civilian authorities. After 1 September 1939, the commanders were not called to the government on a single occasion to discuss the political and military situation – before 8 April – and there is no evidence to suggest the Ministry of Defence sought to improve the situation. The threat analysis from the General Staff, later shown to be very accurate, was ignored.
Nygaardsvold and Koht most probably believed that the already mobilised forces were adequate to handle the neutrality and that the defence minister was taking care of military matters in a satisfactory manner. Koht later admitted his poor knowledge of the armed forces, but claimed that it did not matter much as he left this to the defence minister. His actions do not always support this claim, though, and on several occasions there was direct contact between Commanding Admiral Diesen and him, sidelining Ljungberg. Koht believed that his communication with the ministry of defence was good, as ‘all kinds of information’ was forwarded and ‘the members of the government met at least three times a week,’ but there is no record of interaction, joint analysis or assessment of the information; far less of ascertaining that the actual state of the defences matched the situation. ‘Neither of the powers have any unsettled business with Norway’, said Defence Minister Monsen in the Parliament in March 1939. At the same time, Koht argued that the purpose of the army and navy was ‘not to wage war, but through all possible means keep us out of it’. Neither position was revised until it was too late.62
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Winston is Back 63
In September 1939, Norway was given little consideration in the British War Cabinet for the conduct of the coming war. The sympathies of that country’s government and people would, according to Minister Dormer in Oslo, ‘favour the British cause, to a greater extent perhaps than in any other neutral country’. The only real concern was that the Scandinavian states might not actively join the blockade of Germany.64 For First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, the ‘thousand-mile-long peninsula stretching from the mouth of the Baltic to the Arctic Circle had an immense strategic significance’, and severing the import of iron ore to Germany from Scandinavia, particularly the portion that went through Narvik, became a focus soon after his arrival at the Admiralty. Some of the senior staff there advocated ‘a division of destroyers in Vestfjorden’ as a convenient tool, even if this would challenge Norwegian authorities and naval forces. Others, like C-in-C Nore Admiral Drax, argued repeatedly for minefields. Churchill was at first against ‘any drastic operations like landing forces or stationing ships in Norwegian waters’, and instructed his staff to assess the option of severing the Leads by laying minefields ‘at some lonely spots on the coast, as far north as convenient’.
On 19 September, Churchill for the first time drew the attention of the War Cabinet to the issue of Swedish iron ore to Germany. He fully supported the recently initiated negotiations for chartering the Norwegian merchant fleet, but urged diplomatic pressure be applied to halt German ore traffic inside the Norwegian Leads. Failing this, Churchill said, he would be compelled to propose more drastic measures such as ‘the laying of mines inside Norwegian territorial waters [to] drive the ore-carrying vessels outside the three-mile limit’. The Cabinet accepted the importance of the ore import for Germany, but would give no support to try to sever it, beyond diplomatic means. First of all, German ore ships leaving Narvik had virtually ceased after the outbreak of war. Secondly, the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoS) had two weeks earlier stated in a note to the War Cabinet that in view of Norway’s economic importance to Germany, Berlin was unlikely to violate Norwegian neutrality, unless provoked by an Allied intervention or an interference with the iron-ore supplies. Last but not least, there was fear of negative reactions from the USA and other neutral countries if Britain were to violate Scandinavian neutrality.
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
