re: How does Spain and Portugal manage to stay out of these world events? WW1-WW2 and all else

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Even then, they didn't bother to mess with Europe for the most part

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They owned A LOT of Europe during the reign of Felipe II, Carlos V. The tercios were feared throughout Europe.

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What do they know or have that makes them excluded for all the mayhem Europe and We share?

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Spain and Portugal have the same culture demolishing problems, but slightly less muzzies (due to the inflow of HIspanics from this hemisphere).

Spain was fascist until the 1970s and in the 1930s was a testing ground in their Civil War for Nazi gear and also a place where Nazi officers esp the Luftwaffe got some real time experience.

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Spain had just finished a bloody, lengthy civil war that also involved the major players for WW2. The country was decimated and IIRC Franco was backed by Hitler, so Germany had no impetus to invade.

It was the rich vs the poor vs the Catholics vs the federalists vs the communists vs the fascists vs the anti fascists vs the royalty vs military

shite was wild

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The Republican Faction, ironically the communists, had the international brigades. The US contribution, one being the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, got @2800 commies out of the USA.


Many Spanish commies immigrated to Cuba and helped Castro and Che spread communism in the Americas.

Do a little more research on Spain. They literally had a civil war in the 1930s because of the Bolscheviks in their country.

Admired American "manly man" Ernest Hemingway wrote an entire novel slobbering over the leftist/communist side.

geography.

Spain basically sat out both World Wars. In WWI, they had enough problems at home—political chaos, economic mess—so they stayed neutral and made some cash trading with both sides. Portugal actually got involved, joined the Allies in 1916 after grabbing German ships, and ended up getting hammered at the bloody Battle of La Lys.

In WWII, Spain had just finished tearing itself apart in a nasty civil war (1936–1939), so Franco wasn’t about to throw the country into another bloodbath. Yeah, he was close with Hitler and Mussolini (they helped him win the civil war), but he kept Spain officially neutral. He did send the Blue Division to fight with the Nazis on the Eastern Front, but that was more of a gesture than actual commitment.

Portugal stayed neutral again, but quietly helped the Allies by letting them use bases in the Azores

WW2 they were fascist enough not to be invaded by the germans but weren’t attacking the allies so they weren’t gonna open up another front.

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Geography, they are pretty much isolated from Europe because of it. If you look at a topographical map there's a shite ton of mountains between them and Europe.

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Great for keeping out the Eurotrash. Not terribly useful for keeping out North African Moops.

Yup. Tell that to Charles V