The Second World War by John Keegan

affording her military assistance, and winter-warfare units from both countries were earmarked to join the Finnish army; fortunately for the future of Soviet-Western relations, the Finns had sued for peace before they were sent.
     
The Scandinavian campaign
    The end of the Winter War did not, however, terminate Anglo-French military involvement in northern Europe. According to the German navy, which kept a close watch on Scandinavian affairs, Western military assistance for Finland would most probably have passed through Norway, and in doing so would not only have violated Norwegian neutrality but menaced German access to the Kiruna-Gällivare iron ore fields in Sweden which supplied Germany’s war economy with a vital commodity. Hitler’s Grand Admiral, Erich Raeder, was in any case anxious to acquire north Norwegian bases from which to operate against the Royal Navy, and therefore urged Hitler throughout the autumn and winter of 1939 to pre-empt the Allies by authorising an intervention in Norway. Preoccupied by his plans for the forthcoming attack in the west, Hitler would not allow his interest to be aroused, though in December, after Raeder had arranged for the Norwegian Nazi leader, Vidkun Quisling, to be brought to Berlin, he did authorise OKW to investigate whether Norway would be worth occupying. In mid-February his indifference was dissipated by a blow to his pride.
    At the outbreak of the war the
Graf Spee
, one of Germany’s ‘pocket battleships’, had undertaken a commerce-raiding campaign against British merchant shipping in the South Atlantic but had eventually been cornered off the coast of Uruguay by three British cruisers. Its commander had been forced to scuttle it at Montevideo after the Battle of the River Plate on 13 December 1939. The British people were heartened and Hitler consonantly infuriated by this humiliation of the German surface fleet. On 16 February Hitler was even more outraged when the
Altmark
, a supply ship which had tended the
Graf Spee
during its cruise, was intercepted by HM Destroyer
Cossack
in Norwegian territorial waters and 300 British merchant seaman taken by the
Graf Spee
were liberated. He at once decided that Norwegian territorial waters must be denied to the British for good, preferably by invasion and occupation, and instructed General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, a mountain-warfare expert, to prepare a plan. Falkenhorst quickly concluded that it would be desirable also to occupy Denmark as a ‘land bridge’ to Norway, and by 7 March Hitler had assigned eight divisions to the operation. Intelligence then indicated that Allied plans to intervene in Norway, providing the legal pretext for aggression on which Hitler normally insisted, had been called off. Raeder nevertheless succeeded in persuading him that the operation was strategically necessary and on 7 April the transports sailed.
    Denmark, quite unprepared for war, almost unarmed and with no suspicion that Germany harboured hostile intentions against her, surrendered under the threat of an air bombardment of Copenhagen on the morning of the troops’ landing on 9 April. The Norwegians were also taken by surprise. They were, however, ready to fight and at Oslo the ancient guns of the harbour fort held the invaders at bay – sinking the German cruiser
Blücher
– long enough for the government and royal family to escape and make their way to Britain. The survivors of the small Norwegian army then gathered as best they could to oppose the German advance up the coast towards the central cities of Andalsnes, Trondheim and Namsos, and to counter the German landing in the far north at Narvik. They did not, however, have to fight alone. Because of the preparations made to intervene in Finland, both the British and the French had contingents ready to move and debark. Between 18 and 23 April 12,000 British and French troops were put ashore north and south of Trondheim and advanced to meet the Germans who were making their way