Re: Mobilizing by Mouse, who is wrong again, as usual, and no trains.
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www.history.com]
Operation Torch November, 1942. Darlan shot December, 1942.
No German troops in Spain had to be very important as if they had Franco's full cooperation the Germans would surely have attacked Gibraltar by land. The cagey Franco, while a Hitler admirer, probably was not secure enough with who would ultimately prevail. The Allies could attack Spain, as with Italy, and overthrow the Falange.
The underlying problem in France was a very deep(still there)divide between left and right. The thirties were marked by continual violent street conflicts between the Le Front Populaire and L'Action Francaise. Leon Blum came to power in 1936 with a leftist surge but could not last and several other centrist governments succeeded until the war began.
As I see it Germany was winning WWI when the US entered. 1871 was a disaster for France. So the Allies won the Great War but it was a kind of pyrrhic victory and Italy was so unhappy with the victory it subsequently went over to the German side.
The erstwhile Allies were not at all prepared to go to war with Hitler, which they should have done as soon as he occupied the Rhineland in 1936. And that lack of preparation continued - Antoine de St. Exupery complained in "Pilote de Guerre" about the overwhelming advantage the Germans enjoyed in the number of tanks(chars) at their command in 1940.