British and Portuguese soldiers joined together for a joint military parade, commemorating the 650th Anniversary of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance.
The alliance, first established in 1373, is known for its unique long-standing partnership.
British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, expressed his enthusiasm for the six-and-a-half-century-long alliance. “No other relationship on the planet has survived the test of time as well as ours,” he commented.
“We are now building on those solid foundations to deliver security and prosperity for our countries, progress towards net zero, and support to Ukraine.”
In a display of unity, a combined Guard of Honour, featuring UK and Portuguese military, paraded side by side in the Buckingham Palace Quadrangle to welcome His Majesty King Charles III and the President of Portugal. The UK contingent was formed by the Nijmegen Company Grenadier Guards, while the Band of the Welsh Guards provided the musical accompaniment, playing the national anthems of both nations.
The Captains of both the UK and Portuguese contingents moved to the dais together and saluted. The Captain of the Portuguese contingent invited The King to inspect his troops, while the Captain of the Grenadier Guards, speaking in perfect Portuguese, invited the Portuguese President to inspect the UK troops.
I remember learning this from my father as child. It one of those facts that passes most of us by.
Serious question: what good is the alliance when you consider Portugal was silent during the Falklands War, or signed a treaty of neutrality in 1939 regarding the Axis/Allies conflict?
If you ask me, it looks more like a treaty of convenience and publicity.
What it means is we don’t fight against each other and even our fellow subjects of the crown stayed out of the Falklands. As for neutrality in WW2, Portugal was a tiny country overshadowed by Franco and his Axis backers, so who can blame them. And on the other hand we had 2 Allies one of which was quite happy to watch us go bankrupt and defend western freedom until Japan screwed that up and Hitler declared war on them. The other signed a 10 year non aggression treaty with the Nazis and quietly agreed to partition Poland after the… Read more »
Technically neither of them were “Allies” until Pearl Harbour and Barbarossa, so would have down what they perceived as in their best interests regardless of how it would have effected the UK/British Empire. And to be fair, its not like the UK/British Empire hasn’t made such choices before either.
nope…why would Portugal do it….you forget that Portugal flew the Red Cross flag and was neutral…besides USA did not get involved until Pearl Harbour’s bombing by the Japs…on the other hand the Japs bombed Darwin twice in one day on the 19th February 1942..so where was England…when Aus and NZ were slaughtered by the Turks…
You just seem to ignore reality ? Where was England when Aus and NZ were slaughtered by Turks ? I take it you mean a Gallipoli ! It was a very good idea but delayed and executed very badly hence it went wrong. Australia had 8700 casualties , NZ 2733, France 27000, England 0. England doesn’t fight in wars ! The United Kingdom fights wars and it lost 73000 at Gallipoli. So if you want to know where the English were, well they are still there and buried right along side our ANZAC comrades. In the Commonwealth War Cemeteries or… Read more »
Over half the Allied casualties at Gallipoli (73,485) were British and Irish troops.
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Subjects of the Crown stayed out…except indirectly New Zealand who sent a frigate to the middle east covering a RN units patrol and allowing it to bolster our war resource with an extra warship. Loyal to the last the Kiwis!!
HMS Achilles was mostly manned by Kiwis and they provided many of the Fleet Air Arm pilots and crew.
I dont understand why we dont make a lot more of the support we received from all over the Empire in two world wars. We should.
What ever we do, don’t let the Media go off at a tangent though.
Not to forget Air Chief Marshall Keith Park,Jonno!
Great. I like it in The Battle of Britain film where he arrives at the airfield in his Private Hurricane!
My Dad met many Kiwis in the FAA and even named the pub they met up in; off Oxford St. I think it was the Lamb and Flag, James St.
Great stuff Jonno! Hope you are getting some Summer!!
Please ignore all the negative stuff from some on here. Portugal and Britain are friends and allies.
Hmmm…perhaps overlooking Lend-Lease Act of 1941, which provided $31.4B (1940″s dollars) in food, fuel and materiel? Better somewhat late, than never…
Not overlooking it at all, but Lend Lease was the end result of a long process of loans and a lovely policy called “Cash & Carry”. Due to that by 1941 we were completely broke, had sold all our transferable assets and most of the Gold reserve was gone. Thankfully by then the general swell of opinion in US had swung against Neutrality and Roosevelt’s policy of “everything short of actual war”. Which seems to be a lesson well learned and presently being applied to Ukraine. Lend Lease was the lifeline, but not only for U.K, it applied to France… Read more »
Hence the comment ‘better late than never.’
BTW, any full accounting of British contributions must include sharing design and performance data re British Chain Home early warning radar system. 😊
SO VERY TRUE,WELL SAID.
Take no notice of some on here.I have Portuguese neighbours here in England.Lovely family.
Good points John. Now we have that irish detritus Biden who refused to show the Union Flag when it was driven from southern ireland in to Northern Ireland.
It has also denied Ben Wallace his rightful place as head of NATO.
Today when it met our King it professed to be an ally!
Always knew we would have trouble with him as long ago as the last US election.
Why are you replying to me, my name isn’t John and I would be mortified if you did reply to my comment. I was having bit of friendly banter with Formerusaf and you add a bit of extremely, distasteful bigoted, nasty and disrespectful Dross about the President of the country that helped keep us free twice. The irony is you refer to him as ‘it’ rather than he, which is exactly the same thinking the Nazis used to dehumanise innocent people. I don’t particularly like him, his motives are suspect and he has a track record of embellishing his past… Read more »
The British forced Portugal to give up African colonies, it didn’t support Portugal when India invaded Goa, and Britain sponsored Africans against the Portuguese regime in Africa during the colonial wars.
This treaty exists because Britain needs a continental ally and the Portuguese were stupid enough to go along with it for centuries.
What a misery you are
I’ll second that!
Nice first post, limited factual historical knowledge, a seemingly disrespect for the Portuguese and a general negative outlook! Ah well, enjoy!
👍 Very limited.
‘The British forced Portugal to give up African colonies …‘
The Portuguese gave them up after the Revolution in 1974; They were very unpopular colonial wars as I learned first hand from a Portuguese.
I was speaking of the British ultimatum that led to the Monarchy collapsing. Not the colonial wars. I speak of the colonial on my third point, where the British, as well as most of the West + USSR sponsored terrorists. Pretty certain the only allies Portugal had was South Africa and Rhodesia at the time.
People saying its limited history have no idea how negative the alliance was for Portugal from 1640 onwards. Even the loss of Brazil was backed by Britain.
You seem to have selective memory loss. Er what about the Peninsular War to rescue Portugal and Spain from Napoleon. Not just a skirmish on the fringe.
Portugal was alone and fighting the colonial war of independence…they were the USA, USSR. CHINA, ITALY and CUBA led by the then Fidel de Castro…three provinces…that were thriving…now they are nothing….Guine Bissau, is one of the main narcs…sickness….and so is Angola…then we have Mozambique…so they are back to basics,
man you hit the target…yeap..England was losing its Africans colonies and the Zulus were the first ones to get rid if England,
Richard, with respect, it wasn’t the British who forced Portugal to give up their colonies. The demographics and realities on the ground did that as with the demise of ALL the other European Empires
Face it by then Portugal was an outlier on Colonialism, as UK had just given most of its colonies independence.
No mileage in upsetting India; although I remember thinking India was wrong to go in with force. We had been talking about Indian Independence since c.1914.
You must know the use of Portuguese air base use by Britain in Falklands war in Azores!!!!
Don’t waste your time José on the ill or never informed. Who helped and how was never fully revealed but reading accounts and memoirs by those in the know, one can make intelligent guesses. Blighty gave President Marcelo the full honours and Red Carpet for some very good reason.
Indeed Jose and on a personal level one of my best friends Wally Lage whom I first met in the then Rhodesia over 60 years ago shouted together Viva Portugal! Viva Eusebio! in our own Entente Cordiale between our two nations😀
If Portugal had joined the Allied side in WW2, it would have been vulnerable to invasion by Franco’s Spain. So neutrality was the only safe option.
don’t follow that logic, Spain was also neutral
Spain was neutral as Franco asked an insane amount of resources from the Axis to buy in. An active Allied Portugal might have change the equation however.
Franco thesis at military academy was the invasion of Portugal…
Neutral true but against whom?
Spain was only nominally neutral, it was politically aligned with the axis powers and its intelligence agency actively supported axis war efforts. It’s neutrality also varies depending on how the war was going..at the fall of France..Franco offered to join the axis ( for a lot of support and Cameroon…which both Spain and Germany wanted…but was part of the viche French deal ). By 1944 it had returned to strick neutrality….Spain was mainly limited in what it did because it did not want to irritate the US. Viche France was also neutral..but in a way that benefited the axis powers… Read more »
I would like to point out that Sweden provided the British with high quality bearings vital for aero engines. The British picked them up from Gothenburg, known as little London in Sweden. The British used converted MTB’s flying the Red Ensign. The first boats to arrive in Gothenburg were met with cheering crowds. If I remember rightly not one MTB was lost. The lesson Sweden took from WW2 was that armed neutrality was the way forward, hence the powerful and well equipped military that is now trying to join NATO. The point is Sweden was not in a position to… Read more »
Hi chariot, yes that was the thrust of the argument, neutrality in these European states at that point may have be de Jure but the de facto state was that Germany could have overwhelmed any of them at any point if they did not effectively do what Germany wanted. For some like Spain it was actually a political choice and aligned Belief ( they wanted to support the axis) for others like Switzerland and Sweden…it was survival and they had to be seen toe the line ( Switzerland was at heart profoundly unhappy with what it did around jewish people… Read more »
The run up to war and the war itself were very dark days with nations traumatised by WW1 hoping against hope that it wouldn’t couldn’t happen again. A harsh lesson not to be forgotten. I always thought Chamberlain’s sell out of Czechoslovakia was a dreadful betrayal. However, just recently I have become more aware of the state of the UK’s defences in 1938 and it was woeful. Chamberlain was apparently briefed on the readiness of Fighter Command although readiness was hardly the right word. Firstly, there were no Spitfires in frontline service, secondly, there were only 4 Hurricane squadrons and… Read more »
That is not a valid argument. The defences of Nazi Germany in 1938 were several times worse.
I was pointing out that the situation was far more complicated than we (and I include myself in that) tend to think. I still that with hindsight what happened to Czechoslovakia was a betrayal, but hindsight is a luxury that that only comes after the event. I would also point out the the Luftwaffe was in much better shape than the RAF in 1938 and that was still true in 1940 given what happened to the Lysanders and Battles in France. In 1938 there was a view that the bomber would always get through. I believe, that was based in… Read more »
Luftwaffe was not a better shape in 1938 , might have been in 1940, but not against the cumulative French and RAF, plus the Dutch and Belgium.
Consider it extremely unfortunate that there are but a mere handful of Churchillian voices in the wilderness of UK politics, clamoring for an expeditious and extensive rearmament program. The Poles, Finns, Swedes, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians have certainly grasped the obvious. Hell, even the Germans and French have awakened to some degree. Remember the UK had the luxury of sheltering behind of the largest and strongest fleet in the world in rhe face the gathering European storm of the mid to late 1930″s, as well as a RAF largely able to match the productive capacity of the Luftwaffe. Unfortunately, those… Read more »
…the face…🙄
Ireland was allegedly offered Northern Ireland via back channels if it supported the German effort via any effect they might bring to bare against the UK, cough, cough leave the lights on for example… In reality (and fence sitting government aside), thousands of Irish men answered the allied call to arms despite their governments irritation and many paid the ultimate price too…. In reality, it would simply have been rapidly occupied if the UK was defeated or forced to bow out of the conflict in some sort of deal, to prevent its possible use by the USA as a European… Read more »
But Portugal could not be sure that Spain would remain militarily uncommitted throughout WW2, however long that was going to last. Nazi forces had fought on/over Spanish soil in the Spanish civil war only a few years before, so there was recent evidence of military cooperation. Franco was a Fascist who was ideologically similar to Hitler and Mussolini.
Portugal’s neutrality position was commonsense, given the uncertainty, and the relative size of Spain and its armed forces.
I am not in disagreement with Portugal staying nonaligned just don’t think it would necessarily resulted in an invasion. Franco did not invade Gibraltar and I don’t think would have wanted war with the UK. They did lease us air bases in the Azores by the way.
Infact Spain actually offered to join the military axis in 1940, it was only the fact German and Spain could not agreeing on the future of Cameroon that stopped Spain fighting.
Interesting, a blunder by Hitler. If he had given ground on Cameroon, and got Spain signed up for the Axis, Franco could have taken Portugal and more importantly, Gibraltar, and then dominated the approach to the Med.
Spain may have invaded southern France and held and controlled it instead of Vichy French. Spanish forces in France might have released German troops in France to re-deploy to the Eastern Front.
They sent the Blue Division to the Eastern Front.
Hi Daniele, it was one of those legal fictions…as it was a German army division of the Spain ish volunteers….but given permission from and actively recruited to by the Spanish government. De jure neutrality with de facto support…it was basically to keep the US sweet so Spain would not loss US trade..and Hitler would not hand over Cameroon. Lucky for the UK….as pointed out by Graham Spain entering the war would have lost us the rock and with it the med…North Africa would have fallen giving Germany access to the Middle East and its oil…
Oh yes, I’m aware of the strategic failures of the German High Command.
Take Gibraltar. Take Malta. Goodbye North Africa, Rommels fuel wouldn’t have been sunk as much.
I still think they’d have lost on the Eastern Front eventually but it would have taken much longer and history may well have been different.
And widening that foreign volunteer theme. 5th SS Division Wiking was full of Danish, Norwegians, Swedes, and other Nordic types. Latvians were in the Waffen SS, so were Ukranians. Leon Degrelle of the Walloon Legion. The wider Waffen SS had a Europe vs Bolshevik theme.
Mark Felton on youtube, a brilliant,brilliant resource, had a piece on Swiss detachments on the Russian front.
At least our Brits and the Indians who joined were just a propaganda unit. The others all fought.
Yes people often forget that fascism was an evil that swept through Europe to a far wider extent than just a few people in Germany…Hitler was just the most famous bastard to ride that wave.
Hmm no. Hitler was a Nazi. Not a Fascist.
Both ideologies touched in Nationalism and Socialism
but there were no racial eugenic theories in Fascism.
Alex Nazism is a form of Fascism. That is a widely accepted academic view point. Italian Fascism, Nazism and Japanism are all considered to be fascist ideologies. I specifically chose my words as there were many forms of fascism, it had even more faces than communism. Spain had its own brand of fascism that was intermixed with Catholic ideology..even the Estado Novo, the Portuguese state that was overtly anti fascist was infact in reality a form of fascism that used the corporatist, authoritarian and nationalist elements of Italian Fascism.
First the Alliance says both countries do not fight each other not they have to fight side by side in each instance.
I think you should be informed about the named Portuguese Class Trawlers build in Portuguese shipyards 1941-1943 for Royal Navy that got a diplomatic protest from Nazis.
It is also advised to read the memories of British Ambassador to Portugal in WW2.
Portugal provided logistics support in Azores to Falklands operation.
But we can also talk about the Pink Map and one of the reasons Portugal is not a monarchy.
Portuguese Class Trawler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese-class_trawler
yeap….too right… the pink map…well done…i was wondering about the same thing
It was a major factor in the Napoleonic war. We sent an army to help repel the French invasion, helping Lisbon survive, then it provided the springboard to eventually drive the French out of Spain.
She was an ally in WW1, neutral in WW2 but a firm NATO ally since.
What about when Porruguese India was invades by the Republic of India on the 18 Dec 1961? What did Britain do?
What would you suggest they could have done in only 2 days? Realistically Portugal should have realised keeping the area was never going to last post Indian Independence.
That’s the truth. Goa was taken without a shot I recall. Post the 1974 Revolution and the ousting of Salazar, the last colonial wars in Africa were halted and Portugal has modernised since.
I remember that time well Barry. Here in Durban there was a gathering of patriotic Portuguese men outside the City Hall determined to go North to Mozambique and mount some kind of last stand but the reality quickly set in as Portugal withdrew her soldiers very shortly thereafter.
Actually it was a very violent action with land sea and air forces innvolved resulting in 22 Indians and 30 Portuguese being killed.
The naval action involved a dual that lasted some hours between a pre WW2 design Portuguese warship and a Leopard Class Indian frigate if I remember rightly (read it somewhere, I’m not that old 🙂 ). I think it resulted in the loss of the Portuguese ship or at least she was seriously damaged.
Cheers CR
Good post Mark.
Britain washed their hands out of it…They have lost total power and reigning of India…They were out back then sometime in before Portugal’s exit.
Portugal helped the UK during the Falklands war,
“For example, during the 1982 Falklands War, the facilities of the Azores were once again requested by Britain for use by the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Portugal granted the request on the same basis that it had for Churchill thirty-nine years earlier.”
https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-158/churchill-leadership-and-the-war-4-the-leader-as-historian/#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20during%20the%201982,Churchill%20thirty%2Dnine%20years%20earlier.
Portugal was invaded 3 times by Napoleon because it refused to close its ports to the British navy and seazed the French ships at the request of Britain. This was done at a time when all other nations were enforcing the continental blockade. It had a tremendous cost to our nation with a terrible price in lives and wealth pillaged by French troops, and later led to the loss of our most important colony Brasil. In WW1 we entered the war again on Britain’s side and sent troops to the Somme. In WW2 while technically neutral (which avoided Spain entering… Read more »
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John wrote: “”Serious question: what good is the alliance when you consider Portugal was silent during the Falklands War”” “”On April 2, 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, and South Sandwich islands. Argentina and the United Kingdom have yet to resolve their dispute over possession of these islands. Argentina escalated the debate by invading and occupying these British territories.This act of war by Argentina drew a quick reaction from British forces, which fought to liberate their territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. Portugal offered its ports in the Azores to the Royal Navy in support of Britain’s… Read more »
Actually the British were really keen to keep Portugal out of WW2. Had Portugal joined on our side Franco would have sided with the Axis and could easily taken Gibraltar which would have made the UK’s position in the Mediterrarnean impossible.
https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1305&context=auilr
See paragraph half way down page 189. (The link starts at 185 🙂 )
Cheers CR
Many thanks for this analysis. I know M.I.6 were very active in Portugal during the Dark Days following Dunkirk, running agents and so forth.
as we have mentioned then…Portugal was neutral and anyone could have been there…the Nazis along with MI6 the French, the British who stayed at the Estoril’s Hotel and where the idea of James Bond spy novels hallmarked the then late movies in the early Sixties meanwhile Portugal’s war on Colonies and Vietnam War started.
Yes and in and out of Gibraltar in the boot of the Rolls Royce of one of its prominent citizens.
One could say the same for the United States pre-Pearl Harbor and post war on U.K. debt (un)forgiveness. Plenty of larger countries played safe when it came to choosing their side (Irish Republic, Sweden, et al). Blighty keeps secrets that might harm another country and we do have soon clues; Lisbon was ‘spy central’ in World War Two. I personally enjoy these ‘stick it to Brussels’ jamborees.
Espionage existed then and there…they need the thorough information…and was easy to get it or them so long you knew how…nothing new about it…right now you would be talking to me and the next thing they know about our conversations, where we are…what we are doing…what are our skills, plans…whatever…it never ends…however one should know where they land and get their information from…they could be wrong or doing them on purpose…
Oh FFS! Really?
It always impresses me how some will dance on a head of a pin, just to push a false narrative they are too lazy to question.
”larger nations”? While Sweden had a larger population and supported (to a degree) Axis forces, Ireland was smaller and even less equipped than Portugal and supported the Allies like they did, each in their own way.
There was a strong pro-Nazí following in Sweden pre-War; the founder of IKEA was one. Ireland was pro-German. There is ample evidence. At the time of the Good Friday Agreement the Public Record Office (now National Archive Kew) sealed for a hundred years all its files on Irish and German wartime communications intercepted by the British. Numerous countries had convenient memory lapses to cover 1939-45. Portugal was not among them.
Victory by the in from the start allies proved the truth of an old saying ‘Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan.‘
well now that you have put it this way, this will hurt…why didnt England come to the fore and help Portugal fight Africans Wars. Where was England…
Port …Unbroken supply’s of Port …the greatest thing to come out of this long standing treaty and for that singular reason its probably the best treaty in the world.
You stole falklands and gibraltar like the russians are doing at Ukraine and their are neighbours.. uk did it to have military strategic spots.. so we are not alies for war. We are peace makers.. as u may noticed through history we were the first ones giving up in th “empire” and we also were there first ones accepting and apologising for slavery trade.. we are the most peaceful and with less conflict other than economic country in Europe.. makes sense? As per ww2 the portuguese had nurses and mechanics helping allies and we gave away some land for an… Read more »
Portugal allowed the UK to use the Azores to supply it’s reaction force. During the Falklands war. WWII if they had joined in the fun then Spain would have as well. I think the allies were largely happy with them staying out.
A nice reminder that not everything in the past is alien to us. Sometimes you can judge it by modern standards- in this case very positively. This alliance has served us well and we should be extremely proud of it.
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Does anyone know what happened during the Iberian union (1580-1640)?
What you want to know? It is was bad.
Some colonies simply run themselves from the Spanish crown.
I mean what happened to the alliance
Quite an amazing length of time.
Professed neutrality and actual neutrality.
I seem to understand that Franco was neutral but helped the NAZIs, and ditto Portgal was neutral but helped us.
Falklands – Portugal was not neutral.
Today, I guess we jockey for influence within the EU from without and have to check Spain over Gibraltar; so much politics and influence to trade and who can forget that Brazil who has bought one or two naval ships speaks…
Many countries have Portuguese as their first language; wonder who the Guard’s Officer was?
Yes. Gibraltar comes to mind.
All I know is they have a very favourable tax system for those who move there, 20% on all foreign income for 10 years 😀. And they have a double taxation treaty with UK so you don’t pay tax in the UK, nice!
Difficult not to become long time companions with a country who’s quintas can boast the Douro. You can just picture the scene during any subsequent disputes. “Tell you what old bean, nothing we cannot resolve over a little drink or two”. Port, such a mellow choice…..
Prefer Madiera (me’ dear)!
Ok, we won’t argue about it, either way 🙂
Nothing wrong with a pact like this a bit like the uk with malta etc like someone said a non aggression pact.