One of the main reasons for this policy was related to Argentina's economic position as one of the world's leading exporters of foodstuffs and agricultural products, to Europe in general and to the United Kingdom in particular.

[5] Because of strong divisions and internal disputes between members of the Argentine military,[3] Argentina remained neutral for most of World War II, despite pressure from the United States to join the Allies.

[8] In 1916, following the enactment of universal and secret male suffrage by conservative president Roque Saenz Peña, the voting franchise was expanded, and electoral transparency improved, leading to the first truly free presidential elections in the country.

As a byproduct of Black Tuesday and the Wall Street crash of 1929, Great Britain, principal economic partner of Argentina in the 1920s and 1930s, had taken measures to protect the meat supply market in the Commonwealth.

At the 1932 Imperial Conference negotiations in Ottawa, bowing to pressure, mainly from Australia and South Africa, Britain had decided to severely curtail imports of Argentine beef.

On December, facing uprisings by UCR supporters, Justo decreed a state of siege, and again imprisoned the old Yrigoyen, as well as Alvear, Ricardo Rojas, Honorio Pueyrredón, and other leading figures of the party.

In December, during a meeting of the national convention of the UCR, a joint uprising by the military and politicians broke loose in Santa Fe, Rosario, and Paso de los Libres.

Meanwhile, the ruling Concordancia party, nominated lawyer Roberto M. Ortiz, from the dissident anti-Yrigoyen UCR faction, as presidential candidate, with conservative lawmaker Ramón Castillo, as his running mate.

Amid widespread reports of intimidation, ballot stuffing and voter roll tampering (whereby, according to one observer, "democracy was extended to the hereafter"), Ortiz won the elections handily.

[19] To achieve this aim, the Ortiz administration resorted to federal interventions, but in the opposite way that these had been used under Justo, intervening those provinces where governors had won by proven fraud (namely San Juan, Santiago del Estero, Catamarca and Buenos Aires), while respecting the results and autonomy in those provinces with no irregularities, including those where elections had been won by the opposition UCR, such as the cases of Tucumán (October 1938 and March 1939) as well as Córdoba (March 1940).

[19] The opposition Radical Civic Union, in turn, was divided between FORJA, a political grouping that consisted of hardline supporters of deposed UCR president Hipólito Yrigoyen (who died in 1933) and opposed any form of cooperation with the government, and the majoritarian faction of the UCR under the official leadership of Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, who, while also remaining in opposition to the government, soon adopted a more conciliary tone to the Ortiz administration as a result of these changes.

[23] While under custody, Hans Langsdorff later committed suicide at the Immigrant's Hotel in Buenos Aires, while the crew was eventually released, a dozen of them taking residence in Argentina and Uruguay.

[24] In December 1939, partly as a consequence of the Battle of the River Plate, the Ortiz government concluded that the worldwide nature of the conflict would eventually make neutrality untenable and impossible to maintain.

[3] However, the Argentine proposal suffered from bad timing, as then U.S. president, Franklin Roosevelt, was in the midst of a challenging and controversial re-election campaign for an unprecedented third term in office.

The initial manifesto of Acción Argentina was drafted by former president Marcelo T. de Alvear, and leading members of the organization included major intellectuals, journalists, artists and politicians from a wide ideological spectrum, among them Alicia Moreau de Justo, Américo Ghioldi, José Aguirre Cámara, Mauricio Yadarola, Rodolfo Fitte, Rafael Pividal, Raúl C. Monsegur, Federico Pinedo, Jorge Bullrich, Alejandro Ceballos, Julio A. Noble, Victoria Ocampo, Emilio Ravignani, Nicolás Repetto, Mariano Villar Sáenz Peña and Juan Valmaggia.

Generally, it did not involve a rejection of democracy but rather an admiration of German military history, which combined with an intense Argentine nationalism influenced the main stance of the army towards the war: maintaining neutrality.

[31] Though only a handful of military leaders actually supported Adolf Hitler, and pro-Axis positions were a minority, their true influence inside the army remains difficult to ascertain, as their advocates generally disguised themselves and adopted nationalist arguments.

As a result, it supported neutrality and opposed the British influence in Argentina during the early stages of the war, in line with the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union.

[33] Socialist deputy Enrique Dickmann created a commission in the National Congress to investigate a rumored German attempt to seize Patagonia and then conquer the rest of the country.

[34] A diplomatic mission by the British Lord Willingdon arranged commercial treaties whereby Argentina sent thousands of cattle to Britain at no charge, decorated with the Argentine colours and with the phrase "good luck" written on them.

Initially, it was arranged that Agustín Pedro Justo would run for president for a second time, but after his unexpected death in 1943 Castillo was forced to seek another candidate, finally settling on Robustiano Patrón Costas.

Future president Juan Perón was a member of this group but did not support an early coup, recommending instead to postpone the overthrowing of the government until the plotters had developed a plan to make necessary reforms.

The coup was to take place close to the elections, should the electoral fraud have been confirmed, but it was instead carried out earlier in response rumors of the possible sacking of the minister of war, Pedro Pablo Ramírez.

Following the launching of Operation Barbarossa and the consequent Soviet entry in the war, the Communists became pro-war and halted its support for further labour strikes against British factories located in Argentina.

Negotiations were eased by the departure of Hull as Secretary of State, replaced by Edward Stettinius Jr., who demanded that Argentina hold free elections, declare war against the Axis powers, eradicate all Nazi presence in the country and give its complete cooperation to international organizations.

The subs reached Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires Province respectively on 17 August 1945 and 10 July 1945, and Argentina quickly handed them over to the American military after first summoning US and British Royal Navy experts for interrogating them and examining their logs.

She recorded over 800hrs service, ferrying Supermarine Spitfires, de Havilland Mosquitos North American P-51 Mustangs, Hawker Typhoons, and bomber types including the Vickers Wellington and Avro Lancaster to the frontline RAF stations.

[69] In the late 1940s, under Juan Domingo Peron's leadership, the government secretly allowed entry of a number of war criminals fleeing Europe after Nazi Germany's collapse, as part of the ratlines.

More than 300 Nazi fugitives fled to Argentina, including war criminals such as Erich Priebke, Joseph Mengele, Eduard Roschmann, Josef Schwammberger, Walter Kutschmann, and Gestapo Colonel Adolf Eichmann.

[74] In 1992, President Carlos Menem declassified several police files regarding the escape of Nazi fugitives to Argentina,[75] and in 1997 he created a special commission to investigate their activities.