Las potencias democráticas y la política de No Intervención

Abstract

Both great European powers, Britain and France, adopted very early a nonintervention policy towards the Spanish Civil War and maintained it despite Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union¿s open intervention. Non-intervention policy was subordinated to the general policy of appeasement towards those powers that threatened the international order. And appeasement was the result of both a strategic factor and a political one. The strategic factor was that Britain and France could not at the same time fight with any chance of victory against Germany, Italy and Japan. And the political factor was that most citizens and politicians of both countries wanted to maintain peace and avoid a new massacre such as that of the First World War. Moreover, as the Spanish conflict was an ideological war, it would have been difficult to reach a consensus on a more active policy.