In article
,
says...
You are being very delicate in not mentioning that
Finland was once part of the Swedish empire, along with
a large chunk of the Baltic; up until the Grand Duchy
gained the dubious privilege of being grabbed by Russia

Finland did not become a Grand duchy until after 1809.

Thank you for the clarification, I got a bit bored with
writing Finland, Finns,...


Many Europeans sympathised with the Finns in the Winter
War to the point of wishing to offer concrete aid; if one
wants to be cruel, perhaps the failure of the Narvik
expedition was a blessing in disguise in this respect.

The Narvik expedition started long after the Winter war was over.


In the planning stages of Narvik the plight of the Finns
was very much in the public eye. Here is what Churchill,
or one of his aids, wrote in volume one of "The Second
World War".


"All the resentment felt against the Soviet Government
for the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was fanned into flame by
this latest exhibition of brutal bullying and aggression.
With this was also mingled scorn for the inefficiency
displayed by the Soviet troops and enthusiasm for the
gallant Finns. In spite of the Great War which had been
declared, there was a keen desire to help the Finns by
aircraft and other precious war material and by
volunteers from Britain, from the United States, and
still more from France. Alike for the munition supplies
and the volunteers there was only one possible route to
Finland. The iron-ore port of Narvik with its railroad
over the mountains to the Swedish iron mines acquired a
new sentimental if not strategic significance."

(volume I, p 429, Cassell 1948).

"I sympathised ardently with the Finns and supported all
proposals for their aid; and I welcomed this new and
favourable breeze as a means of achieving the major
strategic advantage of cutting off the vital iron-ore
supplies of Germany. If Narvik was to become a kind of
Allied base to supply the Finns, it would certainly be
easy to prevent the German ships loading ore at the port
and sailing safely down the leads to Germany."

(page 430).


Military expeditions have a habit of proceeding no matter
what the change in circumstance. Perhaps Burns put it
best:

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promised joy!

Regards,

Simon.