PORTUGAL AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The long authoritarian rule of António de Oliveira Salazar (1932–68) and the democratic transition following the 1974 Carnation Revolution were the main factors determining Portugal's post-Second World War position regarding European organizations. Following a 28 May 1926 military coup d’état against the democratic regime, Salazar was appointed finance minister and granted extraordinary powers to enable the country to avoid imminent financial collapse. On 5 July 1932 he was appointed as Portugal's one hundredth prime minister. A new constitution was drafted, with Salazar as its guiding spirit. Taking a leaf out of the book of other authoritarian and fascist regimes at that time, he organized a popular referendum on 19 March 1933 to approve his Constitution but also to consolidate his powers and vision.

The resulting Estado Novo (New State) effectively established an antiparliamentarian, corporatist and authoritarian form of governance that would last until 1974. Salazar rapidly outlawed political parties, imprisoned opposition leaders, instituted censorship of the press and reorganized the state, imitating many of the features of the regime of his contemporary in Italy, Benito Mussolini, including the creation of a secret police service, the “State Defence and Surveillance Police” (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado) which, profiting from technical assistance from Nazi Germany's Gestapo, established concentration camps and tortured prisoners.

Salazar consolidated his hold on power during the 1930s, surviving abortive uprisings and a 1937 assassination attempt. During the 1939–45 war, the Portuguese government adopted a “neutral” position, aiming to preserve its profitable economic trade with Germany but also wishing not to jeopardize its centuries-old alliance with the United Kingdom (the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, ratified by the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, remains to this day the oldest extant alliance in the world). Portugal's neutrality also meant that its overseas territories were less at risk of invasion and occupation. However, following the December 1941 entry of the United States into the war and the strategic importance for the Allied forces of the Azores, the Portuguese government was forced to align itself more closely with the Allies, while remaining theoretically neutral.