That would have worked if the jelly fish that were running GB and France had spine transplants. At that stage both Italy and Germany were 'all mouth and trousers' as we say Up North (by eck!). Neither of the totalitarian states could or would have stood up to the Anglo French alliance if they'd fully supported the Republican goverment. But.....the elephant in the room was the USSR, and the (then) British goverment were backing Franco because he was anti communist. An interesting side note; during WWII the British bribed Franco's goverment heavily, and I'm talking millions, to stay neutral. Then of course, the USA took over that role as his fascist politics were still anti communist, and he was happy to lease air bases to the USAF, that's where all those second hand Sabres came from. In the end, the old bastard just died and it took the Spanish themselves to bring in democracy, with the rallying around the king as a means to bury the past.
The odd thing is - he
almost joined the war,
inspite of the tough times Spain was going through. The only reason he didn't was that Hitler failed to see the strategic importance of Gibraltar and was therefore unwilling to compromise with Franco. If the Balkans campaign hadn't happened, it's possible that Hitler would've supported a Spanish invasion of Gibraltar and Portugal instead (Franco told Hitler and the Germans that he wanted to annex Portugal. This was around a year or so after he signed a 'Treaty of Non-Aggression and Friendship' with Salazar - shades of 'Molotov-Ribbentrop,' anyone?
).