in 1924 in response to the election of a left-wing government with a secularist policy. After rapidly gaining members and staging large demonstrations, it soon achieved its goal of maintaining the status quo separation between church and state. The movement gradually lost momentum in the years that followed, although it remained in existence during the Vichy regime.
France was one of the largest military powers to come under occupation as part of the Western Front in World War II. The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations.
The following events occurred in October 1940:
The Latin Axis was a proposed alliance between European Latin countries during the Second World War. This project was proposed to Italy by Romanian politician Mihai Antonescu, who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister during World War II, under Ion Antonescu. The alliance would have included Romania, Italy, Vichy France, Spain, and Portugal. As a consolidated bloc in a region of German weakness, he hoped that it might become a significant counterweight to the Reich. Germany supported the proposal for the Latin Bloc during World War II and German propaganda assisted Italian propaganda in promoting the bloc. However, the alliance failed to materialize. Germany's Führer Adolf Hitler promoted the Latin Bloc and in October 1940 travelled to Hendaye, France, on the border with Spain to meet Franco with whom he promoted Spain forming a Latin bloc with Italy and Vichy France to join Italy's fight against the United Kingdom in the Mediterranean region.
During World War II, Morocco, which was then occupied by France, was controlled by Vichy France from 1940 to 1942 after the occupation of France by Nazi Germany. However, after the North African campaign, Morocco was under Allied control and thus was active in Allied operations until the end of the war.
The Government of Vichy France was the collaborationist ruling regime or government in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. Of contested legitimacy, it was headquartered in the town of Vichy in occupied France, but it initially took shape in Paris under Maréchal Philippe Pétain as the successor to the French Third Republic in June 1940. Pétain spent four years in Vichy and after the Allied invasion of France, fled into exile to Germany in September 1944 with the rest of the French cabinet. It operated as a government-in-exile until April 1945, when the Sigmaringen enclave was taken by Free French forces. Pétain was brought back to France, by then under control of the Provisional French Republic, and put on trial for treason.