GERMANS CUTTING NORWAY IN HALF. The radio is full of worrisome reports this morning that a new Nazi drive might be about to cut Norway in two, along a line from the port of Trondheim eastward to the Swedish border. This development follows a number of stories in Monday’s papers indicating that Hitler’s forces are pushing inland against determined but disorganized Norwegian resistance. The New York Times reports a “substantial German success” in a drive against Norwegian forces attempting to surround the Nazi garrison in Oslo. The Germans have seized Fredrikstad, Sarpaborg and Halden, giving them control of the eastern shore of the Oslo Fjord. The offensive has also sent 3,000 Norwegian Army troops fleeing into Sweden, where they’ve been disarmed and interned.
But the Associated Press, among others, quotes a B.B.C. broadcast Monday as vowing that “British troops are on their way to help the Norwegians.” In fact, according to bulletins this morning, an expeditionary force of British troops, undetermined in number, may already be landing in various spots along Norway’s coast. The Norwegian News Service also claims the British have taken the northern port of Narvik, and that its German garrison has fled inland. Another A.P. report says the British Navy has sunk or captured at least 21 German transport and supply ships off Norway, and that a German prize pocket battleship, the Admiral Scheer, has been “successfully attacked.”
Two things are increasingly clear -- (1) this battle will go on for some time, and (2) the Allies stand a fighting chance. The Germans have a lot of striking power close by and may yet take control of Norway, but Hitler’s expectations of another cheap victory have clearly been thwarted.
SO MUCH FOR “PROTECTION”. Monday’s New York Times also has a very interesting dispatch from Stockholm, by Erik Seidenfaden, on just how close Norway’s government came to capitulating shortly after the invasion. Ministers were on the verge of surrendering Norway Tuesday night, he writes. But then a “Battle of Lexington” took place at the temporary capital of Elverum -- “at about 2 o’clock Wednesday morning, soldiers and peasants fought and repulsed a German force...thus turning the tide and leading to general resistance to the invasion.” The resistance, composed of Elverum’s army garrison and some peasants armed with rifles, successfully repulsed an attacking force of 200 heavily armed Germans.
In spite of Nazi claims to be “protecting” Norway’s government from the Allies, a United Press article says the Germans actually took to bombing every town that King Haakon and his government stayed at after their flight from Oslo. The temporary capital of Elverum has been “virtually destroyed” by German bombers, according to the U.P.
BELGIUM, HOLLAND SEE WAR AHEAD. Alex Small of the Chicago Tribune reports from Brussels in Monday’s editions that the Belgians are breathing a little easier this week -- but only a little. “The conviction was general,” he writes, “that the war will not spread to Holland or Belgium for the next two or three days. Beyond that, the most hazardous spirit will not predict.” There are predictions being made, though, and Mr. Small cites “well-informed sources” as forecasting that Germany would likely attack Holland first. Then, Belgium would go to her neighbor’s defense and be drawn into the fighting. Belgium’s 700,000-man army is under arms and in the field, and ready for whatever comes.
Meanwhile, Edward Angly reports in Monday’s New York Herald Tribune that Sweden shares Belgium and Holland’s “sense of immediate insecurity”, and that the German radio and press have launched blistering campaigns against the Swedes and the Dutch. Mr. Angly writes that Allied experts are more concerned about these threats than the one to Norway -- “British strategists profess not to be worried about the situation opened up this week in the north. Whatever the immediate local successes of German troops against the Norwegians, the feeling in London is that the Nazis, having gone into Scandinavia without securing sea communications to supply and augment their land forces, are out on a limb, which the Allied fleet is sawing off.”
Hope that’s true.
NORWAY’S IMPACT ON U.S. OPINION. Arthur Krock says in a Sunday New York Times commentary that Hitler’s invasion of Norway is affecting American opinion in a way that earlier acts of German aggression did not --
“It feels certain that the pro-Allied, or rather the anti-Nazi, sentiment of the American people has been increased by Hitler’s invasion of Norway and seizure of Denmark. The fates of Ethiopia, Albania, Poland, and Austria and Czecho-Slovakia were more distant tragedies. The pioneer parts played by Scandinavians in the founding of the United States, and the democratic examples these nations have set and maintained while autocracy was growing all around them, produced a feeling of kinship and a spiritual bond which even Finland did not evoke. Of this the Administration is as fully aware as the man in the street.
But Mr. Krock sees no sign that these factors have done anything to solve the President’s chief foreign policy problem -- “It is, and has been from the first, how to lend the Allies every aid ‘short of war’ which will assure the defeat of Germany, and yet will permit the United States to maintain the technique of neutrality, preserve the few neutral rights is has asserted, and avert either intervention or the successful charge that this is the hidden objective or the inevitable consequence of the Administration’s policy.”
ROOSEVELT CRITICIZES THE INVASION. Sunday’s Washington Post reprints a brief statement from the President condemning the invasion of Denmark and Norway -- though not mentioning Germany by name. What he said was, essentially, “Force and military aggression are once more on the march against small nations....If civilization is to survive, the rights of the smaller nations to independence...must be respected by their more powerful neighbors.”
Pretty mild, it sounds to me. But to prominent isolationists in Congress, even this is war-mongering. Senator Nye of North Dakota responded by saying, “I cannot look upon statements like this without feeling that they are, each and every one, taking us a little closer to involvement in the holocaust abroad.” His colleague from North Dakota and fellow Republican, Senator Frazier, condemned the President’s comments as “unneutral.”
There’s no pleasing these people, is there? The President might as well call a spade a spade, and denounce Hitler by name.
DEMOCRATS BETTER OFF WITHOUT F.D.R.? Sunday’s Washington Post also offers a startling new Gallup poll that deals a blow to “the widespread belief that President Roosevelt is the only man who can lead the Democratic Party to victory next November.” It does show Roosevelt winning a third term over a Republican candidate, Senator Vandenberg, by a margin of 53% to 47%. But it shows Secretary of State Hull doing a lot better, beating Senator Vandenberg by 58% to 42%.
The reason for this, according to Dr. Gallup, is that “the third-term tradition is still a major handicap to Mr. Roosevelt. Although his personal popularity is high from coast to coast, a small but important group of Democrats still say they will not vote for him for a third term.”
Democrats shouldn’t take any comfort over Gallup’s finding that Roosevelt would still win. It’s odd that Gallup would choose Senator Vandenberg as its “test” candidate for the G.O.P., since Gallup’s own polls have long shown him badly trailing Thomas Dewey – and in fact, the current issue of Time magazine proclaims that Dewey’s huge wins over Vandenberg in the Wisconsin and Nebraska primaries have practically knocked Vandenberg out of the running. The race at the moment is between Mr. Dewey and Senator Taft. The latter will probably amass a larger number of delegate votes than Dewey by convention time, despite Taft’s refusal to compete in the primaries. But either Dewey or Taft would likely be a bigger vote-getter than Vandenberg.
Dr. Gallup says that future trial heats will show how President Roosevelt stacks up against Mr. Dewey and Senator Taft. Those surveys should prove most interesting.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Sunday, April 14, 1940
TOTAL WAR “ONLY A MATTER OF HOURS”? The news in Friday’s papers was pretty alarming, and seemed to promise that the savage fighting in Norway this week-end would quickly be relegated to a side-show. G.H. Archambault sums up the situation in Friday’s New York Times --
“On the Maginot Line between the Rhine and the Moselle many signs point to an early enemy attack, and all leave has been stopped for the French army. German troop concentrations are reported along the Netherlands frontier, especially at points in the north and south. The Belgian army is standing ready. Evacuation measures are being taken in Luxemburg. The storm seems about to burst.”
What will Hitler do? Mr. Archambault says “the Netherlands and Belgium would be the next logical objectives,” following by a “violent demonstration” against the Maginot Line. John Elliott, Paris correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, quotes the French newspapers L’Intransigeant, Paris Soir, and and Petit Parisien as predicting an imminent German attack on the Maginot Line. David Darrah of the Chicago Tribune says the French believe that Holland and Belgium are targets of the next Nazi push, and reports that the Dutch have cancelled all leaves. He quotes the French newspaper Le Temps as counseling, “The only certain guarantee for a neutral country bordering Germany is to arm to the hilt, organize her defenses on land and sea, and above all, call on Britain and France to come to her aid, for when Germany launches a lightning attack it will be too late.”
Good advice, and let’s see in the next few days if it’s heeded.
HITLER’S INVASION SEEMS TO FALTER. Saturday’s front pages seem to indicate the Nazi plans for Norway might be going awry. A United Press dispatch by Peter C. Rhodes says that “British destroyers have sunk every ship in Narvik harbor,” and that the 5,000-man German garrison at that far northern port has been completely cut off, hemmed in by a combination of British warships and Norwegian troops arriving from further inland. About 30,000 Norwegian fighters have been mobilized in the region.
Meanwhile, the New York Herald Tribune reports Saturday that seven German ships have been trapped in Oslo Fjord by the British. Larry Rue reports in the Chicago Tribune that the British Navy has laid the “biggest mine field in history” in the North Sea, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat. A separate Tribune story says that “the Norwegian army was reported attempting to encircle Oslo.” And the Associated Press reports Friday that Norway’s ground troop have rallied elsewhere, throwing the Germans out of the port of Bergen and beating off an attack on the temporary capital of Elverum.
The Allies have clearly taken the initiative, and the situation sounds promising. But Friday’s Chicago Tribune offers a sobering corrective, reminding us that the Germans have already landed a supporting force of some 20,000 troops in Oslo, and thus the Nazi armies in Norway “are in no immediate danger of being ousted.” The Allies might well prevail, but this battle will probably go on for some time to come.
SOME EDITORIAL THOUGHTS. What newspaper editorials are saying about the German invasion of Norway --
New York Herald Tribune, Saturday -- “It is...a fight which is still uncertain, which may sway back and forth, with heavy losses exacted as the toll of ultimate victory, for an indefinite time before it is decided. It is sea power in action, in a new sense and facing new weapons, which we are now witnessing; one can only suspend prophecy until the action has given its own final verdict.”
Chicago Tribune, Saturday -- “It would seem that the question to be determined very shortly is one of transport. If the Germany army can advance into Norway, what began as military adventurism may be rescued by sound campaigning. What appears as the alternative is the expulsion of the invaders and the first black eye in return for one of Hitler’s startling blows.”
Washington Post, Friday -- “A large part of the prestige which Hitler enjoys among his people has been due to his uncanny ability to achieve maximum results with a minimum of risk. But this time he has embarked on a gamble in which he has laid his people open to some savage punishment. The gamble may succeed. But even so no amount of suppression, or of explanation by Dr. Goebbels’ propagandist machine, will be able to hide the lists of dead and missing from the German people. Nor will any government controls prevent them from wondering uneasily whether the Fuehrer, in his criminal extension of the war to Norway, has not for the first time blundered irretrievably.”
“THE GREAT WAR-GUILT SCANDAL”. Up until the invasion of Norway dominated the headlines, the Chicago Tribune had been having great fun every day with the German “white book” and its “revelations” from alleged Polish foreign ministry documents that U.S. ambassadors Bullitt and Kennedy had secretly fomented the war in Europe. The Tribune had been coming up with a blistering headline every day, claiming, for instance, that Ambassador Bullitt was secretly shipped out of the country by an embarrassed Roosevelt administration, so that the ambassador wouldn’t have to answer congressional inquiries about the sordid affair.
The headlines may have faded for now, but an editorial in the current New Republic says pretty much everything on the subject that remains to be said --
“Even if the [Polish diplomatic documents] are genuine, the mere fact that they are issued by a regime that has openly glorified lying for political purposes will deprive them of influence with the bulk of the American people. The denials issued by the Polish government in France, by Polish ambassador Potocki in Washington and by Secretary Hull will have the right of way. And if the purpose of issuing them was to discredit President Roosevelt in an election year, make a third term unlikely and undermine his foreign policy, as American opinion is quick to suspect, then the mere fact that Hitler is trying to play American politics for his own purposes will make the President unassailable. In a contest, whether or credibility or of attitude, between Hitler and Roosevelt, Hitler will get about one percent of the votes.”
And even if there are genuine documents among the Nazi disclosures, the New Republic joins cooler heads everywhere in urging Americans to take great care in evaluating them -- “we should be cautious in drawing conclusions from what the German government says a Polish diplomat said an American ambassador said the President said.”
“On the Maginot Line between the Rhine and the Moselle many signs point to an early enemy attack, and all leave has been stopped for the French army. German troop concentrations are reported along the Netherlands frontier, especially at points in the north and south. The Belgian army is standing ready. Evacuation measures are being taken in Luxemburg. The storm seems about to burst.”
What will Hitler do? Mr. Archambault says “the Netherlands and Belgium would be the next logical objectives,” following by a “violent demonstration” against the Maginot Line. John Elliott, Paris correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, quotes the French newspapers L’Intransigeant, Paris Soir, and and Petit Parisien as predicting an imminent German attack on the Maginot Line. David Darrah of the Chicago Tribune says the French believe that Holland and Belgium are targets of the next Nazi push, and reports that the Dutch have cancelled all leaves. He quotes the French newspaper Le Temps as counseling, “The only certain guarantee for a neutral country bordering Germany is to arm to the hilt, organize her defenses on land and sea, and above all, call on Britain and France to come to her aid, for when Germany launches a lightning attack it will be too late.”
Good advice, and let’s see in the next few days if it’s heeded.
HITLER’S INVASION SEEMS TO FALTER. Saturday’s front pages seem to indicate the Nazi plans for Norway might be going awry. A United Press dispatch by Peter C. Rhodes says that “British destroyers have sunk every ship in Narvik harbor,” and that the 5,000-man German garrison at that far northern port has been completely cut off, hemmed in by a combination of British warships and Norwegian troops arriving from further inland. About 30,000 Norwegian fighters have been mobilized in the region.
Meanwhile, the New York Herald Tribune reports Saturday that seven German ships have been trapped in Oslo Fjord by the British. Larry Rue reports in the Chicago Tribune that the British Navy has laid the “biggest mine field in history” in the North Sea, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat. A separate Tribune story says that “the Norwegian army was reported attempting to encircle Oslo.” And the Associated Press reports Friday that Norway’s ground troop have rallied elsewhere, throwing the Germans out of the port of Bergen and beating off an attack on the temporary capital of Elverum.
The Allies have clearly taken the initiative, and the situation sounds promising. But Friday’s Chicago Tribune offers a sobering corrective, reminding us that the Germans have already landed a supporting force of some 20,000 troops in Oslo, and thus the Nazi armies in Norway “are in no immediate danger of being ousted.” The Allies might well prevail, but this battle will probably go on for some time to come.
SOME EDITORIAL THOUGHTS. What newspaper editorials are saying about the German invasion of Norway --
New York Herald Tribune, Saturday -- “It is...a fight which is still uncertain, which may sway back and forth, with heavy losses exacted as the toll of ultimate victory, for an indefinite time before it is decided. It is sea power in action, in a new sense and facing new weapons, which we are now witnessing; one can only suspend prophecy until the action has given its own final verdict.”
Chicago Tribune, Saturday -- “It would seem that the question to be determined very shortly is one of transport. If the Germany army can advance into Norway, what began as military adventurism may be rescued by sound campaigning. What appears as the alternative is the expulsion of the invaders and the first black eye in return for one of Hitler’s startling blows.”
Washington Post, Friday -- “A large part of the prestige which Hitler enjoys among his people has been due to his uncanny ability to achieve maximum results with a minimum of risk. But this time he has embarked on a gamble in which he has laid his people open to some savage punishment. The gamble may succeed. But even so no amount of suppression, or of explanation by Dr. Goebbels’ propagandist machine, will be able to hide the lists of dead and missing from the German people. Nor will any government controls prevent them from wondering uneasily whether the Fuehrer, in his criminal extension of the war to Norway, has not for the first time blundered irretrievably.”
“THE GREAT WAR-GUILT SCANDAL”. Up until the invasion of Norway dominated the headlines, the Chicago Tribune had been having great fun every day with the German “white book” and its “revelations” from alleged Polish foreign ministry documents that U.S. ambassadors Bullitt and Kennedy had secretly fomented the war in Europe. The Tribune had been coming up with a blistering headline every day, claiming, for instance, that Ambassador Bullitt was secretly shipped out of the country by an embarrassed Roosevelt administration, so that the ambassador wouldn’t have to answer congressional inquiries about the sordid affair.
The headlines may have faded for now, but an editorial in the current New Republic says pretty much everything on the subject that remains to be said --
“Even if the [Polish diplomatic documents] are genuine, the mere fact that they are issued by a regime that has openly glorified lying for political purposes will deprive them of influence with the bulk of the American people. The denials issued by the Polish government in France, by Polish ambassador Potocki in Washington and by Secretary Hull will have the right of way. And if the purpose of issuing them was to discredit President Roosevelt in an election year, make a third term unlikely and undermine his foreign policy, as American opinion is quick to suspect, then the mere fact that Hitler is trying to play American politics for his own purposes will make the President unassailable. In a contest, whether or credibility or of attitude, between Hitler and Roosevelt, Hitler will get about one percent of the votes.”
And even if there are genuine documents among the Nazi disclosures, the New Republic joins cooler heads everywhere in urging Americans to take great care in evaluating them -- “we should be cautious in drawing conclusions from what the German government says a Polish diplomat said an American ambassador said the President said.”
Monday, April 11, 2016
Thursday, April 11, 1940
THE BRITISH STRIKE BACK IN NORWAY. Amid conflicting reports that Norway might be negotiating a capitulation to Germany, Britain has made it crystal clear Allied forces will fight to expel Hitler’s armies from Scandinavia. This morning’s bulletins on the radio bring some hopeful news. The ports of Trondheim and Bergen, seized by the Germans two days ago, have reportedly been captured by British naval forces, though this is unconfirmed. A broadcast from the B.B.C. last night claimed that British warships “appear to have routed” the Germans from Oslo Fjord, and are threatening an attack on Oslo itself, which had been seized by a small Nazi force on Tuesday. British marines are said to be driving a force of some 1,500 Germans out of the far northern ore port of Narvik. (But a United Press report Wednesday said British destroyers had been repulsed in an attack on Narvik Wednesday, with one ship sunk and a second grounded).
Meanwhile, a massive naval battle is taking place in open waters off Marstrand, Sweden, described by the Chicago Tribune’s Larry Rue as “the first major action between British and German warships since the Battle of Jutland.” According to Frank R. Kelley in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune, “powerful forces” of both navies fought Tuesday night in heavy seas and fog. One hopeful note about the naval battle -- the British are claiming to have inflicted “severe damage” on German forces all along the Norwegian coast, while the Germans, according to C.B.S. Berlin correspondent William Shirer, are saying nothing yet in that regard.
WILL THE NORWEGIANS SURRENDER? It can be hoped, too, that the British and French decision will toughen up the spines of some Norwegian politicians, who according to several reports asked the Nazis for “negotiations” Tuesday. The Chicago Tribune ran a bulletin from Stockholm in its Wednesday editions claiming that “Norway has decided to capitulate.” Reportedly the Norwegian parliament, which fled northward from Oslo to the small town of Elverum, appointed a committee of distinguished government figures “with the aim of negotiating an agreement with German authorities.”
An International News Service report says much the same thing, citing a dispatch from the semi-official Norwegian News Agency. The committee of three, it says, “will seek to win an agreement based on undisclosed demands which Premier Nygaardsvold outlined to the Storting [parliament] in last night’s secret session. Apparently, they were of such a nature that Norway might expect to retain some share of her sovereignty while preventing further bloodshed in what appeared to be futile resistance.”
But a late report this morning from Elverum says the Norwegians are fighting to keep the Germans out of the temporary capital, and that Premier Nygaardsvold has issued a proclamation reaffirming Norway’s determination to resist the invasion.
BIG STAKES IN NORWAY. Just how much might be riding on this new battle can be discerned from Raymond Daniell’s article in Wednesday’s New York Times. Mr. Daniell writes that “it is felt here [in London] that the destruction of the German fleet and the complete rout of German forces of occupation in Norway would disillusion Signor Mussolini about the infallibility of Herr Hitler and swing the Balkan States from the orbit of the Reich into that of the Allies.”
Then too, the Times story points out that if British sea power makes it too hard for Germany to maintain communications with her troops in Norway, Hitler might demand passage for Nazi forces through Swedish territory. “If Sweden is faced with the choice of granting or refusing such a demand, she might be forced into the war, willy nilly,” says Mr. Daniell.
“THE BALLOON HAS GONE UP.” Edward Angly paraphrases in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune the ordinary Briton’s reaction to this week’s news -- “The balloon has gone up; the war has really started.” He explains that “when the balloon goes up” has been the slang term in Britain and France lately to describe when the large-scale fighting gets going. Mr. Angly writes from London that the repercussions of Germany’s move into Scandinavia are expected to be widespread --
“That the flames of this war may spread quickly and with fury to other European areas was widely expected this morning by those who stay up at night and direct Allied strategy while the normal citizen gets his usual eight hours sleep....Near midnight and after, while Belgium kept mum and Holland cancelled all leaves for her mobilized men, the British expeditionary force and the Royal Air Force in France announced that all further leaves were cancelled until further notice....With Denmark in Germany’s control ‘under protest’ and Norway a new-found battleground for the struggle between the Nazi dictatorship and the democracies, London went to bed wondering what would be the fate of Sweden. Communications with that country, as with all the rest of Scandinavia, had been cut off during the swift-moving events of yesterday. Early this morning it was reported that Fuehrer Adolf Hitler had given Sweden the alternative of accepting German ‘protection’ or of being invaded by Nazi troops as Denmark and part of Norway were invaded yesterday.”
Not only Sweden but Finland might be in renewed danger. A United Press report Wednesday, quoting the Stockholm radio, says that Soviet Russia has made “new demands” on Finland for economic concessions. It looks more likely than ever like Stalin will do with Finland what Hitler did with Czecho-Slovakia a year ago, and the German attack on Scandinavia will give him cover to seize the rest of Finland without interference from the Allies.
WHAT IF GERMANY SUCCEEDS IN THE NORTH? Major George Fielding Eliot describes how German control of Norway could damage to the Allied cause, in a Wednesday New York Herald Tribune commentary --
“If the Germans are able to make good their lodgement in Norway, then the war seems likely to take a turn unfavorable to the Allied cause, for from the Norwegian bases on the open Atlantic a great part, at least, of the vital sea lanes of the British Isles are open to attack by submarine and surface raiders.”
WHY NORWAY, WHY NOW? (II). Barnet Nover offers some answers in his Washington Post column Wednesday --
“Why did [Hitler] choose Norway rather than the Low Countries or the Balkans as the scene of his latest blitzkrieg?....Hitler is on the march because now as throughout the period since he came into power he is a man in a hurry. And this time he cannot wait because he cannot afford to wait, particularly with the Allies showing every determination to to plug up every loophole in the blockade. It was not, therefore, the action of the Allies in mining Norwegian territorial waters which was responsible for the assault on Norway -- that is only the Nazi excuse for an action the German government must have planned long ago. More likely what led Hitler to strike was the increasing clamor of British and French public opinion for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, the change of government in France, the increased authority of Winston Churchill in England and other straws showing which way the wind is blowing in Allied lands. For Germany, to lose the initiative is to lose the war. And this week, as so often in the past, it was Germany which took the initiative.”
Mr. Nover notes that there are economic advantages to an occupation of Norway, in preventing the Swedish ore shipments from being cut off -- “it places valuable resources within reach of the Reich without the necessity of having to pay for them.” But beyond the economic advantages are further strategic opportunities. “If Germany succeeds in overrunning Norway and beating off Allied assistance to that country, she will have submarine bases very close to British waters. The attack on Norway presages the beginning of the long-delayed offensive against Great Britain.”
Meanwhile, a massive naval battle is taking place in open waters off Marstrand, Sweden, described by the Chicago Tribune’s Larry Rue as “the first major action between British and German warships since the Battle of Jutland.” According to Frank R. Kelley in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune, “powerful forces” of both navies fought Tuesday night in heavy seas and fog. One hopeful note about the naval battle -- the British are claiming to have inflicted “severe damage” on German forces all along the Norwegian coast, while the Germans, according to C.B.S. Berlin correspondent William Shirer, are saying nothing yet in that regard.
WILL THE NORWEGIANS SURRENDER? It can be hoped, too, that the British and French decision will toughen up the spines of some Norwegian politicians, who according to several reports asked the Nazis for “negotiations” Tuesday. The Chicago Tribune ran a bulletin from Stockholm in its Wednesday editions claiming that “Norway has decided to capitulate.” Reportedly the Norwegian parliament, which fled northward from Oslo to the small town of Elverum, appointed a committee of distinguished government figures “with the aim of negotiating an agreement with German authorities.”
An International News Service report says much the same thing, citing a dispatch from the semi-official Norwegian News Agency. The committee of three, it says, “will seek to win an agreement based on undisclosed demands which Premier Nygaardsvold outlined to the Storting [parliament] in last night’s secret session. Apparently, they were of such a nature that Norway might expect to retain some share of her sovereignty while preventing further bloodshed in what appeared to be futile resistance.”
But a late report this morning from Elverum says the Norwegians are fighting to keep the Germans out of the temporary capital, and that Premier Nygaardsvold has issued a proclamation reaffirming Norway’s determination to resist the invasion.
BIG STAKES IN NORWAY. Just how much might be riding on this new battle can be discerned from Raymond Daniell’s article in Wednesday’s New York Times. Mr. Daniell writes that “it is felt here [in London] that the destruction of the German fleet and the complete rout of German forces of occupation in Norway would disillusion Signor Mussolini about the infallibility of Herr Hitler and swing the Balkan States from the orbit of the Reich into that of the Allies.”
Then too, the Times story points out that if British sea power makes it too hard for Germany to maintain communications with her troops in Norway, Hitler might demand passage for Nazi forces through Swedish territory. “If Sweden is faced with the choice of granting or refusing such a demand, she might be forced into the war, willy nilly,” says Mr. Daniell.
“THE BALLOON HAS GONE UP.” Edward Angly paraphrases in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune the ordinary Briton’s reaction to this week’s news -- “The balloon has gone up; the war has really started.” He explains that “when the balloon goes up” has been the slang term in Britain and France lately to describe when the large-scale fighting gets going. Mr. Angly writes from London that the repercussions of Germany’s move into Scandinavia are expected to be widespread --
“That the flames of this war may spread quickly and with fury to other European areas was widely expected this morning by those who stay up at night and direct Allied strategy while the normal citizen gets his usual eight hours sleep....Near midnight and after, while Belgium kept mum and Holland cancelled all leaves for her mobilized men, the British expeditionary force and the Royal Air Force in France announced that all further leaves were cancelled until further notice....With Denmark in Germany’s control ‘under protest’ and Norway a new-found battleground for the struggle between the Nazi dictatorship and the democracies, London went to bed wondering what would be the fate of Sweden. Communications with that country, as with all the rest of Scandinavia, had been cut off during the swift-moving events of yesterday. Early this morning it was reported that Fuehrer Adolf Hitler had given Sweden the alternative of accepting German ‘protection’ or of being invaded by Nazi troops as Denmark and part of Norway were invaded yesterday.”
Not only Sweden but Finland might be in renewed danger. A United Press report Wednesday, quoting the Stockholm radio, says that Soviet Russia has made “new demands” on Finland for economic concessions. It looks more likely than ever like Stalin will do with Finland what Hitler did with Czecho-Slovakia a year ago, and the German attack on Scandinavia will give him cover to seize the rest of Finland without interference from the Allies.
WHAT IF GERMANY SUCCEEDS IN THE NORTH? Major George Fielding Eliot describes how German control of Norway could damage to the Allied cause, in a Wednesday New York Herald Tribune commentary --
“If the Germans are able to make good their lodgement in Norway, then the war seems likely to take a turn unfavorable to the Allied cause, for from the Norwegian bases on the open Atlantic a great part, at least, of the vital sea lanes of the British Isles are open to attack by submarine and surface raiders.”
WHY NORWAY, WHY NOW? (II). Barnet Nover offers some answers in his Washington Post column Wednesday --
“Why did [Hitler] choose Norway rather than the Low Countries or the Balkans as the scene of his latest blitzkrieg?....Hitler is on the march because now as throughout the period since he came into power he is a man in a hurry. And this time he cannot wait because he cannot afford to wait, particularly with the Allies showing every determination to to plug up every loophole in the blockade. It was not, therefore, the action of the Allies in mining Norwegian territorial waters which was responsible for the assault on Norway -- that is only the Nazi excuse for an action the German government must have planned long ago. More likely what led Hitler to strike was the increasing clamor of British and French public opinion for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, the change of government in France, the increased authority of Winston Churchill in England and other straws showing which way the wind is blowing in Allied lands. For Germany, to lose the initiative is to lose the war. And this week, as so often in the past, it was Germany which took the initiative.”
Mr. Nover notes that there are economic advantages to an occupation of Norway, in preventing the Swedish ore shipments from being cut off -- “it places valuable resources within reach of the Reich without the necessity of having to pay for them.” But beyond the economic advantages are further strategic opportunities. “If Germany succeeds in overrunning Norway and beating off Allied assistance to that country, she will have submarine bases very close to British waters. The attack on Norway presages the beginning of the long-delayed offensive against Great Britain.”
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