By mid-November, the Admiralty had developed plans for how and where the Royal Navy could ‘. . . control the approaches to Narvik by naval forces in order to divert German iron ore imports to Great Britain.’ On 30 November, Churchill brought to the War Cabinet a report he had received a few days earlier from the Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW), concluding that ‘complete stoppage of Swedish exports of iron ore to Germany would, barring unpredictable developments, end the war in a few months’ – a conclusion based on the complete and sustained severing of the whole Swedish ore supply, not only that through Narvik. Churchill asserted that during the coming winter the Baltic would be closed by ice and the export confined to the Leads, where even small minefields would force the ore ships into international waters where the Royal Navy could intercept those bound for Germany.
The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Edmund Ironside, agreed that Swedish iron ore was a significant strategic objective and there were advantages in taking the war to Scandinavia, ‘seizing the initiative from Hitler’. He argued that laying mines would only annoy the Norwegians, at little gain, and favoured a more sustained operation – securing control of the entire Lapland deposits with well-equipped troops and careful planning. Germany would certainly be provoked, but not able to react before May, giving ample time to establish a proper defence. All the more so, Ironside held, as in ‘such a remote and forbidding country a very small force could hold up a large one’. Not quite convinced either way, the War Cabinet ‘invited the CoS to prepare an appreciation of the military factors involved . . . to stop the import of iron ore to Germany by the sea route from Narvik, either by stationing a naval force in the Vest Fjord or by laying a minefield on the Norwegian coast’. At the same time, the MEW was ‘invited to consider, in consultation with other Ministries, the effect this might have on Germany’s economic position’. Both reports should also address the potential counter-measures Germany might take by military or economic means. Wheels had been set in motion.65
At dawn of that same day, 30 November, more than 450,000 Soviet troops with over 1,000 tanks crossed the borders to Finland after the Finnish government had refused to allow Russian bases around Leningrad. Led by Field Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim, the Suomi soldiers, contrary to all expectations, put up a spirited resistance, making full use of terrain and the coldest winter of the century. The Russians, seriously underestimating the Finnish will to resist, were not equipped for winter and suffered grievously. The Russian advance was stalled by Finnish tenacity, and the ‘Winter War’ ground to a halt.
From 1935 to 1939, the overall German iron-ore import rose from fourteen to nearly twenty-two million tons, of which the high-grade Swedish ore accounted for around nine million tons.66 Mined in the Kiruna–Gällivare district of Lapland, just north of the Arctic Circle, the ore was exported through Luleå in the Gulf of Bothnia or Narvik in Norway. Purpose-built railway lines connected the mines with both ports. In the winter, when the Gulf of Bothnia froze and Luleå became icebound, normally from late November to mid-April, the export went solely through Narvik. Of the 6.5 million tons of Swedish ore shipped through Narvik during the winter of 1938/39, some 4.5 million tons went to Germany, in addition to some 1.2 million tons of Norwegian ore, mainly from Kirkenes. After the outbreak of war, the export through Narvik to Germany dropped rapidly. During the first seven months, 763,000 tons went to Germany, as opposed to 798,000 tons to Britain. In late March, after a visit to Oslo, Minister Colban presented a memorandum to British Foreign Secretary Halifax from Koht, where it was pointed out that of the six hundred thousand tons of iron ore waiting to be loaded in Narvik harbour, 400,000 were destined for Britain and only 200,000 for Germany. This information was confirmed by Swedish sources, adding that ‘non-cooperation’ at the railways delayed the German iron-ore traffic significantly while pressure on the Norwegian Pilot Association for a boycott was beginning to take effect, forcing German ships into open waters. No ore ships were sent from Germany to Narvik between 3 September and 25 October. By early November, some ten ships were involved in the German traffic to Norway, increasing to over twenty by the year end and to fifty by early March. On 18 December, the last ore transport of the year left Luleå and from then on, until the ice broke in the gulf again, German off-take of Swedish iron ore would be stockpiled or go via Narvik.
The export facilities in Narvik were thus useful, but not indispensable for the German ore import. Severing the traffic through Narvik without halting that through Luleå would at best have limited consequences, and would only have any effect at all during the winter. This was clearly spelled out by the MEW to the British War Cabinet in early December in their report, which concluded that ‘The principal argument therefore put forward by the First Lord in favour of action in Norwegian waters [is] invalid.’67
Between 7 and 13 December 1939, the Greek freighter Garoufalia and the British Deptford and Thomas Walton were sunk off the Norwegian coast. Investigations by the RNN could not exclude drifting mines as the causes of the shipwrecks, but circumstantial evidence indicated that they had been torpedoed. Commanding Admiral Diesen stated it could not be said with absolute certainty the Thomas Walton had been inside the three-mile limit, whereas Garoufalia most likely and Deptford definitely had been. Actually, the culprit in all three cases was the German submarine U38 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Liebe.68
Seizing the moment, Churchill submitted a new memorandum to the War Cabinet on the 16th, arguing that,
. . . the effectual stoppage of the Norwegian ore supplies to Germany ranks as a major offensive operation of war . . . If Germany can be cut from all Swedish ore supplies from now onwards till the end of 1940 a blow will have been struck at her war-making capacity equal to a first-class victory in the field or from the air, and without any serious sacrifice of life . . . British control of the Norwegian coast-line is a strategic objective of first-class importance.69
Internal pressure in France made the Daladier government almost desperate for diversionary measures away from a potentially new Western Front and on 19 December, the French delegation to the Allied Supreme War Council proposed to send a corps d’expedition to Norway, officially to help Finland, but also to take control of the Swedish ore deposits as well as the export sites in Narvik and Luleå. Daladier argued that depriving Germany of the ore might lead to a swift victory; failing to act might prolong the war by several years.
The French proposal was discussed in the War Cabinet on the 22nd, by which time the CoS had also submitted their report on stoppage of Swedish iron ore. The CoS had found the question complicated. Stationing a naval force in Vestfjorden would be most effective, but run a high risk of clashing with the Norwegian navy. Laying of mines would have fewer risks, but supposedly be less effective. Churchill enthusiastically reiterated the proposed naval intervention from his memorandum of the week before and urged ‘taking the first step of interrupting supplies from Narvik after such preliminary diplomatic negotiations as might be necessary’. Foreign Secretary Halifax, rather less excited, felt the consequences of limited actions in Norwegian waters were unpredictable; isolated landings in the Narvik area would be welcomed by neither Norway nor Sweden and could compromise the larger project of stopping all Nordic supplies to Germany. Severing the iron ore from Narvik alone was of ‘little importance’, he held; ‘the key to the whole problem [being] the stoppage of supplies from Luleå’. Prime Minister Chamberlain concluded there were two distinct projects for Scandinavia: the ‘smaller scheme’, halting the traffic from Narvik, through mines or naval patrols, and the ‘larger project’, securing the ore-fields proper, severing all supplies of ore to Germany. The latter, which undoubtedly