In WW2 the likes of Spain, Portugal and Switzerland remained neutral, how could these countries stay neutral?
What stopped the Axis powers from invading these countries to add to their countries?
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Portugal was far enough from the areas of friction and only later joined WW1 and due to a lot of political turmoil in the country it was barely active in the war effort.
WW2 was a different matter all together, in part protected to the east by the Spanish government being amicable with Germany as long as boundaries weren’t crossed and also because the Portuguese government saw it as a business opportunity in helping both sides, providing raw materials to Germany and Great Britain and allowing the use of the mid Atlantic Portuguese islands, the Azores (howdy btw), to the allied powers as a military outpost for air and naval forces, there was also a lot of fine print regarding rules of engagement and neutrality within Portuguese maritime and air territory such as how much help and what kind of it could be allowed.
All in all it worked out well since the state reserves were loaded with gold, some of it used to build a lot of infrastructure in Portugal such as transportation and education but a lot of those funds were sucked dry in the Portuguese colonial wars to maintain control of our former colonies in Africa and Asia later on in the 60s and 70s.
Switzerland has a lot of geographical features that make it very hard to invade, an armed population(?) and strategically set defense points through the entire country as well as playing nice as the piggy bank for a great deal of high ranking Nazis who wanted to stash away their personal fortunes.
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