CHAPTER 3

The Phoney War

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. BRITISH TROOPS IN

FRANCE RELAX WHILE THEIR COMRADES COMPLETE THE 100-

YARD DASH. MEANWHILE, HITLER’S GENERALS WERE DRAWING

PLANS FOR A CRUSHING INVASION OF FRANCE DESIGNED

TO KNOCK THE ALLIES OUT OF THE WAR FOR GOOD.

As the smoke of blitzkrieg slowly cleared from the plains of Poland and the horrors of the Nazi–Soviet occupation began to make themselves felt, the war in the West entered a new phase – the so-called ‘Phoney War’.

BRITISH TROOPS’ DAILY ROUTINE IN FRANCE. ALTHOUGH BRITAIN AND FRANCE HAD BOTH DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY DURING THE PHONEY WAR, SOLDIERS HAD YET TO SNAP OUT OF THE ATTITUDES OF PEACE TIME. YEARS LATER ONE BRITISH SOLDIER SAID IT WAS SIMPLY CONSIDERED ‘BAD FORM’ TO WANT TO SHOOT ONE’S RIFLE AT THE ENEMY.

As the Nazi tanks rolled into Poland, tens of thousands of British children had been evacuated from the major cities and from those areas considered to be under most threat from German air attack. Yet, by the beginning of 1940, as the expected German bombers failed to arrive, nearly half had returned to their homes. For the British there had, as yet, been little real change from peacetime routine. Food rationing and the blackout had been introduced but, as the war effort had yet to come into full effect, unemployment was still high at over one million and no British forces were engaged in open warfare on land.

OBSERVING A LOW-FLYING AIRCRAFT FROM BEHIND AN AA GUN EMPLACEMENT AND PROTECTIVE SANDBAGS.

On 4 September, as the Germans sealed off the Polish corridor, the first men of the British Expeditionary Force began their journey to France under the command of Lord Gort, former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Britain’s highest-ranking soldier. As in the First World War, these soldiers, like their fathers before them, were to come under the command of the French, but with the terrible losses of 1914–18 in mind, no offensive action by these troops, or by the French Army itself, was planned.

WORK MOVES AHEAD TO CONSTRUCT AIR RAID DEFENCES IN LONDON’S FASHIONABLE KENSINGTON GARDENS. PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS THROUGHOUT THE CAPITAL WERE DUG UP DURING THE WAR TO PROVIDE TRENCHES THAT COULD BE USED AS AIR RAID SHELTERS AS WELL AS AA GUN EMPLACEMENTS. SOME WERE EVEN DUG OVER TO PROVIDE ALLOTMENTS TO BOOST THE NATION’S FOOD SUPPLIES.

This period of apparent inactivity on the Allied side, in marked contrast to the fierce energy displayed by the Germans, was soon nicknamed ‘the Phoney War’ by watching American newspapermen. Other wits labelled it the ‘bore war’ or ‘sitzkrieg’ – the sitting war. Prime Minister Chamberlain hoped the conflict could be won without the gigantic land battles that had scarred Europe 20 years earlier, and placed more faith than was reasonable in the chance that a British naval blockade of Germany would bring Hitler to his senses.

Food rationing was introduced into the UK on 8 January 1940, although petrol had been rationed from the outset five months before. The general public had to register with the govenrment for ration books. They were also required to register with a local shopkeeper, whom they would use exclusively until the end of the war. The first foods to be rationed were bacon and butter, both at 4 oz. per week. Sugar was another of the first foods to be rationed. Ironically, rationing allowed the British public to eat more healthily than either before the War or after it, as people’s diets were carefully controlled by the state. Clothes rationing was introduced on 1 June 1940, and everyone was given 66 ration coupons a year. A pair of trousers ‘cost’ eight coupons, a skirt seven, a pair of socks three and pants, four. During the height of rationing in 1942, people were each allowed meat to the value of 1s 2d. a week. This scarcity of meat encouraged some to keep pigs or poultry – the chickens were also used to produce eggs over and above the ration – while others turned to their allotments and grew their own food. Some items were never rationed in wartime, including bread, fish, potatoes, vegetables and, last but not least, offal.

The French Army, under the command of General Gamelin, seemed content to sit behind the defensive buttress of the Maginot Line and wait for the German invasion. Aggressive operations against the Germans, including the dropping of mines in the River Rhine, as suggested by Winston Churchill, now First Lord of the Admiralty, were rejected by the French for the apparently odd reason that they were likely to provoke a German response.

‘READY FOR THE NEW WAR LOAN ISSUE’. POST OFFICE EMPLOYEES PROUDLY PRESENT THE NEW NATIONAL SAVINGS CERTIFICATES.

As Hitler and Stalin destroyed Poland, the world waited in vain for an Allied response. The little fighting that did take place during this period of the war occurred at sea, where German raiders and U-boat submarines hunted Allied shipping bringing vital war supplies back from the USA. With Poland on its knees by the beginning of October, Hitler was keen for his armies to deliver a crushing blow to the British and French in the west. The Führer’s generals were, however, horrified. They were concerned that the German Army was not properly prepared for operations against the Allies, but their protests were ignored. If they could not deny him, though, the climate could. As bad weather closed in with the approach of winter, Hitler was forced to concede that an attack in the west would have to wait until the spring of 1940.

In the meantime, both sides sat facing each other in tense silence and inactivity along the Franco–German border. Neutral Belgium and the Netherlands were eager to avoid a confrontation and ignored Allied offers of military co-operation in case the Germans responded by launching an invasion. While their guns remained idle, Allied soldiers occupied themselves with cards and visits to cafés. Little effective training took place, but the fear remained that inaction might soon explode into the furnace-heat of battle.

While the weather on the Western Front prevented Hitler from proceeding with the war, Stalin felt himself under no such constraint. On 30 November 1939, Soviet troops poured across the 600-mile Russo–Finnish frontier and the Red Air Force began the unannounced bombing of the Finnish capital, Helsinki. Air raid sirens managed to give only one minute’s warning before the bombs came raining down. Dozens lost their lives amid flames, rubble and wreckage. As the bewildered population looked up at the sky, they saw leaflets fluttering down and unfamiliar bombers. Incongruously, they declared: ‘Soviet Russia will not harm the Finnish people.’

THE FINNISH COMMANDER MARSHAL MA NNERHEIM LED HIS TINY ARMY IN AN INCREDIBLE CAMPAIGN OF RESISTANCE AGAINST THE MIGHT OF THE RED ARMY, WHOM HE STAVED OFF FOR THREE MONTHS BEFORE SHEER EXHAUSTION RENDERED HIS MEN INCAPABLE OF FIGHTING ANY FURTHER.

Stalin had been eager to capitalise on his gains in Poland by strengthening his position in the Baltic and around Leningrad, by creating a buffer against Germany. However, unlike the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Finland refused to allow the Russians to establish defensive bases on their territory. They were not impressed by threats from Russians whose tsars, now long gone, had ruled Finland from 1809 until the revolution of 1917. The Finns had, in fact, driven the Russians out of their country and they were not about to relinquish the independence they had so recently won. But Stalin was not to be denied. Word was sent to Marshal Kiril Meretskov, commander of the Leningrade military district, to invade Finland. The neutral country, with its tiny population, was about to be absorbed into the Soviet Union or, at least, that was the plan.

A FINNISH SNIPER, ONE OF THE BIELAJA SMERT OR ‘WHITE DEATH’, FULLY EQUIPPED WITH A TELESCOPIC SIGHT, WAITS IN THE SNOW-COVERED FORESTS FOR STRAY SOVIETS.

The Red Army was confident of victory. With over one million men, 1500 tanks and 3000 planes to draw upon, the Red Army expected a swift, decisive victory; so swift, in fact, that Stalin’s troops were not equipped with winter uniforms. Winter, they had reckoned, would arrive long after the Finns had been crushed.

THE INVASION OF FINLAND

The Finns, by comparison, never managed to put more than 175,000 men in the field. They had little by way of artillery, tanks or anti-tank weapons or an air force. Yet, despite all these seeming disadvantages, the Red Army was going to be rudely awakened by the Finnish. The Finnish commander, Marshal Mannerheim, succeeded in immediately halting the initial Soviet advance. Finnish defensive positions were well prepared and Manner-heim’s soldiers were resolved to resist the invader. The freezing winter conditions made the going very tough for the Soviet tanks, infantry and air force. Finnish soldiers were trained in winter warfare, and were appropriately dressed in layers of warm clothing. Although under-equipped in weapons, the Finns soon learned to improvise tactics and that made the Russians easy prey.

Finnish troops attacked the Soviet tanks at night, approaching them swiftly and silently on skis, and camouflaged in the snowy conditions by their white clothing. Their familiarity with the territory in which they were operating and their easy mobility startled the Russians, who often found tanks set alight by ‘Molotov cocktails’ before they were even aware they were under attack. The Molotov cocktail was a primitive but deadly weapon made from a glass bottle filled with petrol, and a piece of rag at the neck that served as a fuse. Light the rag, throw the bottle and an extraordinarily effective weapon was created – so much so that the cocktails could incinerate crews inside their tanks before they had any chance of escaping.

In addition to using the cocktails to disable Russian tanks, the Finns also crept up on them and wedged logs into the tank tracks. This wrecked the gearing and rendered them useless and unable to move. Disguise was also employed with some success. Some Finns dressed as Soviet communication troops and calmly directed entire supply columns into Finnish-held territory.

When backed by fighters capable of such skill and imagination, it was no surprise that Marshal Mannerheim’s defensive positions – eponymously named the Mannerheim Line – were able to hold despite the huge enemy onslaught.

Stalin’s attack on Finland was greeted by outrage in the rest of the world. The Soviet Union was summarily expelled from the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations, which had been formed after the First World War. In addition, hundreds of volunteers from countries as diverse as Britain, Hungary, Italy, France and Sweden flocked to the Finnish cause. The Swedes were technically neutral and remained so throughout the war, but in 1939 they sent two full battalions to aid their Scandinavian neighbour. In addition, the Allies responded more vigorously to the invasion of Finland than they had to the invasion of Poland three months earlier. Firm in the conviction that Finland must not be ‘allowed to disappear from the map’, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier committed their countries to sending 100,000 troops to the tiny country’s aid. The Allies’ motives, however, were not entirely altruistic. Any troops they sent to Finland would have to pass through Sweden, which supplied the German war machine with 70 per cent of its iron ore imports. It would be very beneficial to the Allies if their troops just happened to occupy these ore fields, so denying them to the Germans and gaining a valuable resource for themselves as they made their way through Sweden to fight the Red Army.

This tempting idea never materialised. By the time the decision to aid the Finns was made, on 5 February 1940, the Allies’ plans had been overtaken by events. Although they destroyed four Soviet divisions in December 1939, the Finns were slowly being ground down by the sheer number of Soviet troops.

The Soviets suffered enormous losses, but their army did not lose heart and their commanders quickly learned from their mistakes. However, not every commander was given a second chance by Stalin. General Vinogradov was not one of the lucky ones. He was executed after the Soviet 63rd and 144th divisions were lost to the Finns at Suomussalmi. Despite these successes, it was becoming apparent to Mannerheim and the Finnish President, Risto Ryti, that the Finnish Army was slowly bleeding to death. It could not go on. In January 1940, secret peace negotiations with Stalin began.

All branches of the Soviet armed forces, Timoshenko decided, were to attack the Finns in concert. General Stern promised Stalin that Soviet troops would cross the Mannerheim Line over a bridge of corpses. They did, but not quite in the way Stern had intended

Vidkun Quisling was born in Norway in 1887. His name became a synonym for ‘traitor’ after he attempted a pro-German coup d’état on 9 April 1940, the day the Germans invaded. Quisling had already forged strong links with the Nazis before the war and his National Union Party had received German funding. Indeed, Quisling could claim some of the responsibility for the Nazi conquest of Norway as he encouraged the Führer to consider the invasion of Scandinavia at a time when Hitler had no plans to move German troops north. Quisling’s announcement that he had formed a pro-German government proved to be another spur to Norwegian resistance. Ultimately, his regime proved a political failure. Quisling remained in power for less than a week. Despite the problems and the embarrassment he caused the Germans, they continued to use him as their puppet, retaining him in positions of influence. On 1 February 1942, the Germans appointed Quisling Minister-President.

After the war, Quisling was executed for collaborating with the Germans on 24 October 1945.

WHILE THE SOVIET TANKS, INFANTRY AND AIR FORCE STRUGGLED IN THE FREEZING CONDITIONS, FINNISH SOLDIERS HAD THE ADVANTAGES OF WARM WINTER CLOTHING AND FAMILIARITY WITH THE TERRITORY. DESPITE THESE FACTORS IN THEIR FAVOUR AND THE ENORMOUS SOVIET LOSSES, BY 1940, IT WAS APPARENT THAT THE FINNISH ARMY WAS SLOWLY BLEEDING TO DEATH.

However, as the peace talks proceeded, the fighting went on, and in February the Red Army prepared for a decisive offensive. The military preparations fell to Stalin’s old associate, Marshal Timoshenko. All branches of the Soviet armed forces, Timoshenko decided, were to attack the Finns in concert. General Stern promised Stalin that Soviet troops would cross the Mannerheim Line over a bridge of corpses. They did, but not quite in the way Stern had intended.

True to Stern’s word, the Mannerheim Line was breached on 11 February. But the bridge of corpses comprised more Russians than Finns. Even so, Marshal Mannerheim’s troops were exhausted and peace was signed a month later. Under Stalin’s terms, Finland had to cede Hango and the Karelian isthmus to the Soviet Union and as a result lost 10 per cent of its territory. However, it did at least keep its independence. The Russians paid for their victory with the lives of 200,000 soldiers. The Finns lost 25,000 men killed.

On 12 March 1940, President Ryti concluded the peace agreement in sombre mood, muttering that the hand that signed such a document deserved to wither. By dramatic coincidence, Ryti suffered a stroke shortly afterwards that paralysed the whole of his right side.

A second campaign had finished before the British and French had been able to act, but this was not going to happen a third time.

King Haakon VII of Norway was woken in the early hours of 9 April 1940 to be told that his country’s neutrality had been violated and that Norway was now at war. The startled king could only ask: ‘With whom?’

LETTERS HOME – A WELL-DUG-IN GERMAN SOLDIER IN NORWAY TAKES TIME OUT TO WRITE BACK TO THE FATHERLAND.

The question was not as peculiar as it sounded. Norway had been jealously guarding her neutrality, but her strategic importance on the eastern side of the North Sea could not be overlooked either by the Allies or by the Germans. The Norwegian port of Narvik was the only all-weather port through which Swedish iron ore could reach Germany, and the ore trade was vital to the German armaments industry. Understandably, the Allies were eager for this trade to cease. As for the Norwegians, they were aware of British plans to mine their territorial waters and force German ore ships out into the open sea where the Royal Navy could deal with them. It was obvious that any British action was bound to provoke a violent German response, but faced with a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, the Norwegians could only watch, wait and hope.

THE GERMAN POCKET BATTLESHIP THE ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE GOES DOWN OFF URUGUAY AFTER BEING TRAPPED BY THE ROYAL NAVY, WHO HAD CHASED IT FOR SEVERAL DAYS DESPITE BEING OUTGUNNED.

After the conquest of Poland, Hitler had ignored Scandinavia as he focused all his energies on plans to attack France. However, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, chief of the Kriegsmarine, the German Navy, had other ideas. He believed that not only would an invasion of Norway secure the sea lanes for importing Swedish iron ore, it would also serve to give Germany naval bases in the Atlantic from which U-boats could attack the Allied supply routes to America.

THE INVASION OF NORWAY

Then, on 13 December 1939, the Royal Navy dealt the Germans a great humiliation with their destruction of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee outside Montevideo, Uruguay. Later, on 16 February 1940, the Royal Navy liberated 300 British sailors held prisoner in Josing fjord on board the prison ship Altmark, which, ironically, had once served as Graf Spee’s supply ship. An enraged Hitler suddenly became more interested in Raeder’s plans.

The Allies also had their eyes on Norway. First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was increasingly concerned that the Germans would move north after the defeat of Finland. Churchill pressed for action, but despite the public pressure on both Chamberlain and the new French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, who had replaced Daladier in March 1940, little was actually done. Britain and France seemed unable to agree on any joint plan of action, but eventually decided that the mining of Norwegian waters would go ahead on 8 April. British minelayers accordingly set sail on 6 April. On 5 April, in what was to become a masterpiece of bad timing, Neville Chamberlain declared to the House of Commons that Hitler had ‘missed the bus’.

The Norwegian Government, preoccupied with the presence of the Royal Navy, never even saw the Germans coming. Surprise was total. On 9 April, the world’s first parachute force was used in combat and speedily captured Norway’s major airports at the capital, Oslo, and at Stavanger. Troops were put ashore at Narvik, Trondheim, Bergen, Kristiansand and Oslo.

Denmark, too, was invaded at the same time to secure the land routes into Norway. The Danish Government, stunned by the speed of the German invasion, capitulated at 6 a.m. on the same day.

Norway resolved to fight the invader, but the nation’s defences were poor. There were no tanks, no anti-aircraft weapons and, for the sake of economy, the Norwegian Navy, which was in proud possession of two of the world’s oldest battleships, had not left port since 1918. To make matters even worse, the defence minister was a former pacifist, and the commander of the army, General Kristian Laake, was incompetent.

As the German Army began its march into Poland on Friday, 1 September 1939, millions of British children and their teachers together with expectant mothers left Britain’s metropolitan centres and headed for the safety of the countryside, where the German bombers were thought less likely to strike. Over the first weekend, more than 700,000 children were evacuated from London alone, prompting a Times’ leader writer to explain that London looked as if it had been visited by the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The British evacuated more of its children than any other country during the War, a total of well over three million. The exodus was organised by local government bodies and schools.

With their address labels hanging round their necks and clutching their few belongings and gas masks, children were often taken to school by their parents, who then wished them farewell as they made their way from there to the local station in a single group. The experience of individual evacuees and those who billeted them differed widely. Many children from the cities had never before seen the countryside and found it idyllic. Others, however, found themselves the unwelcome guests of those who had been forced to take them in. Some carers of these city children were astounded at the condition of many poor evacuees, some of whom were covered in lice and raggedly dressed. Some did not even know how to use a knife and fork and had precious little toilet training. These revelations were to have their effect in forcing the British to realise that something had to be done to improve the lot of these waifs. This, in turn, had its effect on the creation of the Welfare State in Britain after the war.

As the Phoney War continued, the vast majority of evacuated children, who were greatly missed by their parents, drifted back to the cities, only to depart again when the Blitz began in September 1940.

Those children who were left in the cities had little to do. Most schools were closed, badly affecting their education and leading in some cases to increased juvenile delinquency

By contrast, King Haakon, originally a Danish prince who had been elected to the throne of Norway in 1905, was an inspirational monarch who, from the first, exemplified Norwegian resistance to the Germans. Despite setbacks, therefore, the Norwegian defence in 1940 was resolute. The German cruiser Blucher entered Oslo fjord only to find itself falling victim to a devastating attack from an onshore battery of 19th-century cannon. Though antiquated, the firepower was effective. The cruiser was crippled and over 1000 Germans died as aviation fuel and ammunition caught fire and exploded. This setback for the Nazis gave King Haakon and his government time to escape from the capital and move north to continue the fight.

The Norwegian Navy, which was in proud possession of two of the world’s oldest battleships, had not left port since 1918. To make matters even worse, the defence minister was a former pacifist

This, however, left a power vacuum in Oslo, and an eccentric Nazi sympathiser, Vidkun Quisling, whose name later became a synonym for ‘traitor’, stepped into it to form a collaborationist regime. This simply enraged the Norwegians and spurred them on to further resistance.

The Allies, acting quickly on this occasion, immediately offered to aid the beleaguered Norwegians. British and French forces reached Norway on 14 April, five days after the Germans, but in stark contrast to their enemies, their effort was poorly planned, ill-equipped and badly executed. If liaison between the British and the French was bad enough, then between the Allies and the Norwegians it was little short of abysmal.

LONDONERS FLOCK TO WATCH PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLE. THE NATION’S FUTURE HUNG IN THE BALANCE WHILE PARLIAMENT DEBATED THE DIRECTION OF THE WAR.

‘You have sat too long here for any good that you have been doing …Depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’ Conservative MP Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain, in the House of Commons, May 1940

Allied troops were given little air cover and few anti-aircraft weapons. They were not properly trained for the Arctic conditions and confusion reigned among their commanders over objectives. Supplies were sent to the wrong places and were badly damaged in transit. The Labour opposition leader, Clement Attlee, was furious with the British Government’s conduct of the war, and expressed his view bluntly: ‘In a life and death struggle, we cannot afford to leave our destinies in the hands of failures.’ A House of Common debate on the situation ensued. It was scheduled for 7–9 May 1940, and when he entered the House, Chamberlain was greeted with raucous cries of: ‘Who missed the bus?’

COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE MAN. AFTER THE STORMY DEBATES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, WINSTON CHURCHILL EMERGED AS BRITAIN’S NEW PRIME MINISTER.

Winston Churchill, nevertheless, tenaciously defended the government’s record, but the broadsides delivered by one of their own MPs, Leo Amery, proved too much. In a direct address to Chamberlain he quoted Oliver Cromwell, using the same words the Lord Protector had addressed to the Rump Parliament in 1653: ‘You have sat too long here for any good that you have been doing,’ said Amery. ‘Depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’

When a vote of confidence was taken at the close of the debate, the government’s majority was so critically reduced that Chamberlain was forced to consider resignation. The coup de grâce was delivered when the Labour Party made clear its refusal to serve under Chamberlain in a National Coalition Government. With that, Chamberlain had no choice but to go. Winston Churchill, 64 years old, and a man untainted by pre-war appeasement, was chosen as Britain’s new prime minister. Meanwhile, the first German units began to push for the Ardennes, in Belgium, to begin the invasion of France and western Europe.

This, however, was ultimately to seal the Norwegians’ fate. Resistance to the invaders continued for two months, denying the Germans the relatively easy victory they had won in Poland. But the Allies’ help was crucial. When the Nazi invasion of western Europe reached its height during June 1940, and Britain was under threat, the Allied forces were withdrawn from Norway on 8 and 9 June. This enabled the Germans to complete their conquest and Norway, too, fell under the heel of the Nazi jackboot.

King Haakon and his government sailed away with the Allies and, like the Polish General Sikorski, set up a government-in-exile in London, where he remained until the end of the war.

A BRITISH PROPAGANDA POSTER UNDERLINES THE CRUCIAL ROLE PLAYED BY THE ROYAL AIR FORCE IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN. WITHOUT THOSE WHOM CHURCHILL LABELLED THE ‘FEW’ BRITAIN WOULD HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO PREVENT A NAZI INVASION.