Inferno - Max Hastings [35]
Thereafter in London, ministers and service chiefs favoured evacuation of Namsos and Åndalsnes. Neville Chamberlain, self-centred as ever, was fearful of bearing blame for failure. The press, encouraged by the government, had infused the British people with high hopes for the campaign; the BBC had talked absurdly about the Allies “throwing a ring of steel around Oslo.” Now, the prime minister mused to colleagues that it might be prudent to tell the House of Commons that the British had never intended to conduct long-term operations in central Norway. The French, arriving in London on 27 April for a meeting of the Allied Supreme War Council, were stunned by the proposal to quit, and demurred fiercely. Reynaud returned to Paris claiming success in galvanising Chamberlain and his colleagues: “We have shown them what to do and given them the will to do it.” This was fanciful: two hours later, the British evacuation order was given. Pamela Street, a Wiltshire farmer’s daughter, wrote sadly in her diary: “The war goes on like a great big weight which gets a bit heavier every day.”
The Norwegian campaign spawned mistrust and indeed animosity between the British and French governments which proved irreparable, even after the fall of Chamberlain. To a colleague on 27 April, Reynaud deplored the inertia of British ministers, “old men who do not know how to take a risk.” Daladier told the French cabinet on 4 May: “We should ask the British what they want to do: they pushed for this war, and they wriggle out as soon as it is a matter of taking measures which could directly affect them.” Shamefully, British local commanders were instructed not to tell the Norwegians they were leaving. Gen. Bernard Paget ignored this order, provoking an emotional scene with the Norwegian C-in-C, Otto Ruge, who said: “So Norway is to share the fate of Czechoslovakia and Poland. But why? Why? Your troops haven’t been defeated!” After this brief explosion, however, Ruge’s natural dignity and calm reasserted themselves. Some historians have criticised his defence of central Norway, but it is hard to imagine any deployment of his small forces that would have altered the outcome. When King Haakon and his government opted for exile in Britain, the army C-in-C refused to leave his men and insisted upon sharing their captivity.
At Namsos, Maj. Gen. Carlton de Wiart obeyed the evacuation order without informing the neighbouring Norwegian commander, who suddenly found his flank in the air. After conducting a difficult retreat to the port, Ruge’s officer found only a heap of British stores, some wrecked vehicles and a jaunty farewell note from Carlton de Wiart. Gen. Claude Auchinleck, who assumed the Allied command at Narvik, later wrote to Ironside, the CIGS, in London: “The worst of it all is the need for lying to all and sundry in order to preserve secrecy. Situation vis a vis the Norwegians is particularly difficult, and one feels a most despicable creature in pretending that we are going on fighting when we are going to quit at once.” In the far north, the British and French concentrated some 26,000 men to confront the 4,000 Germans who now held Narvik. Amazingly, even after the campaign in France began, the Allies sustained operations until the end of May, seizing the port on the twenty-seventh after days of dogged and skilful German resistance.
The confusion of loyalties and nationalities that would become a notable feature of the war was illustrated by the presence among Narvik’s attackers of some Spanish republicans, enlisted in the French Foreign Legion after being evicted from their own country. “Those officers who had misgivings about welcoming [them] into the Legion (they dubbed them all communists) were gratified by their fighting prowess,” wrote Capt. Pierre Lapie. “[One of] the young Spaniards who attacked a German machine-gun post behind Elvegard … was mown down by