@Gargantua:
Argentina and England HATE each other.
I have two basic problems with your statement regarding Argentina and England hating each other:
First one is about verb tense: you are using present tense, so are you meaning Argentina and England hate each other when? Now? Always? During WW2? During Falklands war? During 1982 Soccer World Cup when Diego Maradona scored two (one famous and one infamous) goals that kicked the English team out of the tournament?
The only relevant question is what feelings Buenos Aires and London had for each other during WW2.
Which leads me to my second problem: as I’m sure you are aware, Countries are not like individuals; they just don’t hate each other. What we’ve come to name Nation States are sovereign political organizations are made of different interest groups, various ruling elites and subaltern group), government institutions and bureaucracies, etc. And what we call National Interests, are actually the interest of ruling elites.
Those ruling elites (and subaltern groups too of course) may have what we could call ‘feelings’ (although I would use different words, like ‘interest’ and ‘cultural visions’) about ruling elites in other Nation States.
In the case of ‘Buenos Aires-London’ during WW2, I already gave a brief summary about what the ‘feelings’ the two Argentine’s most relevant political actors (the Military and the land-owning economic elite) had towards London, Berlin, and the War. The tension between those two major political actors explains Buenos Aires’ ‘ambivalence’ during WW2.
Regarding London: they wanted Argentina to remain neutral. Period. (remember Brazil entered in the war under the excuses that Germany had sunk Brazilian merchant ships delivering stuff to Great Britain – but part of Brazil’s government at that time did want to enter in the War and build an hemispheric alliance with the US).
@Gargantua:
Clearly you have never been to Argentina.
Actually, I am from Argentina (funny, isn’t it?) :-D
I was born and raised in Buenos Aires :-)
(And I’m a political science college professor, so I happen to know a little about Argentine politics and history :-)).
@Gargantua:
This hatred, stemming from multiple reason culminated into the Falklands war in the 80’s.
No, I’m sorry; I couldn’t disagree more with you about this. :-)
1982 Falkland’s War had its own dynamics and had nothing to do with some multiple and deep antagonism or dislike between the two Nations – actually the Falklands conflict is the biggest (maybe the only) reason for antagonism between London and Buenos Aires in the field of foreign relationships and, especially from the Argentine point of view of resentfulness against the UK. No offence, but I’m afraid you are placing the cart before the horse here :-)
The invasion of the Falklands by Argentina In April 1982 was because of two main reasons: Firstly, an internal struggle for power within the Argentine Military Junta (basically Admiral Anaya, who was a hawkish Falkland-cause fanatic, traded his support for General Galtieri’s internal cup-de-eat against General Viola in exchange for Galtieri’s promise about ‘doing something about the Falklands; rumor has it that General Galtieri, who was an alcoholic, was drunk when he agreed with Admiral Anaya’s plan). Secondly, an opportunistic attempt by the very discredited Military Dictatorship to rally popular support around a national-cause, and hence preventing the Military Government to probably fall-down or have to tall for democratic elections. There wasn’t deep hatred for the British boiling there – those feelings were fuelled later during the war by the Military Junta.
You see: a sector within the Argentine dictatorship was looking for an international ‘clean’ war to wash the ‘dirty war’ they’ve fighting internally against political opposition (what included gross human right violations). Those sectors had been seeking a war against Chile three years before – which fortunately didn’t happened. Now, with Chile you can argue that there were multiple heating-lines seaming that could have culminated with a war. That that wasn’t the case with the UK and the Falklands: all that was there was plain opportunism, and lots of stupidity from the Argie side.
Hey! We are Argentines, not Irish, we’re not THAT pissed with the Englishmen :wink:
@Gargantua:
Argentina had many OTHER trade partners who were larger - like the United States. Great Britian was not at the top of their friends list.
Firstly, even if you were right, I don’t see how this helps your position about making Argentina pro-axis (shouldn’t make it strongly pro-American?).
It is true that US-Argentine trade had expanded in years previous to WW2, BUT you have to see this within the perspective of the relevant political actors.
Argentine’s economy was (and still is) about agriculture (cattle and grains), as you know. USA is also a big exporter of grains and beef. Argentine Land-owners couldn’t sell much to the USA (actually, USA was a strong competitor). So, from the perspective of Argentine Land-owners, USA was a problem: it wasn’t buying their stuff, and was competing with them for European market.
Trade with the USA caused deficits for the Argie side: USA was selling industrial goods but wasn’t buying Argentine products (unlike the British, who were buying grains).
There was a small industrialist elite in Argentina that liked the Americans but they represented a much smaller part of Argentine economy at that time, and lacked political power.
The land-owners (not the industrialist) were running the show, and their economic interested tied them with the British. As a matter of fact, Buenos Aires and London had signed a bilateral treaty in 1933 known as the Roca-Runciman Treaty, by which UK agreed to keep buying Argentine’s beef in exchange for Argentine to keep buying British industrial goods – that were more expensive than American ones (there were other things, I’m keeping it short). That was basically a deal tailored by and for Argentine Land-owners and British industrialist at expenses of both Argentine and American industrialist (who wanted to trade with each other). So you can see who had the political upper hand there. After signing the treaty, Julio Roca, who was the argentine signatory, Nation’s Vice-President, and member of the land-owning elite, joyfully expressed “It can (now) be said that Argentina is an integral economic part of the British Empire”. And he was quite happy about that – so you can see how much he loved (not hated) the British.
@Gargantua:
And what the people think DOESN’T matter - especially in regards to the game we are playing
Perhaps you missed the parenthesis I inserted there:
@Gallo:
Most of the people (not that anyone cared) had pro-allied feelings.
By that I meant not that anyone in the Argentine government really cared about what most of the people liked or not (it was a dictatorship for a reason: not to play attention to democratic will).
@Gargantua:
look at Russia, Italy, or Nazi Germany, were all the people there Pro Comintern or Pro Fascist? No. They were just tightly controlled by a militant government.
Precisely.
@Gargantua:
Falklands aside, Argentina had nothing to really gain from the war, so they never joined in.
Falklands were not even such a big deal. :-)
@Gargantua:
HOWEVER, if Nazi Germany had a South American Invasion plan, and was stomping all over the world in a blood-lust of conquest. And had the Germany army ARRIVED there, Bent on total S.A. Domination. Argentina surely would have joined the side of the Axis.
A big “If” :-) … not to mention that the Germans had a much bigger fish to fry… however, when a German submarine (U-73) sunk an Argentine ship in 1940 and the Nazis started operating in nearby Uruguay, Argentina sent troops to the border with Uruguay as a show of force just in case of a German infiltration occurred … so I don’t see Buenos Aires jumping happily on the German boat (or U-boat).
(There had been stories about possible plans from German residents in Uruguay, supported by the German embassy there to launch a cup and take control of Uruguay prior and during WW2, but it’s mostly hearsay and exaggerations about the capabilities of what best case scenario were a bunch of lunatics you could count with your fingers).
Guys in Buenos Aires wanted to remain neutral. So they did :-)
@Gargantua:
That, or, if the allies felt that the Government of Argentina was going to join the Axis effort immenently, as a pro axis nuetral, it is possible the allies may have attacked to depose them.
Sorry, lots of speculation :-)
@Gargantua:
It makes PERFECT game sense to have Argentina Pro-Axis. And it add’s an EXCITING element to the game.
Notice I started my first post in this thread saying that from a Historical point of view Argentina was neutral, not pro-axis (except from its Military sympathies for Prussian traditions), and its “National Interest” (aka ruling elite’s interest) was to remain that way.
For game sense… well, it may be cool to try a German invasion of Argentina & Brazil maybe (I saw you suggested that in another tread), could be a lot of fun :-)
But if you want to support a pro-axis status of Argentina in the game based on historical facts then no, I’m sorry, it doesn’t make sense :-)
