Tuesday, April 30, 1940

ALLIES HOLD ON AGAINST GERMAN DRIVE. A Norwegian communique distributed by the British news agency Reuters on Monday says that Norwegian troops have halted at Kvam a German force driving northwestward toward Dombas. This battle, in south central Norway, is significant because German control of Dombas would rob the Allies of their life-line in that region, the railroad line from Dombas to Stoeren. The Associated Press dispatch Monday said that British and Norwegian troops are “threatened in the flank by German units that have attempted to scale the mountain passes leading from the Oesterdal, East Norwegian valley, to the Dombas-Trondheim railroad.” But the Allies have managed to hold off the threat so far while maintaining their communications. A second Nazi advance northward through eastern Norway has been checked for the moment as well. One can hope that a Nazi break-through, which looked likely over week-end, has been averted for the moment.

One bad sign -- late radio bulletins say the Germans have sent five separate columns to take Dombas, and they have closed to within thirteen miles of the town. One good sign -- another A.P. report from Monday says that “thousands” more British troops have been landed around Namsos, even though Monday’s New York Herald Tribune says that the unlucky port of 4,000 residents has been “leveled” by merciless German bombings. “Not a single building remains in this once picturesque town,” says an eyewitness.

NORWAY INVASION A MERE “FEINT”? There’s an interesting editorial in Monday’s Chicago Tribune theorizing that Hitler’s invasion of Norway was chiefly a feint, designed to draw the British Navy away from parts of Europe the Nazis are more interested in attacking --

“If the German maneuver was merely a feint, undertaken perhaps in anticipation of a British occupation of strategic ports in Norway, Hitler’s main purpose must have been to pin a substantial part of the British navy to the Norwegian coast to prevent reinforcements and supplies from reaching the invading German army. While much of the British fleet was thus fully occupied in northern waters the Germans might move into the Balkans, or, with the support of the Italians and perhaps the Russians as well, might start operations in the Mediterranean region. In these circumstances the British might find it difficult or perhaps impossible for the British to reinforce their naval units in either theater. If the Germans should follow the Scandinavian stroke with an invasion of the low countries in force with a view to turning the flank of the Maginot Line, the British fleet might find itself so heavily occupied elsewhere that it could not interfere successfully with German landing operations on the Dutch or Belgian coast. In any event the diversion of British and French troops to Norway in numbers sufficient to oust the Germans would hamper the defense in Belgium and Holland.”

My theory is that, yes, the Germans chose Norway to insure continuation of their ore shipments from Sweden, but also in large part because Hitler is a bully who likes easy targets. And the Norwegian armed forces were obviously much weaker than the 800,000-man Swedish army. For that same reason, I think if Hitler invades anyone else this spring, it will be another “cheap” objective, most likely Holland. The Nazis could make much use of Holland’s air bases to stage bombing attacks on Britain, and there’s not much that the massive Allied forces guarding the borders of France could do to protect the Dutch. But it still seems unlikely Hitler will move against France -- not this year, maybe not ever.

CHAMBERLAIN FEELS THE HEAT. Two reports Monday say that critics of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s handling of Norway are making this a “difficult week” for the British government. James. B. Reston writes from London for the New York Times that Allied reversals last week at Steinkjer, north of Trondheim, and in the Gudbrandsdal Valley have spurred a burst of criticism in the Sunday papers and raised the prospect of some tough questioning in Parliament. “There has been a lot of talk here,” says Mr. Reston, “about troops being sent to Norway too soon, without sufficient artillery and without adequate fighter planes, anti-aircraft guns or reinforcements.”

But Larry Rue reports somewhat cynically in the Chicago Tribune that the complainers don’t see themselves as having any impact on the makeup or direction of the Chamberlain regime. He writes, “Prospects for any radical changes in the government resulting from the criticism are not regarded any too hopefully. Peter Howard, political writer, deplored the alleged fact that ‘parliamentary benches on both sides of the house are packed with mediocrities.’”

“UNPREPAREDNESS” HURT NORWAY. After a few hundred news stories blamed the German advance into Norway on “quislings” (a newly-coined word for traitor, after treasonous Norwegian Major Vidkun Quisling), the press seems to be reconsidering. For instance, an editorial in Monday’s Washington Post says that Norwegian troops are sadly outclassed in the means of fighting a modern war. And it didn’t have to be this way --

“Confronting an enemy which is infinitely better armed, the Norwegian troops for all their bravery, have proved inadequate to the task before them. There are obviously not enough of them, even counting Allied reinforcements, to cover every possible German avenue of advance. Equipped for the most part only with rifles, they have been no match for the mechanized units of the invaders. No doubt it was this very Norwegian unpreparedness which encouraged Hitler....Had the Norwegians been better prepared they could have made their country an all but impregnable fortress, vulnerable only to large-scale and expensive operations. But Norway had for many decades enjoyed the deep dream of peace. She felt herself safe behind the barrier of an impeccable neutrality.”

And Otto D. Tolischus writes in a Sunday New York Times opinion piece that Major Quisling was really “a Don Quixote figure in Norwegian politics whom nobody took seriously,” and who grossly exaggerated his importance to the Germans, who have already tossed him aside. “The fact is that Norway had been so taken by surprise that she had no time for mobilization,” Mr. Tolischus writes. “And this wholly unmobilized state of the Norwegian defense forces is adduced as the reason for most of the later military debacle that Major Quisling ordered and his adherents aggravated, though neither he nor his adherents were of sufficient caliber to organize it or cause it.”

NORWAY FREE OF NAZIS LATER THIS YEAR? Herbert Rosinski, a London-based military expert who once lectured at the German Military Academy, has extensively studied just how much longer the German war machine can fight at its current level of manpower and supplies. He writes in Sunday’s New York Times that the Allies are still in a position to end the European war on their terms by the autumn of 1941 and still have a chance of booting the Nazis out of Norway before the end of this year --

“The desperate efforts made by the Germans to retrieve their precarious position in Norway and the considerable foothold gained by them make it unlikely that the Allies will be able to clear Norway before Autumn, despite the advantages of overwhelming superiority at sea and the assistance of the Norwegian people. This again points to the Spring of 1941 as the date when conditions for a decisive Allied offensive can be fulfilled.”

AMERICANS ARE ANTI-NAZI, BUT ANTI-WAR. In Sunday’s Washington Post, Dr. Gallup takes a look at how U.S. citizens feel about the invasion of Norway. Overwhelmingly, the response is -- “yes, we condemn Nazi aggression, and no, we don’t want to fight Germany.” Only 7% of those responding to the survey say that Germany was “justified” in sending her troops against Denmark and Norway, while 93% say she wasn’t. But only 3.7% of Americans say the U.S. should fight the Nazis. That compares with 3.5% who advocated war with Germany in a December survey. No doubt the isolationists will make much of such numbers, as they continue to accuse the Roosevelt administration of advocating what a mere 3.7% of U.S. citizens support.