The Iberian Pact: Salazar and Franco's treaty of 17 March 1939

On Friday 17 March 1939, two men signed a short treaty at a desk in Lisbon. In the middle was António de Oliveira Salazar, head of the Portuguese government and also its foreign minister. At his right, at one end of the table, was Nicolás Franco Bahamonde, Spain's ambassador and the brother of General Francisco Franco. More than half a dozen advisers and aides were gathered around them.1 source1 source

The text ran to six articles. Portugal and Spain bound themselves to absolute respect for each other's borders and territories, and promised never to attack or invade each other. Neither would help an aggressor against the other, or join a pact aimed at it. The treaty was written in Spanish and Portuguese, both versions of equal value, and was to last ten years.1 source1 source

The Spain that signed was Franco's, not yet the whole country. The Spanish Civil War, which had begun with a military uprising in July 1936, was almost over: on 28 March Franco's Nationalist troops entered Madrid. Salazar was in a hurry to fix his idea of a peninsular bloc in writing before the end of the Spanish war could upset the premises of his foreign policy.1 source1 source

It became known as the Iberian Pact. For almost forty years it framed relations between the two countries. During the Second World War it was one of the ways Lisbon, Britain's oldest ally, tried to keep Franco's Spain, which leaned towards Germany and Italy, out of the fighting.3 sources3 sources

Portugal had long feared its larger neighbour. Spain's kings had ruled Portugal for sixty years until the revolt of 1 December 1640, and since 1801 Spain had held Olivenza, a border town Portugal still claimed. Relations in the early twentieth century were wary.3 sources3 sources

By the 1930s Portugal was ruled by Salazar's Estado Novo, or New State, an authoritarian regime built on corporatism and Catholic nationalism. Salazar ran the government and from 1936 to 1947 also kept the foreign ministry for himself. Spain, meanwhile, was a republic, and in February 1936 the left-wing Popular Front won its elections. Salazar saw that victory as a threat to his own regime.3 sources3 sources

When Spanish generals rose against the Republic on 18 July 1936, Salazar welcomed the coup. Along with Germany and Italy, Portugal backed the rebels from the start. Men, war material and food crossed Portuguese territory, letting the rebels link up zones cut off from each other; foreign arms came in through Portuguese ports; Spanish republicans and refugees were handed over to the rebel side; and the controlled press cheered them on.3 sources3 sources

The border mattered from the first weeks. Franco's columns marching north from Seville turned aside to take Badajoz, the Spanish city closest to the Portuguese frontier, on 14 August 1936. In October Portugal broke off relations with the Republic. It joined the international Non-Intervention Committee all the same, and kept helping the rebels behind a show of neutrality.3 sources3 sources

Portuguese volunteers fought for Franco too. The press called them Viriatos, after the Lusitanian chief who resisted Rome. Unlike the Germans and Italians, they never formed their own unit: they joined the Spanish Foreign Legion, the Falange militias and the Carlist requetés, partly because Lisbon did not want to antagonise Britain. Nobody knows how many there were.2 sources2 sources

From 1937, once London had decided that Franco would win and could live with it, Salazar let British observers watch the Portuguese border and stopped backing Franco openly. In 1938 Portugal recognised Franco's government in Burgos as the legitimate government of Spain.3 sources3 sources

The idea came from Spain. In July 1938 Nicolás Franco suggested from his embassy in Lisbon that the two regimes find a formula to bind themselves closer, and talks began between Pedro Teotónio Pereira, Portugal's envoy to Franco's government in Burgos, and the Nationalist foreign minister, Count Jordana. Burgos was in a hurry and even drafted a text.2 sources2 sources

Lisbon stalled. At first it offered only spoken assurances of sympathy. Salazar did not want anything that could look like a step away from the alliance with Britain, the pillar of Portuguese foreign policy, while Franco was winning his war with German and Italian help.1 source1 source

On 8 February 1939 Portugal finally agreed to discuss articles. The civil war was practically over, Britain and France were about to recognise Franco (they did so that month), and it seemed likely that the Italian and German troops would leave Spain when the war ended. The initiative had been Spanish, but Portugal chose the moment, proposed the articles and led the discussion of them.1 source1 source

Britain was kept informed and did not object. It hoped Portugal might temper Franco's pro-Axis leanings. For Franco, the attraction was a friendly neighbour with a privileged line to London; for Salazar, the essential point was that Spain should not remain inside the Axis camp when the next war came.1 source1 source

There was a shadow over the signing. Spain had also agreed, in secret, to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, which aligned it with Germany and Italy. Gómez de las Heras and Sacristán date its signature to 21 February 1939, before the Lisbon treaty, and say Salazar claimed he had been told; Rezola places it just after. Once Spain's accession was made public, it undercut the image of an independent, neutral Spain that Lisbon had hoped to present to Europe.2 sources2 sources

In the preamble the two sides also declared that none of the obligations either had already taken on towards other powers stood in the way of their friendship, and that the treaty did not alter them. For Portugal that meant the British alliance; for Spain, its ties to Germany and Italy. Nothing in the text bound Portugal to choose between Madrid and London.2 sources2 sources

When war came, the two neutralities looked different. Portugal stayed neutral inside its alliance with Britain. Spain watched the course of the fighting and leaned towards the Axis. When Italy entered the war in June 1940, Lisbon proposed that the two countries declare their neutrality together.1 source1 source

The collapse of France in June 1940 brought the danger to the Pyrenees. On 12 June, days after Spain had assured Teotónio Pereira that it would remain neutral, it declared itself a non-belligerent (the decree is dated the 13th), the step Mussolini had taken before entering the war. Lisbon had not been told in advance. Two days later Spanish troops occupied Tangier; on the 16th a Spanish general handed Hitler a letter in which Franco offered to join the war in return for territory in Morocco.3 sources3 sources

The Spanish press, controlled by Franco's brother-in-law Ramón Serrano Súñer, then the interior minister, opened a campaign against Portugal's English alliance. On 28 June Serrano Súñer told the Portuguese ambassador that the British alliance was a danger, since Germany could use it as a pretext to invade the peninsula. He proposed going beyond the 1939 treaty to a full alliance that would defend both countries, by force of arms if necessary.2 sources2 sources

Lisbon answered with a weaker formula of its own. The foreign ministry's secretary-general, Teixeira de Sampaio, drafted an entente cordiale; Salazar struck the phrase out and put in a duty merely to consult. Franco wanted the arrangement kept secret. Salazar refused, arguing that secrecy would only breed suspicion, and insisted on a public text. Franco accepted, provided the wording implicitly covered Spain's claim to Gibraltar.1 source1 source

Each side read the protocol its own way. Britain accepted the Portuguese view that it strengthened the neutrality of the peninsula against Axis pressure. Germany and Italy concluded that Spain was drawing Portugal away from Britain. “Everyone is happy” (todos contentos), the Spanish foreign minister, Juan Beigbeder, remarked to Teotónio Pereira.1 source1 source

Beigbeder told the Germans something else. According to a report the German ambassador, Eberhard von Stohrer, sent to Berlin on 20 August 1940, Beigbeder confided that alongside the protocol there was a secret oral agreement under which Portugal would leave Spain a free hand to attack Gibraltar. The historian Manuel Ros Agudo cites the report from the published German documents; it is Beigbeder's word, as relayed to Berlin.1 source1 source

In October 1940 Serrano Súñer, the man who had pressed Portugal to drop Britain, became Spain's foreign minister. On 23 October Franco met Hitler at Hendaye, on the French side of the border. They could not agree. Franco asked for a great deal, including French colonies in North Africa, and had little to offer in return, though he said he would enter the war if Hitler asked.2 sources2 sources

Spain was preparing for war all the same. Ros Agudo found that Franco's military advisers had been planning a purely Spanish attack on Gibraltar since the summer of 1939, and that on 12 November 1940 Franco received a plan to mobilise up to 50 divisions, about 900,000 men. The Spanish general staff also drew up a plan for a preventive invasion of Portugal in case Britain moved against Gibraltar or the Canary Islands.3 sources3 sources

Hitler, for his part, saw no point in pressing Lisbon. Portugal could not be pulled away from Britain without losing its Atlantic islands, he reasoned, and the Portuguese question would be settled by force when Gibraltar was attacked. German pressure on Madrid over Gibraltar was strongest between September 1940 and February 1941, then faded as Hitler turned towards Russia.1 source1 source

Salazar's reading of his position was bleak. Spain could choose to be belligerent or neutral, he concluded; Portugal could only be neutral or occupied. He chose to treat Franco's verbal assurances of neutrality as sincere. Gómez de las Heras and Sacristán judge that this was probably wishful thinking, since Spain came closer to entering the war than Salazar admitted.1 source1 source

The two dictators first met in Seville in February 1942. Rezola dates the meeting from 11 to 13 February; Gómez de las Heras and Sacristán give 12 and 13 February. They talked in Franco's office in the Real Alcázar and then lunched with their ambassadors, senior aides and the head of the Portuguese police.3 sources3 sources

The meeting was Portugal's idea. Teotónio Pereira had proposed it after the British urged direct pressure on Spain, and Salazar revived it after Australian and Dutch troops landed in Portuguese Timor. It was a rare journey for him: apart from a trip to France and Belgium in 1927, his meetings with Franco were the only times Salazar left Portugal.1 source1 source

They discussed supplies and strategy. A defensive alliance came up again and was again set aside. What they agreed was that neither country would enter a political agreement without first consulting the other, and Salazar left convinced that Franco would not accept any step that cost the peninsula its neutrality.1 source1 source

What Madrid told the belligerents depended on who was listening. Serrano Súñer told the American chargé d'affaires that Spain had requested the meeting under the 1939 treaty, prompted by rumours of an American move against the Azores, and that Spanish policy was aimed squarely at keeping out of the war. To the German ambassador he said that Portugal and Spain would join the Axis if the Allies landed in the Azores, and falsely claimed that the 1940 protocol had a secret military clause.2 sources2 sources

Before leaving Seville, Franco spoke to the garrison. Germany, he said, was Europe's bulwark against communism, and if the road to Berlin were ever opened, it would be a million Spaniards who went, rather than a division of volunteers. Spain's Blue Division was then fighting alongside the Germans in Russia.3 sources3 sources

Spain's course shifted later that year. In September 1942 Franco replaced Serrano Súñer with Count Jordana, who made no secret of his liking for Portugal's policy, and on Jordana's visit to Lisbon from 18 to 22 December the two governments announced an Iberian Bloc. The speeches proclaimed a Peninsular Bloc of mutual friendship and eternal peace.2 sources2 sources

A last test came in 1943, when Britain invoked the old Anglo-Portuguese alliance to ask for bases in the Azores and Salazar agreed (Lisboeta tells that story in its article on the Azores agreement). On 8 October Salazar met Jordana secretly at Ciudad Rodrigo, a Spanish town about 30 kilometres from the border, to explain the concession and assure him that no agreement between them had been broken.2 sources2 sources

Madrid took it calmly. When London let it be known that the main consequence would be the transfer of German spies from Lisbon to Madrid, Jordana told Franco (in translation): “if it is no more than this, we can rest easy.” That October Spain returned to formal neutrality.2 sources2 sources

After 1945 the roles reversed. The United Nations condemned Franco's regime in December 1946 and Spain was left isolated, while Portugal was a founder member of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation in 1948 and of NATO on 4 April 1949. Franco's regime now saw Portugal as an essential partner. On 20 September 1948 Caeiro da Matta, for Portugal, and Nicolás Franco extended the treaty for another ten years from 30 March 1949.2 sources2 sources

Spain was not invited into NATO, and Madrid argued that under the treaty and its protocol Portugal should not have joined alone, or should at least have pleaded Spain's case. The negotiations were tense, but Salazar was not going to turn the invitation down. In October 1949 Franco paid a state visit to Portugal, arriving by sea from Vigo, staying at the Queluz palace and receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Coimbra. It was the only state visit he ever paid abroad.2 sources2 sources

A third protocol followed on 22 May 1970. By then Salazar had been incapacitated by a domestic accident in 1968, and he died that year. Portugal's dictatorship fell in 1974 and Franco died in 1975. On 22 November 1977 Adolfo Suárez and Mário Soares, the democratic prime ministers of Spain and Portugal, signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in Madrid. Its Article XII repealed the 1939 treaty and all three protocols. It entered into force on 5 May 1978.2 sources2 sources

The democracies kept the core of the old bargain. The 1977 treaty again affirmed the inviolability of the two countries' common borders and the integrity of their territories, and set up a Council for Hispano-Portuguese Cooperation, chaired by the two foreign ministers and meeting in turn in Madrid and Lisbon.1 source1 source

Historians still weigh how much the pact achieved. Rezola calls the view that it was about guaranteeing Iberian neutrality the predominant one, and sees the meetings it made possible as a basic expression of a new Iberian relationship, though never free of ambiguity. Kaczorowski argues that Portugal, as a link between Madrid and London, strengthened Franco's will to stay neutral.2 sources2 sources

Gómez de las Heras and Sacristán stress its limits: what kept Spain out of the war was mainly its internal difficulties, British pressure on its supplies and Hitler's growing interest in Russia. Portugal, in their account, kept its own neutrality inside the British alliance.1 source1 source

The promise to respect borders also left one question open. Portuguese nationalist groups, among them a Sociedade Pró-Olivença registered in 1938 and later the Grupo dos Amigos de Olivença, kept up the claim to Olivenza throughout the life of the pact, to the irritation of both dictatorships. The town remained under Spanish rule, and the dispute outlived Salazar and Franco.1 source1 source

For Portugal's democratic memory the pact is part of the record of the dictatorship. Lisbon's Museu do Aljube, a museum of resistance and freedom, marked its anniversary in 2026 by recalling the Viriatos, the arms that reached Franco through Portuguese ports and the refugees handed over to his side.1 source1 source