Defending the Rock
SynopsisPlot
The Rock of Gibraltar, a pillar of British sea-power since 1704, looked formidable but was extraordinarily vulnerable. Though menaced on all sides by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Vichy France and Francoist Spain, every day Gibraltar had to let thousands of people cross its frontier to work. Among them came spies and saboteurs, eager to blow up its 25 miles of secret tunnels. In 1942, Gibraltar became US General Eisenhower’s HQ for the invasion of North Africa, the campaign that led to Allied victory in the Mediterranean. Nicholas Rankin’s revelatory new book, whose cast of characters includes Haile Selassie, Anthony Burgess and General Sikorski, sets Gibraltar in the wider context of the struggle against fascism, from Abyssinia through the Spanish Civil War. It also chronicles the end of empire and the rise to independence of the Gibraltarian people.
Story
About this book
Gibraltar has been a British naval stronghold since 1704, but during the Second World War, the Rock was far less secure than it appeared. Surrounded by hostile or unfriendly powers, including Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Vichy France, and Franco's Spain, the territory depended on thousands of workers crossing its land border each day. That daily flow of people created openings for espionage and sabotage, particularly threatening to the roughly 25 miles of military tunnels carved inside the limestone.
Nicholas Rankin traces Gibraltar's wartime story within a broader arc that stretches back through the Spanish Civil War and the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. The book follows how the territory became the headquarters for US General Eisenhower's 1942 invasion of North Africa, a campaign that shifted the balance of power across the Mediterranean. Its cast includes figures as varied as Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, the novelist Anthony Burgess, and the Polish leader General Sikorski.
Alongside the military and intelligence history, Rankin follows the longer trajectory of empire's decline and the gradual emergence of Gibraltarian self-governance. The book's central argument is pointed: Germany's failure to seize Gibraltar in the summer of 1940 carried consequences that shaped the outcome of the entire war.
