The brunt of the Russian attack fell at first upon the frontier defences of the Finns in the Karelian Isthmus. These comprised a fortified zone about twenty miles in depth running north and south through forest country, deep in snow. This was called the “Mannerheim Line”, after the Finnish Commander-in-Chief and saviour of Finland from Bolshevik subjugation in 1917. The indignation excited in Britain, France, and even more vehemently in the United States, at the unprovoked attack by the enormous Soviet Power upon a small, spirited, and highly-civilised nation was soon followed by astonishment and relief. The early weeks of fighting brought no success to the Soviet forces. The Finnish Army, whose total fighting strength was only about 200,000 men, gave a good account of themselves. The Russian tanks were encountered with audacity and a new type of hand-grenade, soon nicknamed “the Molotov Cocktail”.
It is probable that the Soviet Government had counted on a walkover. Their early air raids on Helsingfors and elsewhere, though not on a heavy scale, were expected to strike terror. The troops they used at first, though numerically much stronger, were inferior in quality and ill-trained. The effect of the air raids and of the invasion of their land roused the Finns, who rallied to a man against the aggressor and fought with absolute determination and the utmost skill. The attack on the “Waist” of Finland proved disastrous to the invaders. The country here is almost entirely pine forests, gently undulating and at the time covered with a foot of snow. The cold was intense. The Finns were well equipped with skis and warm clothing, of which the Russians had neither. Moreover, the Finns proved themselves aggressive individual fighters, highly trained in reconnaissance and forest warfare. The Russians relied in vain on numbers and heavier weapons. All along this front the Finnish frontier posts withdrew slowly down the roads, followed by the Russian columns. After these had penetrated about thirty miles they were set upon by the Finns. Held in front at Finnish defence lines constructed in the forests, violently attacked in flank by day and night, their communications severed behind them, the columns were cut to pieces, or, if lucky, got back after heavy loss whence they came. By the end of December the whole Russian plan for driving in across the “Waist” had broken down.
Meanwhile the assault on the Mannerheim Line in the Karelian Isthmus fared no better. A series of mass attacks by nearly twelve divisions was launched in early December, and continued throughout the month. By the end of the year failure all along the front convinced the Soviet Government that they had to deal with a very different enemy from what they had expected. They determined upon a major effort. This required preparation on a large scale, and from the end of the year fighting died down all along the Finnish front, leaving the Finns so far victorious over their mighty assailant. This surprising event was received with equal satisfaction in all countries, belligerent or neutral, throughout the world. It was a pretty bad advertisement for the Soviet Army. In British circles many people congratulated themselves that we had not gone out of our way to bring the Soviets in on our side, and preened themselves on their foresight. The conclusion was drawn too hastily that the Russian Army had been ruined by the purge, and that the inherent rottenness and degradation of their system of government and society was now proved. It was not only in England that this view was taken. There is no doubt that Hitler and his generals meditated profoundly upon the Finnish exposure, and that it played a potent part in influencing the Fuehrer’s thought.
All the resentment felt against the Soviet Government for the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was fanned into flame by this latest exhibition of brutal bullying and aggression. With this was also mingled scorn for the inefficiency displayed by the Soviet troops and enthusiasm for the gallant Finns. In spite of the Great War which had been declared, there was a keen desire to help the Finns by aircraft and other precious war material and by volunteers from Britain, from the United States, and still more from France. Alike for the munitions supplies and the volunteers there was only one possible route to Finland. The iron ore port of Narvik, with its railroad over the mountains to the Swedish iron mines, acquired a new sentimental if not strategic significance. Its use as a line of supply for the Finnish armies affected the neutrality both of Norway and Sweden. These two States, in equal fear of Germany and Russia, had no aim but to keep out of the wars by which they were encircled and might be engulfed. For them this seemed the only chance of survival. But whereas the British Government were naturally reluctant to commit even a technical infringement of Norwegian territorial waters by laying mines in the Leads for their own advantage against Germany, they moved upon a generous emotion, only indirectly connected with our war problem, towards a far more serious demand upon both Norway and Sweden for the free passage of men and supplies to Finland.
I sympathised ardently with the Finns and supported all proposals for their aid; and I welcomed this new and favourable breeze as a means of achieving the major strategic advantage of cutting off the vital iron ore supplies of Germany. If Narvik was to become a kind of Allied base to supply the Finns, it would certainly be easy to prevent the German ships loading ore at the port and sailing safely down the Leads to Germany. Once Norwegian and Swedish protestations were overborne, for whatever reason, the greater measures would include the less. On December 16 I therefore renewed my efforts to win consent to the simple and bloodless operation of mining the Leads.
My memorandum was considered by the Cabinet on December 22, and I pleaded the case to the best of my ability. I could not obtain any decision for action. Diplomatic protest might be made to Norway about the misuse of her territorial waters by Germany, and the Chiefs of Staff were instructed to “consider the military consequences of commitments on Scandinavian soil”. They were authorised “to plan for landing a force at Narvik for the sake of Finland, and also a possible German occupation of Southern Norway”. But no executive orders could be issued to the Admiralty. In a paper which I circulated on December 21 I summarised the Intelligence reports which showed the possibilities of a Russian design upon Norway. The Soviet were said to have three divisions concentrated at Murmansk preparing for a seaborne expedition. “It may be,” I concluded, “that this theatre will become the scene of early activities.” This proved only too true; but from a different quarter.
I had long been concerned that the Altmark, the auxiliary of the Spee, should be captured. This vessel was also a floating prison for the crews of our sunk merchant-ships. British captives released by Captain Langsdorff according to international law in Montevideo harbour told us that nearly three hundred British merchant seamen were on board the Altmark. This vessel hid in the South Atlantic for nearly two months, and then, hoping that the search had died down, her captain made a bid to return to Germany. Luck and the weather favoured her, and not until February 14, after passing between Iceland and the Faroes, was she sighted by our aircraft in Norwegian territorial waters.
In the words of an Admiralty communiqué, “certain of His Majesty’s ships which were conveniently disposed were set in motion”. A destroyer flotilla, under the command of Captain Philip Vian, of H.M.S. Cossack, intercepted the Altmark, but did not immediately molest her. She took refuge in Jösing Fiord, a narrow inlet about a mile and a half long surrounded by high snow-clad cliffs. Two British destroyers were told to board her for examination. At the entrance to the fiord they were met by two Norwegian gunboats, who informed them that the ship was unarmed, had been examined the previous day, and had received permission to proceed to Germany, making use of Norwegian territorial waters. Our destroyers thereupon withdrew.
When this information reached the Admiralty I intervened, and, with the concurrence of the Foreign Secretary, ordered our ships to enter the fiord. Vian did the rest. That night in the Cossack with searchlights burning he entered the fiord through the icefloes. He first went on board the Norwegian gunboat Kjell and requested that the Altmark should be taken to Bergen under a joint escort, for inquiry according to international law. The Norwegian captain repeated his assurance that the Altmark had been twic
e searched, that she was unarmed, and that no British prisoners had been found. Vian then stated that he was going to board her, and invited the Norwegian officer to join him. This offer was eventually declined.
Meanwhile the Altmark got under way, and in trying to ram the Cossack ran herself aground. The Cossack forced her way alongside and a boarding party sprang across, after grappling the two ships together. A sharp hand-to-hand fight followed, in which four Germans were killed and five wounded; part of the crew fled ashore and the rest surrendered. The search began for the British prisoners. They were soon found in their hundreds, battened down, locked in storerooms, and even in an empty oil-tank. Then came the cry, “The Navy’s here!” The doors were broken in and the captives rushed on deck. It was also found that the Altmark carried two pom-poms and four machine-guns, and that, despite having been boarded twice by the Norwegians, she had not been searched. The Norwegian gunboats remained passive observers throughout. By midnight Vian was clear of the fiord, and making for the Forth.
Admiral Pound and I sat up together in some anxiety in the Admiralty War Room. I had put a good screw on the Foreign Office, and was fully aware of the technical gravity of the measures taken. But what mattered at home and in the Cabinet was whether British prisoners were found on board or not. We were delighted when at three o’clock in the morning news came that three hundred had been found and rescued. This was a dominating fact.
Hitler’s decision to invade Norway had, as we have seen, been taken on December 14, and the staff work was proceeding under Keitel. The incident of the Altmark no doubt gave a spur to action. At Keitel’s suggestion, on February 20 Hitler summoned urgently to Berlin General von Falkenhorst, who was at that time in command of an Army Corps at Coblenz. Falkenhorst had taken part in the German campaign in Finland in 1918, and he discussed that afternoon with Hitler, Keitel, and Jodl the detailed operational plans for the Norwegian expedition which Falkenhorst was now to command. The question of priorities was of supreme importance. Would Hitler commit himself in Norway before or after the execution of “Case Yellow”—the attack on France? On March 1 he made his decision: Norway was to come first. The Fuehrer held a military conference on the afternoon of March 16, and D-Day was provisionally fixed, apparently for April 9.
Meanwhile the Soviets had brought their main power to bear on the Finns. They redoubled their efforts to pierce the Mannerheim Line before the melting of the snows. Alas, this year the spring and its thaw, on which the hard-pressed Finns based their hopes, came nearly six weeks late. The great Soviet offensive on the isthmus, which was to last forty-two days, opened on February 1, combined with heavy air bombing of base depots and railway junctions behind the lines. Ten days of heavy bombardment from Soviet guns, massed wheel to wheel, heralded the main infantry attack. After a fortnight’s fighting the line was breached. The air attacks on the key fort and base of Viipuri increased in intensity. By the end of the month the Mannerheim defence system had been disorganised and the Russians were able to concentrate against the Gulf of Viipuri. The Finns were short of ammunition and their troops exhausted.
The honourable correctitude which had deprived us of any strategic initiative equally hampered all effective measures for sending munitions to Finland. In France however a warmer and deeper sentiment prevailed, and this was strongly fostered by M. Daladier. On March 2, without consulting the British Government, he agreed to send fifty thousand volunteers and a hundred bombers to Finland. We could certainly not act on this scale, and in view of the documents found on the German major in Belgium, and of the ceaseless Intelligence reports of the steady massing of German troops on the Western Front, it went far beyond what prudence would allow. However, it was agreed to send fifty British bombers. On March 12 the Cabinet again decided to revive the plans for military landings at Narvik and Trondheim, to be followed at Stavanger and Bergen, as a part of the extended help to Finland into which we had been drawn by the French. These plans were to be available for action on March 20, although the need of Norwegian and Swedish permission had not been met. Meanwhile on March 7 Mr. Paasikivi had gone again to Moscow, this time to discuss armistice terms. On the 12th the Russian terms were accepted by the Finns. All our plans for military landings were again shelved, and the forces which were being collected were to some extent dispersed. The two divisions which had been held back in England were now allowed to proceed to France, and our striking power towards Norway was reduced to eleven battalions.
The military collapse of Finland led to further repercussions. On March 18 Hitler met Mussolini at the Brenner Pass. Hitler deliberately gave the impression to his Italian host that there was no question of Germany launching a land offensive in the West. On the 19th Mr. Chamberlain spoke in the House of Commons. In view of growing criticism he reviewed in some detail the story of British aid to Finland. He rightly emphasised that our main consideration had been the desire to respect the neutrality of Norway and Sweden, and he also defended the Government for not being hustled into attempts to succour the Finns, which had offered little chance of success. The defeat of Finland was fatal to the Daladier Government, whose chief had taken such marked, if tardy, action, and who had personally given disproportionate prominence to this part of our anxieties. On March 21 a new Cabinet was formed, under M. Reynaud, pledged to an increasingly vigorous conduct of the war.
My relations with M. Reynaud stood on a different footing from any I had established with M. Daladier. Reynaud, Mandel, and I had felt the same emotions about Munich. Daladier had been on the other side. I therefore welcomed the change. The French Ministers came to London for a meeting of the Supreme War Council on March 28. Mr. Chamberlain opened with a full and clear description of the scene as he saw it. He said that Germany had two weaknesses: her supplies of iron ore and of oil. The main sources of supply of these were situated at the opposite ends of Europe. The iron ore came from the North. He unfolded with precision the case for intercepting the German iron ore supplies from Sweden. He dealt also with the Roumanian and Baku oilfields, which ought to be denied to Germany, if possible by diplomacy. I listened to this powerful argument with increasing pleasure. I had not realised how fully Mr. Chamberlain and I were agreed.
M. Reynaud spoke of the impact of German propaganda upon French morale. The German radio blared each night that the Reich had no quarrel with France; that the origin of the war was to be found in the blank cheque given by Britain to Poland; that France had been dragged into war at the heels of the British, and even that she was not in a position to sustain the struggle. Goebbels’ policy towards France seemed to be to let the war run on at the present reduced tempo, counting upon growing discouragement among the five million Frenchmen now called up and upon the emergence of a French Government willing to come to compromise terms with Germany at the expense of Great Britain.
The question, he said, was widely asked in France, “How can the Allies win the war?” The number of divisions, “despite British efforts”, was increasing faster on the German side than on ours. When therefore could we hope to secure that superiority in manpower required for successful action in the West? We had no knowledge of what was going on in Germany in material equipment. There was a general feeling in France that the war had reached a deadlock, and that Germany had only to wait. Unless some action were taken to cut the enemy’s supply of oil and other raw material “the feeling might grow that blockade was not a weapon strong enough to secure victory for the Allied cause”. He was far more responsive about cutting off supplies of Swedish iron ore, and he stated that there was an exact relation between the supplies of Swedish iron ore to Germany and the output of the German iron and steel industry. His conclusion was that the Allies should lay mines in the territorial waters along the Norwegian coast and later obstruct by similar action ore being carried from the port of Luleä to Germany. He emphasised the importance of hampering German supplies of Roumanian oil.
It was at last decided that, after addressing communications in general terms to Norway
and Sweden, we should lay minefields in Norwegian territorial waters on April 5. It was also agreed that if Germany invaded Belgium the Allies should immediately move into that country without waiting for a formal invitation; and that if Germany invaded Holland, and Belgium did not go to her assistance, the Allies should consider themselves free to enter Belgium for the purpose of helping Holland.
Finally, as an obvious point on which all were at one, the communiqué stated that the British and French Governments had agreed on the following solemn declaration:
That during the present war they would neither negotiate nor conclude an armistice or treaty of peace except by mutual agreement.
This pact later acquired high importance.
On April 3 the British Cabinet implemented the resolve of the Supreme War Council, and the Admiralty was authorised to mine the Norwegian Leads on April 8. I called the actual mining operation “Wilfred”, because by itself it was so small and innocent. As our mining of Norwegian waters might provoke a German retort, it was also agreed that a British brigade and a French contingent should be sent to Narvik to clear the port and advance to the Swedish frontier. Other forces should be dispatched to Stavanger, Bergen, and Trondheim, in order to deny these bases to the enemy.
The Second World War Page 27