The Wanganui Chronicle. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1940. THE ATTACK ON NORWAY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 85, 12 April 1940, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1940. THE ATTACK ON NORWAY

ALTHOUGH the details of the German attack upon Norway have not been fully reported, it is clear in its main design, ft was designed to take possession of the main ports and to paralyse the country’s life from these nerve centres. In planning the attack the Germans appear to have abused that hospitality which has been so generously extended to them by the Norwegians. It is probable also that in timing the movement the Germans were influenced by the speeches of various statesmen who were insisting upon Britain respecting Norway’s neutrality with an exceptional niceness, while the Germans were using- Norway’s territorial waters for the purpose of evading the British patrols. The Norwegians have undoubtedly been placed in a very trying- position, for with- a population of only 2,800,000, they are numerically less able to offer resistance to invasion than are the Hinns. Their position approximates nearer to that of New ZeaZealand, were this country adjacent to a land mass on which existed a pirate State of 60,000,000 people. The campaign which the Germans have planned to carry out may have been formulated in the belief that after putting up a show of resistance the Norwegians would work harmoniously with Germany. It is possible—indeed, in view of the quick capitulation of some of the ports in a time when the land batteries and shore defences should have been fully manned—that there was a measure of collusion with some of those ashore, either Norwegian-Nazis or Germans who had entered the country in peaceful guise. Such hidden allies of the Nazis, however, could only offer to the invaders initial help, which against the patriotic Norwegians, assisted by the Allies, would be inadequate to sustain the effort without heavy reinforcements arriving very quickly. The disposition of the various vessels from Germany indicates clearly that the German High Command depended upon sea communications for the supply and support of the initial forces which were landed at various scattered points along the coasts of Norway. This dependence on sea communications is at the moment inexplicable, from the Allied standpoint. The Allies have proved their superiority in the air, they obviously had the command of the sea, and the preponderance of Allied advantage was so great that to send out the German fleet was to court destruction. The Norwegian adventure committed the German fleet to remaining at sea, which is another way of saying that its destruction became thereby assured. There are two hypotheses which present themselves to explain this extraordinary and—to the Allies—inexplicable decision to depend upon maritime communications: One, as Lord Halifax has pointed out, the possibility of it being “the result of some internal weakness in Germany of which, in Britain, perhaps, they were not wholly aware”: and two, the possibility of German aviators who have made abortive attacks upon Seapa Flow having—possibly quite honestly—overstated the damage which they had achieved, and that this overstatement has misled the German High Command into the misconception that in a trial of strength the German navy might succeed for a sufficient length of time to permit of air and submarine bases being established on the eoast of Norway, after which it would be too expensive for the British warships to approach the Skagerrak or the coasts of Norway. If the latter is the correct hypothesis, then there was something to commend it to the German High Command. Unfortunately for Germany it was a hypothesis based upon a false premise, and as such, was more dangerous to those who acted upon it than it was to their opponents.