António de Oliveira Salazar
Despite the authoritarian character of the regime, Portugal did not experience the same levels of international isolation as Spain did following World War II. Unlike Spain, Portugal under Salazar was accepted into the Marshall Plan (1947–1948) in return for the aid it gave to the Allies during the final stages of the war. Furthermore, also unlike Spain, it was one of the 12 founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949, a reflection of Portugal's role as an ally against communism during the Cold War in spite of its status as the only non-democratic founder. In 1950, Portugal joined the European Payments Union and participated in the founding of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1961. It joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1962, and finally, Portugal signed a free trade agreement with the European Economic Community in 1972, still under the auspices of the "Estado Novo".
Portuguese Army
Portugal participated in World War I on the side of the Allies. The Portuguese Army would engaged in combat against the Germans in the European Western Front, in the South-West Africa and in the East Africa campaigns. The conflict between Portugal and Germany started well before the formal declaration of war between the two countries when several military clashes between Portuguese and German troops occurred in the borders of southern Angola with German West Africa and of northern Mozambique with German East Africa in the middle of 1914. The formal entry in the war would only occur when Germany declared war on Portugal on the 9th March 1916 in response to the Portuguese seizure of German shipping.
The republican reform of the Army implemented between January and May 1911 did not changed deeply the organization of the last years of the Monarchy, the changes being specially the honors, disciplinary and conscription systems, with the transformation of a mainly professional army into a mainly militia army. Notable changes in the organization included the increase of the number of divisions and regiments, the extinction of the traditional "caçadores" units, the creation of independent units of machineguns (being part of the infantry, but organized in batteries as the artillery) and the subdivision of the artillery arm in two almost separate branches (the field artillery and the foot artillery, this last being mainly a weapon engineering and technical branch, but being also responsible for the operation of the heavy guns of the garrison and coastal artillery). By this organization, the Metropolitan Army included the general officers, the Staff Service, the several arms and services (the engineering, artillery, cavalry and infantry arms, the military health, military veterinary and military administration services, the military secretariat and the auxiliary staffs), the Army general services (War Secretariat, Army Staff, headquarters and military territorial commands, military courts and justice, military schools, retirees companies and military invalids asylum) and the services of the Lisbon Entrenched Camp. The Army troops included the active troops, the reserve troops and the territorial troops. The active troops included eight divisions (each with four infantry regiments, one machinegun batteries group, one mounted artillery regiment and a cavalry regiment) and a cavalry brigade (with three cavalry regiments), plus non-divisionary engineering troops (eight companies of sappers-miners, eight divisionary sections of bridges, eight sections of floodlights, ten sections of field telegraphists, one bridge park, one wireless telegraph company, one balloon company, one railway companies group and one fortress telegraphists company, the majority of these units being administratively grouped in two sappers-miners and one pontoneers battalions), artillery troops (two mountain artillery regiments, one horse batteries group, two howitzers batteries groups and three independent mountain batteries), infantry troops (three infantry regiments and three independent machinegun companies), health service troops (eight health companies, administratively grouped in three companies groups) and military administration troops (eight supply companies and eight transportation companies, grouped in three military administration companies groups).