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During the early stages of World War II, the British and French Allies made a series of proposals to send troops to assist Finland in the Winter War against the Soviet Union which started on 30 November 1939 (three months after the outbreak of World War II) and ending in March 1940. The war was a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The plans involved the transit of British and French troops and equipment through neutral Norway and Sweden. The initial plans were abandoned due to Norway and Sweden declining transit through their land, fearing their countries would be drawn into the war. The Moscow Peace Treaty ended the war in March 1940 precluding the possibility of intervention.

Background

In February 1940, a Soviet offensive broke through the Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus, exhausting Finnish defenses and forcing the country's government to accept peace negotiations on Soviet terms. At the news that Finland might be forced to cede its sovereignty to the USSR, public opinion in France and Britain, already favorable to Finland, swung in favor of military intervention. When rumors of an armistice reached governments in Paris and London, both decided to offer military support.

Initial Allied approaches

Franco-British support was offered on the condition their armed forces be given free passage through neutral Norway and Sweden instead of taking the difficult and Soviet-occupied passage from Petsamo.

The first intervention plan, approved on 4–5 February 1940 by the Allied High Command, consisted of 100,000 British and 35,000 French troops that were to disembark at the Norwegian port of Narvik and support Finland via Sweden while securing supply routes along the way. Plans were made to launch the operation on 20 March under the condition of a formal request for assistance from the Finnish government (this was done to avoid German charges that the Franco-British forces constituted an invading army). On 2 March, transit rights were officially requested from the governments of Norway and Sweden. It was hoped that Allied intervention would eventually bring the neutral Nordic countries, Norway and Sweden, to the Allied side by strengthening their positions against Germany—although Hitler had by December declared to the Swedish government that Franco-British troops on Swedish soil would immediately provoke a German invasion.

Only a fraction of the Franco-British troops were intended for Finland. Harebrained French proposals to enter Finland directly, via the ice-free harbour of Petsamo, had been previously dismissed (as Petsamo was at that time already occupied by Soviet forces). Swedish diplomats saw through the Allied subterfuge, possibly aided by German sources, that the true objective of the whole operation was to occupy the Norwegian harbour of Narvik and the vast mountainous areas of the north-Swedish iron ore fields, from which it was assumed that the Third Reich received a large share of its iron ore (actually 33% in 1938), regarded as critical to war production. If the governments of France and Britain later broke their pledge not to seize territory or assets in Norway and Sweden and Franco-British troops later moved to halt exports to Germany, the area could become a significant battleground between the Allies and the Germans. Such a development was particularly attractive to the French, as it would have moved the main area of military conflict away from French soil.

The Franco-British plan, as initially designed, proposed a defense of all of Scandinavia north of a line Stockholm–Gothenburg or Stockholm–Oslo, i.e. the British concept of the Lake line following the lakes of Mälaren, Hjälmaren, and Vänern, which would provide a good natural defense some 1,700–1,900 kilometres (1,000–1,200 miles) south of Narvik. The expected frontier, the Lake line, not only involved Sweden's two largest cities but could result in large amounts of Swedish territory being either occupied by a foreign army or becoming a war zone. The plan was revised to include only the northern half of Sweden and the narrow adjacent Norwegian coast.

Norwegian and Swedish reaction

The Norwegian government denied transit rights to the proposed Franco-British expedition. The Swedish government, headed by Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson, also declined to allow transit of armed troops through Swedish territory, in spite of the fact that Sweden had not declared itself neutral in the Winter War. The Swedish government argued that, since it had declared a policy of neutrality in the war between France, Britain and Germany, the granting of transit rights by Sweden to a Franco-British corps, even though it would not be used against Germany, was still an illegal departure from international laws on neutrality.

This strict interpretation appears to have been a pretext to avoid angering the Soviet and Nazi German governments, as it was abandoned after fifteen months. On 18 June 1941, the Swedish government quickly agreed to German demands for transit rights across Sweden for German troops on their way from occupied Norway to Finland, in order to join the German attack on the Soviet Union. A total of 2,140,000 German soldiers and more than 100,000 German military railway carriages crossed neutral Swedish territory during the next three years.

The Swedish Cabinet also decided to reject repeated Finnish pleas for regular Swedish troops to be deployed in Finland and the Swedes also made it clear that their present support in arms and munitions, could not be maintained for much longer. Diplomatically, Finland was squeezed between Allied hopes for a prolonged war and Swedish and Norwegian fears that the Allies and Germans might soon be fighting each other on Swedish and Norwegian soil. Norway and Sweden also feared an influx of Finnish refugees if Finland lost to the Soviets.

Further Allied proposals and their effect on peace negotiations

While Germany and Sweden pressured Finland to accept peace on unfavorable conditions, Britain and France had the opposite objective. Different plans and figures were presented for the Finns. France and Britain promised to send 20,000 men, who were to arrive by the end of February. By the end of that month, Finland's Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Mannerheim, was pessimistic about the military situation and on 29 February the government decided to start peace negotiations. That same day, the Soviets commenced an attack against Viipuri.

When France and Britain realized that Finland was considering a peace treaty, they gave a new offer of 50,000 troops, if Finland asked for help before 12 March.

Plan R 4

Plan R 4 was the World War II British plan for an invasion of the neutral state of Norway in April 1940. Earlier the British had planned a similar intervention with France during the Winter War. Germany did not have a sufficient domestic supply of iron ore, used in the production of steel. Before the war, large quantities of iron ore were imported from mines in the French province of Lorraine. Since September 1939, this supply was no longer available. So shipments from the other large supplier, Sweden, were essential for the production of tanks, guns, ships, rail cars, trucks and other implements of war. The northern part of the Baltic Sea, called the Gulf of Bothnia, had a principal Swedish port called Luleå from where in the summer a quantity of ore was shipped. It was frozen in winter, so for several months each year the Swedes shipped most of their iron ore by rail through the ice-free port of Narvik, in the far north of Norway. In a normal year, 80% of the iron ore was exported through Narvik. The only alternative in winter was a long rail journey to Oxelösund on the Baltic, south of Stockholm, which was not obstructed by ice. However, British intelligence suggested that Oxelösund could ship only one fifth of the weight Germany required.

Franco-British support was offered to Finland which had been invaded by the Soviet Union on the condition it was given free passage through neutral Norway and Sweden instead of taking the road from Petsamo. The reason was a wish to occupy the iron ore districts in Kiruna and Malmberget.
(Borders as of 1920–1940.)

Traveling inside Norwegian territorial waters for most of the trip the shipping from Narvik was virtually immune to British interception attempts. To the Allies stopping the shipping and thus starving German industry seemed to be vitally important.

The Allies devised a plan to use the Soviet Union 30 November 1939, attack on Finland as a cover for seizing both the important Swedish ore fields in the north, and the Norwegian harbors through which it was shipped to Germany.

The plan was to get Norwegian and Swedish permission to send an expeditionary force to Finland across northern Norway and Sweden, ostensibly to help the Finns. Once in place they were however to proceed to take control of the harbors and mines, occupying cities such as Gävle and Luleå and shutting down the German access to Swedish ore, presenting Norway and Sweden with a fait accompli.

Realizing the danger of Allied/German occupation and of the war being waged on their territory, both the Swedes and the Norwegians refused the transit requests.

Meanwhile, the Germans having realized the Allied threat, were making plans for a possible pre-emptive invasion of Norway in order to protect their strategic supply lines. The Altmark Incident of 16 February 1940, convinced Hitler that the Allies would not respect Norwegian neutrality, and he ordered the plans for an invasion hastened.

The Scandinavian reluctance to allow Allied troops on their territory halted the original Allied plan for using aid to Finland as a pretext for moving in troops, but on 12 March the Allies decided to try a "semi-peaceful" invasion nevertheless. Troops were to be landed in Norway, and proceed into Sweden to capture the Swedish mines. However, if serious military resistance was encountered they were not to press the issue. However, Finland sued for peace on 12 March, so the revised version of this plan had to be abandoned too.

The Germans were partly aware of the Allied planning. They intercepted radio traffic showing that Allied transport groups were being readied, and a few days later messages that the Allies had had to abandon their plan and redeploy their forces.

Plans for the German invasion of Norway continued since Hitler feared the Allies were nevertheless going to launch their own invasion sooner or later, and he was right although he was unaware of the actual plans. 9 April was set as the date of Operation Weserübung, the German attack on both Denmark and Norway.

The UK plan

The Allied invasion plan had two parts: Operation Wilfred, and Plan R 4.

In operation Wilfred, set to take place on 5 April (but delayed to 8 April), the Norwegian territorial waters were to be mined, violating Norwegian neutrality. This would force the ships carrying ore to Germany to travel outside the protection of Norwegian territorial waters and thus becoming accessible to the British navy.

It was hoped that this would provoke a German military reaction. As soon as the Germans would react, either by landing troops in Norway or demonstrating the intention to do so, a British force would be landed in Norway. 18,000 Allied troops were to land in Narvik, closing the railroad to Sweden. Other cities to be captured were Trondheim and Bergen.

The first ship with Allied troops were to start the journey a few hours after the mine laying. On 8 April a Royal Navy detachment led by HMS Renown mined Norwegian waters in operation Wilfred, but German troops were already on their way, and the original "Plan R 4" was no longer feasible. The Allies had however provided Hitler with an invasion excuse.

Combat operations

Although "Plan R 4" could not be executed as planned, Allied troops were swiftly sent to Norway to fight alongside the Norwegians. Real success was only achieved against the Germans in the Narvik area, bringing them close to surrender. The Allied troops consisted of 24,500 British, Norwegian, French and Polish troops, in particular marine infantry, French Foreign Legionnaires, and Polish mountain troops. The German troops were composed of 2,000 mountain troops and 2,600 seamen from the sunk German invasion flotilla. On 17 April 1940, Hitler ordered the German troops to evacuate to Sweden to be interned. See the Allied campaign in Norway. However, the successful German campaign against France and the Low countries led to an Allied troop re-deployment. Allied troops were evacuated from Norway by 8 June 1940.

See also

• Operation Pike
• Allied campaign in Norway
• Foreign support in the Winter War
• Swedish iron mining during World War II

References

Bibliography

• Andersson, Lennart B3 Junkers Ju86 i Sverige
• Cox, Geoffrey (1941) The Red Army Moves (Victor Gollancz, London).
• Engle, Eloise & Paananen, Lauri (1992). The Winter War: The Soviet Attack on Finland 1939–1940. Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-2433-6.
• Jakobson, Max (1961). The Diplomacy of the Winter War: An Account of the Russo-Finnish War, 1939–1940. Cambridge, MA: Harward University Press.
• Öhquist, Harald (1949). Talvisota minun näkökulmastani. Helsinki: WSOY. (in Finnish)
• Ries, Tomas (1988). Cold Will: Defence of Finland. Brassey's. ISBN 0-08-033592-6.
• Schwartz, Andrew J. (1960). America and the Russo-Finnish War. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press.
• Tanner, Väinö (1957) The Winter War: Finland against Russia 1939–1940 Stanford University Press, California; also London.
• Trotter, William R. (2002, 2006) [1991]. The Winter war: The Russo–Finno War of 1939–40 (5th ed.). New York (Great Britain: London): Workman Publishing Company (Great Britain: Aurum Press). ISBN 1-85410-881-6. First published in the United States under the title A Frozen Hell: The Russo–Finnish Winter War of 1939–40 {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
• Upton, Anthony F. (1974). Finland 1939–1940 (University of Delaware Press, Newark: part of series The Politics and Strategy of the Second World War) ISBN 0-87413-156-1
• Van Dyke, Carl (1997). The Soviet Invasion of Finland, 1939-40. Frank Cass Publishers. ISBN 0-7146-4314-9.
• Vehviläinen, Olli (2002). Finland in the Second World War: Between Germany and Russia. New York: Palgrave. ISBN 0-333-80149-0.
• "Finland i Krig 1939-1940" – multiple authors. ISBN 951-50-1182-5

Category:Winter War Category:1939 in Finland Category:1940 in Finland Category:Sweden in World War II Category:Norwegian campaign Category:Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations Category:Cancelled military operations of World War II

Map of Norway. See also: Atlas of Norway