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During the early stages of World War II, the United Kingdom and France made a series of proposals to send troops to assist Finland against the Soviet Union during the Winter War, which started on 30 November 1939. The plans involved the transit of British and French troops and equipment through neutral Norway and Sweden. The initial plans were abandoned because Norway and Sweden declined transit through their land for fear that their countries would be drawn into the war. The Moscow Peace Treaty ended the Winter War in March 1940, which precluded the possibility of intervention.
The Winter War started in November 1939. In February 1940, a Soviet offensive broke through the Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus, which exhausted Finnish defenses and forced the country's government to accept peace negotiations on Soviet terms. As the news that Finland might be forced to cede its sovereignty to the Soviet Union, public opinion in France and Britain, which already supported Finland, swung for military intervention. When rumors of an armistice reached governments in Paris and London, both decided to offer military support.
Finland's resistance to the Soviet invasion, from November 1939 to March 1940, came while there was a military stalemate on the continent called the "Phony War". Attention turned to the Nordic Theatre. Months of planning at the highest civilian, military and diplomatic levels in London and Paris saw multiple reversals and deep divisions. [1]
Finally, the British and French agreed on a plan that involved uninvited invasions of Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark's Faroe Islands with the goals of damaging the German war economy and assisting Finland in its war with the Soviet Union. An Allied war against the Soviet Union was part of the plan. The main naval launching point would be Royal Navy's base at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands. [2]
The Soviet invasion of Finland excited widespread outrage at both popular and elite levels in support of Finland not only in Britain and France but also in the neutral United States. [3] The League of Nations declared the Soviet Union to be the aggressor and expelled it. [4] "American opinion makers treated the attack on Finland as dastardly aggression worthy of daily headlines, which thereafter exacerbated attitudes toward Russia". [5]
The real Allied goal was economic warfare: to cut off shipments of Swedish iron ore to Germany, which was calculated to weaken German war industry seriously. The British Ministry of Economic Warfare stated that the project against Norway would be likely to cause "An extremely serious repercussion on German industrial output... [and the Swedish component] might well bring German industry to a standstill and would in any case have a profound effect on the duration of the war". [6] The idea was to shift forces away from doing little on the static Western Front to playing an active role on a new front.
The British military leadership, by December, had supported the idea enthusiastically after it had realised that its first choice, an attack on German oil supplies, would not get approval. Winston Churchill, now leading the Admiralty, pushed hard for an invasion of Norway and Sweden to help the Finns and to cut the iron supplies. Likewise, political and military leaders in Paris strongly supported the plan because it would put their troops in action. The poor performance of the Soviets against the Finns strengthened the confidence of the Allies that the invasion, and the resulting war against the Soviets would be worthwhile. However, the civilian leadership of Neville Chamberlain's government in London drew back and postponed invasion plans. Also, neutral Norway and Sweden refused to co-operate. [7]
The first intervention plan, approved on 4–5 February 1940 by the Allied High Command, consisted of 100,000 British and 35,000 French troops, which would disembark at the Norwegian port of Narvik and support Finland via Sweden while they secured supply routes along the way. Plans were made to launch the operation on 20 March under the condition of a formal request for assistance from the Finnish government to avoid German charges that the Franco-British forces were 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 neutral Nordic countries, Norway and Sweden, to the Allies by strengthening their positions against Germany, but Hitler had by December declared to the Swedish government that Franco-British troops on Swedish soil would immediately provoke a German invasion.
The Franco-British plan, as initially designed, proposed a defence of all of Scandinavia north of a line Stockholm–Gothenburg or Stockholm–Oslo (the British concept of the Lake Line following the lakes of Mälaren, Hjälmaren, and Vänern), which would provide a good natural defense some 1,700–1,900 kilometres (1,100–1,200 mi) south of Narvik. The planned frontier involved Sweden's two largest cities but also could result in large amounts of Swedish territory to be occupied by a foreign army or to become a war zone. The plan was revised[ when? ] to include only the northern half of Sweden and the narrow adjacent Norwegian coast.
The Norwegian government denied transit rights to the proposed Franco-British expedition.
The Swedish government, headed by Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson, declined to allow transit of armed troops through Swedish territory although Sweden had not declared itself neutral in the Winter War. The Swedish government argued 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 French-British corps, even if it would not be used against Germany, was still an illegal departure from international laws on neutrality.
That strict interpretation appears to have been a pretext to avoid angering the Soviet and German governments.[ according to whom? ] Another interpretation was to deny the Allies an opportunity to fight Germany far from Britain or France and to destroy the Swedish infrastructure in the process.[ according to whom? ]
The Swedish Cabinet also decided to reject repeated Finnish pleas for regular Swedish troops to be deployed in Finland and the Swedes and 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 soil. Norway and Sweden also feared an influx of Finnish refugees if Finland lost to the Soviets.
Fifteen months later, the Swedish government conceded to German demands for transit rights of one division across Sweden for German troops on their way from occupied Norway to Finland to join the German attack on the Soviet Union. [8] A total of 2,140,000 German soldiers on leave and more than 100,000 German military railway carriages crossed neutral Swedish territory during the next three years. [9]
Germany and Sweden pressured Finland to accept peace on unfavourable conditions, but Britain and France had the opposite objective. Different plans and figures were presented for the Finns. France and Britain promised to send 20,000 men, who were to arrive by the end of February. By the end of that month, Finnish Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Mannerheim was pessimistic about the military situation and on 29 February, the government decided to start peace negotiations. The 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. Finland hoped for Allied intervention, but its position became increasingly hopeless. Its agreement to an armistice on 13 March signalled defeat. On 20 March, a more aggressive Paul Reynaud became prime minister of France and demanded an immediate invasion; Chamberlain and the British cabinet finally agreed and orders were given of Operation Wilfred to provoke a justification. [10] However, Germany invaded first and quickly conquered Denmark and southern Norway in Operation Weserübung, repelling Allied counter-efforts in Scandinavia. [11] With the British failure in Norway, Britain decided it immediately needed to set up naval and air bases in Iceland. Despite Iceland's plea for neutrality, Britain considered its occupation as a military necessity. The British occupied the Faroe Islands on 13 April, and the decision made to occupy Iceland on 6 May. [12] [13]
The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from its organization.
The Phoney War was an eight-month period at the outset of World War II during which there were virtually no Allied military land operations on the Western Front. World War II began on 1 September 1939 with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland. Two days later, the "Phoney" period began with declarations of war by the United Kingdom and France against Germany, but with little actual warfare occurring.
The Moscow Peace Treaty was signed by Finland and the Soviet Union on 12 March 1940, and the ratifications were exchanged on 21 March. It marked the end of the 105-day Winter War, upon which Finland ceded border areas to the Soviet Union. The treaty was signed by Vyacheslav Molotov, Andrei Zhdanov and Aleksandr Vasilevsky for the Soviet Union, and Risto Ryti, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, Rudolf Walden and Väinö Voionmaa for Finland. The terms of the treaty were not reversed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Karelian question refers to the debate within Finland over the possible reacquisition of this ceded territory.
Sweden maintained its policy of neutrality during World War II. When the war began on 1 September 1939, the fate of Sweden was unclear. But by a combination of its geopolitical location in the Scandinavian Peninsula, realpolitik maneuvering during an unpredictable course of events, and a dedicated military build-up after 1942, Sweden kept its official neutrality status throughout the war. At the outbreak of hostilities, Sweden had held a neutral stance in international relations for more than a century, since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 and the invasion of Norway.
Swedish iron ore was an important economic and military factor in the European theatre of World War II, as Sweden was the main contributor of iron ore to Nazi Germany. The average percentages by source of Nazi Germany’s iron ore procurement through 1933–43 by source were: Sweden: 43.0 Domestic production (Germany): 28.2 France: 12.9. Within the German military the Navy was most dependent on Swedish steel as an absolute necessity to the German war effort, according to their grand admiral. It has also been argued that the Swedish export helped prolong the war.
Sweden had a policy of neutrality in armed conflicts from the early 19th century, until 2009, when it entered into various mutual defence treaties with the European Union (EU), and other Nordic countries. The policy originated largely as a result of Sweden's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, during which over a third of the country's territory was lost in the Finnish War (1808–1809), including the traumatic loss of Finland to Russia, which it remained part of until Finland gained independence in 1917. Resentment towards the Swedish king Gustav IV Adolf, who had consistently pursued an anti-Napoleonic policy and thereby caused the war, precipitated a coup d'état known as the Coup of 1809. The new regime deposed the king and introduced the Instrument of Government (1809), later formulating a new foreign policy that became known as The Policy of 1812.
The matter of German troop transfer through Finland and Sweden during World War II was one of the more controversial aspects of modern Nordic history beside Finland's co-belligerence with Nazi Germany in the Continuation War, and the export of Swedish iron ore during World War II.
Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but only a relative few nations remained neutral to the end. The Second World War pitted two alliances against each other, the Axis powers and the Allied powers. It is estimated that 74 million people died, with estimates ranging from 40 million to 90 million dead. The main Axis powers were Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, and the Kingdom of Italy; while the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.
Operation Wilfred was a British naval operation during the Second World War that involved the mining of the channels between Norway and its offshore islands to prevent the transport of Swedish iron ore through neutral Norwegian waters. The Allies assumed that Wilfred would provoke German retaliation in Norway and prepared Plan R4 to occupy Narvik, Stavanger, Bergen and Trondheim. On 8 April 1940, the operation was partly carried out but was overtaken by events, when the Germans began Operation Weserübung on 9 April, the invasion of Norway and Denmark, which began the Norwegian Campaign.
The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until the capitulation of German forces in Europe on 8 May 1945. Throughout this period, a pro-German government named Den nasjonale regjering ruled Norway, while the Norwegian king Haakon VII and the prewar government escaped to London, where they formed a government in exile. Civil rule was effectively assumed by the Reichskommissariat Norwegen, which acted in collaboration with the pro-German puppet government. This period of military occupation is, in Norway, referred to as the "war years", "occupation period" or simply "the war".
The military history of Finland consists of hundreds of years of armed actions in the territory encompassing modern Finland.
The Interim Peace was a short period in the history of Finland during the Second World War. The term is used for the time between the Winter War and the Continuation War, lasting a little over 15 months, from 13 March 1940 to 24 June 1941. The Moscow Peace Treaty was signed by Finland and the Soviet Union on 12 March 1940 and it ended the 105-day Winter War.
The neutral powers were countries that remained neutral during World War II. Some of these countries had large colonies abroad or had great economic power. Spain had just been through its civil war, which ended on 1 April 1939 —a war that involved several countries that subsequently participated in World War II.
Plan R 4 was an unrealised British plan to invade Norway and Sweden in April 1940, during the Second World War. As a result of competing plans for Norway and Operation Weserübung the German invasion of Norway the same month, it was not carried out as designed. Similar plans had been made for the proposed Anglo-French intervention in the Winter War.
This page is about the effects on Sweden, during and following Operation Weserübung.
For articles about the operation itself, see also Operation Weserübung and Norwegian Campaign.
Foreign support in the Winter War consisted of 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. The Second World War had not yet begun in earnest and was known to the public as the Phoney War; at that time, the Winter War saw the only real fighting in Europe besides the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, and thus held major world interest. The Soviet aggression was generally deemed unjustified. Various foreign organizations sent material aid, such as medical supplies. Finnish immigrants in the United States and Canada returned home, and many volunteers traveled to Finland to join Finland's forces: 8,700 Swedes, 1,010 Danes, about 1,000 Estonians, 725 Norwegians, 372 Ingrians, 366 Hungarians, 346 Finnish expatriates, 4 Latvians, 2 Lithuanians and 190 volunteers of other nationalities made it to Finland before the war was over.
The timeline of the Winter War is a chronology of events leading up to, culminating in, and resulting from the Winter War. The war began when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 and it ended 13 March 1940.
Operation Weserübung was the invasion of Denmark and Norway by Nazi Germany during World War II. It was the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign.
The diplomatic history of World War II includes the major foreign policies and interactions inside the opposing coalitions, the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers, between 1939 and 1945.