Play as · WW2 1939 · L1 · British Crown Colony · Strait Choke

Gibraltar - 1939

Gibraltar in 1939 is the British Crown Colony at the entrance to the Mediterranean - under British administration since the 1704 capture during the War of the Spanish Succession and formalized through the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht - and the principal Royal Navy strategic-positioning facility for the Atlantic-Mediterranean transition. Population about 21,000 (the substantial civilian population evacuation will begin in summer 1940 to accommodate the wartime military-strategic requirements; the population will be largely evacuated to the United Kingdom, Madeira, Jamaica, and Northern Ireland through the war). The strategic identity is the British Crown Colony fortress at the strait with the substantial Royal Navy and Royal Air Force base, the looming Operation Felix German invasion-plan that will be repeatedly drafted and never executed (it required Spanish cooperation that Franco refused to provide), the substantial wartime convoy-control and submarine-operations strategic-significance, and the broader British Atlantic-Mediterranean strategic-architecture.

Starting position

Gibraltar's defense-architecture in 1939 includes the substantial Royal Navy facilities at the Gibraltar dockyard, the Royal Air Force airfield at North Front (constructed across 1939 as the rearmament accelerated), the British Army Gibraltar Garrison formations including the Gibraltar Regiment and broader British-imperial regiments, and the substantial coastal-artillery and anti-aircraft architecture that the post-1936 Spanish Civil War context had progressively expanded. The Rock-fortress geography itself provides substantial defensive depth - the substantial network of tunnels, ammunition storage, hospital facilities, and command bunkers that the wartime period will substantially expand. The substantial wartime civilian population evacuation will begin in 1940 - about 13,000 Gibraltarians will be relocated to the UK, Madeira, Jamaica, and Northern Ireland through the war.

What turns the campaign

What Gibraltar in 1939 wants is the substantial wartime strategic-positioning preserved through the looming German Operation Felix planning that has been continuously drafted and never executed (the Spanish refusal to cooperate has been the principal continuing obstacle), the Royal Navy Atlantic-Mediterranean operations preserved at the operational scale that the strategic positioning supports, the civilian population evacuation managed without producing the kind of social-political disruption that the substantial relocation will produce, the broader British Atlantic-Mediterranean strategic-architecture maintained through the multi-year wartime period, and the Spanish-Gibraltarian bilateral situation managed without producing direct interstate confrontation. What Gibraltar fears is exactly the Operation Felix scenario - a German operational decision (under cover of Spanish-cooperation) that judges the cost worth paying, the Spanish-aligned political pressure that periodically intensifies through the wartime period, and a Royal Navy strategic-resource-redirection that compresses the Gibraltar-engagement.

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