Chapman billy wrote in message m...
In article ,
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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).

Dear Simon,

Here are some comments about Allied plans to intervene with regard to Finland:

"On 30 November 1939, the Soviet Union had invaded Finland. Public opinion
displayed widespread sympathy for the 'plucky little Finns' whose initial
military successes aroused admiration. This conflict had no bearing on the
wider war, since Finland was not at war with Germany, and the Allies were not
at war with Russia. In France, where anti-Communist feeling was strong, many
people convinced themselves that hitting at Russia by helping the Finns also
represented an oblique way of weakening Germany. The Northern Department of
the Foreign Office, which was quite anti-Soviet, shared this view on the
grounds that Germany was receiving considerable economic aid from Russia.
Generally, however, in Britain, where anti-Communism was less intense than in
France, such arguments had less appeal, and the idea of intervening on behalf
of the Finns would have gone no further had it not also offered the prospect
of undermining Germany's war economy by cutting off its imports of iron ore
from Sweden. In the winter months, when the Baltic froze, most of those
exports went via the Norwegian port of Narvik. From the start of the war,
the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, had wanted to play mines
in the waters off Narvik. This proposal had been rejected by the British War
Cabinet, but it was now overtaken by an even more ambitious proposal, namely
to send an expedition to Scandinavia. Its *pretext* would be to assist the
Finns, but the *real objective* would be to seize the Swedish iron ore fields
en route.

At an SWC meeting on 5 February, the British rejected what Cadogan described
as France's 'silly scheme' for an expedition to the Finnish port of Petsamo,
on the grounds it would bring the Allies into direct conflict with the Soviet
Union, but they did accept an alternative French plan for an expedition to
Narvik, having first requested the approval of neutral Norway and Sweden....
Not surprisingly Norway and Sweden, desperate to preserve their neutrality,
refused their consent. The British assumed that this meant the operation could
not proceed. The French claimed it had been agreed to go ahead regardless.
Daladier became increasingly incensed at British procrastination."

--Julian Jackson (The Fall of France, 2003, Oxford University Press, p. 81)

Military expeditions have a habit of proceeding no matter what the change in
circumstance....

"Meanwhile Daladier's own position became more precarious as the situation of
the Finns worsened. At the start of February, without consulting the British,
Daladier recklessly and desperately promised Finland 100 planes and 50000 men
by the end of the month, without having any idea where they would come from.
After the signature of the Soviet-Finnish armistice, Daladier was unable to
avoid a parliamentary debate. His speech in Parliament on 13 March contained
some remarks so wild that they were struck off the record; it was rumoured
that he had been drinking....On 20 March, Daladier called a motion of
confidence. Although he won by 239 votes to 1, there were 300 abstentions.
These included members of both the pro- and anti-war factions. Daladier
felt that he had no alternative but to resign."
--Julian Jackson (The Fall of France, p. 124)

--Nick