The second project was aimed at blocking the Danube, through which raw materials and goods—especially petroleum—from Roumania and the Black Sea reached the heart of Germany. For years this river had, in principle, been internationalized, and England, France, Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and other countries had large commercial fleets on its waters. The French companies alone owned 73 ships on the Danube, of which 19 were oil tankers and 10 were tugboats. Using their ships alone, the Germans could import 400,000 tons of petroleum products per year via the Danube, and by chartering neutral shipping they could increase this to over 1,000,000 tons.
To cut off these supplies, the British and French secret services began preparations for blocking the Danube, where it flows through the gorges of the Iron Gates, by sinking cement-laden barges in it. If the barges met opposition, they were to fight their way through with arms which would be hidden on board. The cement was purchased, and French and English personnel were assembled who, disguised as civilians, were to attempt the operation.
But Admiral Darlan was lukewarm to the whole project. Why begin something, said he, if we are not in a position to see it through. Then an English barge, loaded with weapons, was captured by the Roumanian Customs Service, and the whole project blew up. The most the French could do was to try to get their Danube shipping out and to Istanbul—and some 50 per cent was, as a matter of fact, thus saved by June 1940.
There remained the third weak spot in Germany’s warmaking potential—the problem of iron ore for her industries.
It was well known that Germany imported 50 per cent of her iron ore from Sweden—an import that was vital. If in some way or other those imports could be halted, the war could be appreciably shortened.
The Finnish situation offered one way of approaching the problem. Ever since she had been wantonly attacked by Russia, Finland had been amazing the world with her valorous defense. France, like almost every other country, was warmly sympathetic. A Finnish military mission came to Paris, seeking assistance. Emboldened by the strong stand of the League of Nations, the French Government ordered the General Staffs to provide the Finns with the greatest possible assistance, without worrying unduly about Russian reaction, since Russia was practically in the enemy’s camp anyway.
Naturally an expedition to Finland could not be put into operation without Norway and Sweden becoming involved. Obviously—though it is perhaps a bit cynical to say it—the Allies could not hope to hold the entire Russian Army at bay and thus save Finland. But they did hope, by this operation, to get their hands on the Swedish iron ore and prevent its going to Germany—which end would serve the Allies’ interests admirably. Furthermore, this project would offer an opportunity to use the great naval superiority of the Allies over Germany—an advantage which could not otherwise be exploited. Other than the navies, it was planned to use only a small land force for this diversion—a force so small that its withdrawal would not materially weaken the principal land front.
Such was the reasoning which led the Allies to initiate the only strategic operation undertaken by them before the French front collapsed. And that undertaking was worthwhile only as long as the hypothesis on which it was based held good: namely, that the frontline facing toward Germany could not be pierced.
1 A small village in the Department of the Moselle, close to the French, German, and Luxembourg frontiers.
The Diversionary Operation in Norway
It was in December, 1939, that the League of Nations had denounced the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as aggressors for their attack on Finland, and had invited all League members to assist the invaded country.
Accordingly, from December, 1939, to March, 1940, the French loaded aboard Finnish ships at Le Havre or Bizerte the following munitions for shipment to Finland via Norway: seven 305-mm. guns originally taken from the Russian General Wrangel’s fleet;11 some 60 reconnaissance planes; 430 guns (mostly of 75-mm.), with 7,000,000 rounds of ammunition; 5,000 automatic rifles, with 20,000,000 rounds; and 200,000 hand grenades. The contribution of this war material was kept from the French people, but public clamor for aid to Finland caused the Allied Governments to plan an operation.
In 1920 the Black Sea Squadron of General Pierre de Wrangel’s anti-Bolshevik White Russians had taken refuge at Bizerte, where the ships had been interned. The 305-mm. guns had been taken from the old battleships of this fleet.
On February 5, 1940, there was a meeting, in Paris, of the Supreme Franco-British Council, consisting of the Naval Chiefs and the Ministers of Defense of the two governments, and their military advisers. As a result of previous studies, the Staffs were agreed that troops could be sent to Finland’s assistance only by routing them through the port of Petsamo, already in the hands of the Russians, or else by sending them across the Scandinavian Peninsula. The Council’s decisions, as arrived at in Paris, may be briefly outlined as follows:
Preparations should be made to send a Franco-British Expeditionary Force to Finland—under the guise of “volunteers,” if necessary, as certain countries had done during the Spanish Civil War.
The Petsamo region was unsuitable for the project, as operations there might bring on an open clash with Russia.
A landing should be made at Narvik, with the occupation of the Swedish ore region of Gällivare as the first objective; secondary landings should be made at Stavanger, Bergen, and Trondheim.
When all was ready, the Finns should be requested to ask the Allies officially for help, and the Norwegians and Swedes were to be requested to receive the Expeditionary Force with open arms. If, through fear of German reaction, these countries demurred, they were to be assured that the Allies were ready to defend them. In any event the landings in Norway were to be “peaceful” operations, with the Norwegians offering no real opposition, even if they could not openly agree.
Since the operation was to take place in a military zone, it was to be conducted under British command.
With these premises, the General Staffs promptly went to work, with the British proceeding perhaps a little more slowly and cautiously than the French—a deliberation arising probably from their greater responsibility and their greater appreciation of the difficulties involved. The French were for staging the operation as quickly as possible, for a few vague rumors hinted that Hitler also might be interested in Norway.22 They proposed to use the Altmark33 incident as an excuse to intervene immediately; also, in order to save time, the French convoys, which would be ready first, were to sail first. But the British, who had prepared the sailing schedule in as much detail as a railroad timetable, would not consent to any deviation.
For entirely different strategic reasons the Germans were also preparing to occupy the Norwegian coast. (See Vice Admiral Friedrich Ruge’s history, Der Seekrieg—The German Navy’s Story, 1939-1945).
The Altmark, a German naval supply ship for the Graf Spee in the South Atlantic, had been sent back to Germany with some 300 prisoners taken from the prizes sunk by the raider. The British learned of this, found the Altmark hidden in a Norwegian fjord, and boarded her to rescue the prisoners despite the fact that she was in the territorial waters of Norway. As grounds, they claimed that the Altmark was violating the limited rights granted a belligerent in the territorial waters of a neutral, and that Norway was unable to protect her neutrality.
As its contribution the French Admiralty secretly assembled in the Brest roadstead and the Channel ports those ships that were to take part in the operation. These ships were placed under command of Rear Admiral Edmond Derrien, but would come under British control once they cleared the French coast. The man-of-war contingent consisted of one cruiser, nine super-destroyers, three fleet-destroyers, and five auxiliary cruisers, plus several tankers.