Franco-British plans for intervention in the Winter War
Encyclopedia
During the early stages of World War II
, the British
and French
Allies
made a series of proposals to send troops to fight against the Soviet Union
, which had invaded Finland
as a consequence of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The plans involved the transit of British and French troops and equipment through neutral Norway
and Sweden
.
offered to help: the Allied plan, approved on 4–5 February 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 that the Finns first make a formal request for assistance (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 two still 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.
However, only a small fraction of the Franco-British troops were intended for Finland. Proposals to enter Finland directly, via the ice-free harbour of Petsamo
, had been previously dismissed. There was speculation in some diplomatic quarters, encouraged by German sources, that the true objective of the operation was to occupy the Norwegian shipping 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 30% 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.
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 good natural defence some 1,700–1,900 kilometres (1,000-1,200 miles) south of Narvik. The expected frontier, the Lake line, involved not only Sweden's two largest cities, but could potentially result in large amounts of Swedish territory either occupied by a foreign army or located in a potential war zone. Later, the plan was revised to include only the northern half of Sweden and the rather narrow adjacent Norwegian coast.
, 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. Instead, the Swedish government made the curious argument 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 merely 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 Nazi Germany's demand to transit rights across Sweden for German troops on their way from the then occupied Norway to Finland, in order to join the German attack on Soviet union. A total of 2.14 million German soldiers, and more than 100,000 German military railway carriages, would cross neutral Swedish territory in a thunderous display of "might over right" for the next three years.
The Swedish Cabinet also decided to reject
repeated pleas from the Finns for regular Swedish troops to be deployed in Finland, and in the end 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 terrain. In addition, Norway and Sweden feared an influx of Finnish refugees should Finland lose to the Soviets.
, Field Marshal
Mannerheim
, was pessimistic about the military situation. Therefore, 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. Through Soviet agents in the French and British governments, indications of Franco-British plans reached Stalin, and may have contributed heavily to his decision to increase military pressure on the Finnish Army, while at the same time offering to negotiate an armistice.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
made a series of proposals to send troops to fight against the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, which had invaded Finland
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
as a consequence of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The plans involved the transit of British and French troops and equipment through neutral Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
.
Background
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
In February 1940, the AlliesAllies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
offered to help: the Allied plan, approved on 4–5 February 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
Narvik
is the third largest city and municipality in Nordland county, Norway by population. Narvik is located on the shores of the Narvik Fjord . The municipality is part of the Ofoten traditional region of North Norway, inside the arctic circle...
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 that the Finns first make a formal request for assistance (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 two still 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.
However, only a small fraction of the Franco-British troops were intended for Finland. Proposals to enter Finland directly, via the ice-free harbour of Petsamo
Pechengsky District
Pechengsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the five in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It is located to the northwest of the Kola Peninsula on the coast of the Barents Sea and borders with Finland in the south and southwest and with Norway in the west, northwest, and north...
, had been previously dismissed. There was speculation in some diplomatic quarters, encouraged by German sources, that the true objective of the operation was to occupy the Norwegian shipping 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 30% 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.
The Franco-British plan, as initially designed, proposed a defense of all of Scandinavia north of a line Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
–Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
or Stockholm–Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, i.e. the British concept of the Lake line following the lakes of Mälaren
Mälaren
Lake Mälaren is the third-largest lake in Sweden, after Lakes Vänern and Vättern. Its area is 1,140 km² and its greatest depth is 64 m. Mälaren spans 120 kilometers from east to west...
, Hjälmaren
Hjälmaren
Lake Hjälmaren is Sweden's fourth largest lake. It is situated adjacent to Lake Mälaren through which it drains into the Baltic Sea, west of Stockholm...
, and Vänern
Vänern
Vänern is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the EU and the third largest lake in Europe after Ladoga and Onega in Russia. It is located in the provinces of Västergötland, Dalsland, and Värmland in the southwest of the country.- History :...
, which would provide good natural defence some 1,700–1,900 kilometres (1,000-1,200 miles) south of Narvik. The expected frontier, the Lake line, involved not only Sweden's two largest cities, but could potentially result in large amounts of Swedish territory either occupied by a foreign army or located in a potential war zone. Later, the plan was revised to include only the northern half of Sweden and the rather narrow adjacent Norwegian coast.
Norwegian and Swedish reaction
Despite this compromise, the Norwegian government denied transit rights to the proposed Franco-British expedition. The Swedish government, headed by Prime Minister Per Albin HanssonPer Albin Hansson
Per Albin Hansson , was a Swedish politician, chairman of the Social Democrats from 1925 and two-time Prime Minister in four governments between 1932 and 1946, governing all that period save for a short-lived crisis in the summer of 1936, which he ended by forming a coalition government with his...
, 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. Instead, the Swedish government made the curious argument 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 merely 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 Nazi Germany's demand to transit rights across Sweden for German troops on their way from the then occupied Norway to Finland, in order to join the German attack on Soviet union. A total of 2.14 million German soldiers, and more than 100,000 German military railway carriages, would cross neutral Swedish territory in a thunderous display of "might over right" for the next three years.
The Swedish Cabinet also decided to reject
Sweden and the Winter War
The Winter War was fought in the four months following the Soviet Union's invasion of Finland on November 30, 1939. This took place three months after the German invasion of Poland that triggered the start of World War II...
repeated pleas from the Finns for regular Swedish troops to be deployed in Finland, and in the end 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 terrain. In addition, Norway and Sweden feared an influx of Finnish refugees should Finland lose to the Soviets.
Further Allied proposals and their effect on peace negotiations
While Germany and Sweden pressured Finland to accept peace on bad conditions, Britain and France had the opposite objective. Different plans and figures were presented for the Finns. At the start, both France and Britain promised to send 20,000 men to arrive by the end of February. By the end of that month , Finland's Commander-in-ChiefCommander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
, Field Marshal
Field Marshal (Finland)
In Finnish Defence Forces Field Marshal is officially not an active military rank but an honorary rank that can be bestowed upon 'especially distinguished generals'...
Mannerheim
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, Commander-in-Chief of Finland's Defence Forces during World War II, Marshal of Finland, and a Finnish statesman. He was Regent of Finland and the sixth President of Finland...
, was pessimistic about the military situation. Therefore, on 29 February the government decided to start peace negotiations. That same day, the Soviets commenced an attack against Viipuri
Vyborg
Vyborg is a town in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of the Bay of Vyborg, to the northwest of St. Petersburg and south from Russia's border with Finland, where the Saimaa Canal enters the Gulf of Finland...
.
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. Through Soviet agents in the French and British governments, indications of Franco-British plans reached Stalin, and may have contributed heavily to his decision to increase military pressure on the Finnish Army, while at the same time offering to negotiate an armistice.
See also
- Plan R 4Plan R 4Plan 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.-Background:...
- Operation PikeOperation PikeOperation Pike refers to a strategic bombing plan, overseen by Air Commodore John Slessor, against the Soviet Union by the Anglo-French alliance...
- Allied campaign in Norway
- Foreign support in the Winter WarForeign support in the Winter WarThe foreign support in the Winter War contained materiel, men and moral support to the Finnish struggle against the Soviet Union in the Winter War. World opinion at large supported the Finnish cause...
- Swedish iron ore during World War IISwedish iron ore during World War IISwedish iron ore was an important economic factor in the European Theatre of World War II. Both the Allies and the Third Reich were keen on the control of the mining district in northernmost Sweden, surrounding the mining towns of Gällivare and Kiruna...