German Policy Toward Neutral Spain, 1914-1918

This volume describes and analyses the methods Germany used to reinforce Spain's independence thereby preventing Madrid's entry into the war on the Allied side. While there have been many studies dealing with the wartime economic histories of Holland, Switzerland, Denmark and Iceland, Spain, physically large and strategically situated has been largely ignored, with little American study of Spanish relations with the European belligerents having been done. Particular attention is paid to the forceful personality of Spanish King Alfonso XIII, who shrewdly used his special friendship with Kaiser Wilhelm II for Spanish profit: he remained a Francophile who shrewdly manipulated the Germans into thinking he favoured their side. At the same time Alfonso fended off the embrace of the Entente.