Carlos Saavedra Lamas

Faced with what it called “the long process of the Spanish revolution”, the conservative governments led by General Agustín Justo and his successor, Roberto Ortiz, decided to maintain diplomatic relations with the government of the Second Republic so long as it remained in control of Spanish territory. At the end of July, it had become clear that the situation was not simply another military coup. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Religion Carlos Saavedra Lamas, shown in the photograph, announced that, in the face of a state of insurrection, Argentinian policy would now be one of  abstention and that it would be possible to talk about neutrality only if both sides were recognized as belligerents. Even so, the government allowed an official representative of the Francoist government to undertake political and propaganda activity throughout the war. 

When the League of Nations debated the withdrawal of foreign volunteers from Spain the government of Argentina remained silent, as it did not sign the Non-Intervention Agreement. The meeting between Saavedra Lamas, who was president of the League’s Assembly, in September 1936, just weeks before he received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Spanish Foreign Minister Julio Álvarez del Vayo to discuss the liberation of the refugees under Argentinian protection led to a tacit agreement that the Argentinian embassy would follow the Republican government as it moved. Thus, the embassy moved to Valencia in March 1937 and then to Barcelona in October. Rejecting joint inter-American mediation initiatives,  Argentina preferred concrete humanitarian actions that allowed it to make requests to protect the lives of persecuted Spaniards and Spanish-Argentinians and a discrete role in prisoner exchanges, at the same time as it donated frozen meat to the hospitals of a Madrid that was under siege. 

Already under Ortiz, the government showed its support for anything, including a negotiated peace, that would make a political solution to the Spanish conflict possible while, at the same time, it put restrictions on the activities of the Falange and approved the new Republican ambassador, Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo. When he presented his credentials at the Cara Rosada in July 1938, a large crowd in the Plaza de Mayo cheered the Spanish Republic, while Ortiz spoke from the balcony of the presidential palace.  

When Barcelona fell and the Francoists took control of the French border, with President Manuel Azaña in France, and following an exchange of opinions with the British and French governments, Argentina suspended its relations with the Second republic on 25 February 1939. The following day, it recognized the Francoist government in Burgos.