Inferno - Max Hastings [31]
In the first days of April, as snow vanished from the Continent, the armies emerged as if from hibernation, looking about to discern what the new campaigning season might bring. At last, Churchill persuaded his government colleagues to support the mining of Norwegian waters. Four destroyers put to sea to execute this operation, while a small land force embarked at British ports, ready to sail to Norway if the Germans responded to the Royal Navy’s initiative. London was oblivious of the fact that a German fleet was already at sea. For months, Hitler had been fearful of British intervention in Norway, because of its implications for his iron-ore supplies. His agitation acquired urgency on 14 February 1940, when Royal Navy destroyers pursued the Graf Spee’s supply ship Altmark into a Norwegian fjord to free 299 captive British merchant seamen. Determined to preempt a British initiative to seize a foothold in Norway, on 2 April he gave the final order for the invasion fleet to sail.
British ships and planes observed Germany’s intense flurry of naval activity, but naval commanders were so preoccupied with their own impending mining operation that they failed to realise that these movements presaged German action rather than reaction. The Admiralty decided that Admiral Raeder’s warships intended a breakout into the Atlantic to attack British sea-lanes; this caused them to deploy much of the Home Fleet many hours’ steaming from Norway. Before dawn on 8 April, the Royal Navy indeed laid a minefield in Norwegian coastal waters. A few hours later, however, the Germans commenced air and naval landings to occupy the entire country. The Phoney War was over.
CHAPTER THREE
BLITZKRIEGS IN THE WEST
1. Norway
THE SMALLER NATIONS of Europe strove to escape involvement in the war. Most resisted association with Germany, which required acceptance of Hitler’s hegemony, but even those that favoured the objectives of the democracies were wary of joining them in belligerence. Historic experience argued that they would thus expose themselves to the horrors of war for small advantage: the fate of Poland and Finland highlighted the Allies’ inability to protect the dictators’ chosen victims. Holland and the Scandinavian countries had contrived to remain neutral in World War I. Why should they not do so again? In the winter of 1939–40, all took pains to avoid provoking Hitler. The Norwegians were more apprehensive about British designs on their coastline than German ones. At 1:30 a.m. on 9 April, an aide awoke King Haakon of Norway to report: “Majesty, we are at war!” The monarch promptly demanded: “Against whom?”
Despite repeated warnings that a German invasion was imminent, the country’s tiny army had not been mobilised. The capital was quickly blacked out, but old Gen. Kristian Laake, Norway’s commander-in-chief, responded feebly to news that German warships were approaching up Oslo Fjord: he ordered reservists to be mustered by mail—which would assemble them under arms only on 11 April. His staff officers remonstrated, but Laake was in flight from reality: “A little exercise should do these units no harm!” he declared indulgently. German warships entered ports and began to disembark troops. The Norwegians, French and British had alike deluded themselves that Hitler would never dare to invade Norway in the face of the Royal Navy. Yet poor intelligence and misjudged deployments caused the Admiralty to forfeit its best opportunities to wreak havoc, as the Germans landed on 9 April. Thereafter, although the invaders suffered severe attrition at sea, so too did the Royal Navy at the hands of the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Norway’s nearest coastline lay 400 miles from Britain, beyond range of land-based air cover. The vulnerability of ships to bomber attack was soon brutally exposed.
The most dramatic development that first morning of the campaign took place