Books of the Day
Heroism and Credulity
I Saw It Happen In Norway is a rather misleading title for this interesting and important narrative, since the Speaker of the
Norwegian Parliament was, in fact, out of Norway for 4o of the 6o days covered by the Norwegian campaign of 1940. From the evening of April loth until May 20th, Mr. Hambro was on a mission to Stockholm, the nodal point through which all the communi- cations of the Norwegian Government with the outside world— and even with its own capital—had perforce to pass. The enthu- siasm with which he championed his country's cause there is well known, though what the book refers to as Norwegian " notions of a joint northern policy and joint Northern interests " met from the first with a cool reception, which became as icy as Stockholm's own autumnal winds when the military situation worsened. So the story of the fighting is told for the most part at second-hand, and the only documents which Mr. Hambro is at liberty to reproduce are the decrees and royal speeches that are already well known in this country.
Nevertheless, the detailed account of the first 24 hours of the German invasion—from t a.m. on April 9th, when the sounding of the air-raid alarm in Oslo roused people incredulously from their beds, to the scene at Nybergsund the following midnight, with the Crown Prince falling asleep across the table while King Haakon debated policy in the tiny parlour at the post office —is highly instructive. Seldom in history can the Government of a civilised nation have evinced such heroic credulity. The Ger- man troop transport ' Rio de Janeiro' had been torpedoed by a British submarine off the south coast of Norway on the 8th, and the report that the Germans were bound for Bergen was already current in Government circles that afternoon. Yet when other German war vessels approached Bergen and the rest of the key- positions the following night, no naval commander was in receipt of any specific instructions for his guidance. In the early hours of the following (Tuesday) morning the authorities at last ordered a general mobilisation—to commence on Thursday. In the meantime the capital was left virtually without garrison : yet nothing was done to put its radio station out of action, as though the Germans would be quite incapable of broadcasting contra- dictory orders—which omission in the event cost the Norwegian forces many thousands of men. Last, but by no means least, although Quisling was known to have returned from Berlin two days before the German coup, no decision to arrest him was taken until the afternoon of the 9th, by which time a telephoned order from the Minister of Justice, who was with the Cabinet at Hamar, had precious little chance of taking effect in an Oslo which was already filling with German troops.
Mr. Hambro is at great pains to discredit all suggestions that internal treachery played a vital role in the downfall of Norway, though the sequence of events in other parts of Europe may dis- pose the future historian to attach a good deal of importance to a native Nazi party which, small as it undoubtedly was, included " some unsophisticated sympathisers among business men, to a limited extent in the Army and among college boys." But it is only fair to admit that a great deal of rust is bound to accumu- late on any machine which, like the Armed Forces of the Nor- wegian Crown, passes into disuse for a period of more than a century. The naval station at Horten, for example, was sur- rendered under threat of aerial bombing directed against the civilian population, and in surrendering the Norwegian Admiral failed to destroy the naval code, which was subsequently em- ployed by the Germans to send false instructions to cease fire at Christiansand. In the army also there may well have been similar muddles which passed for treachery in the heat of the moment. Nor must we forget that in the remote northern valleys, where German and Englishman alike are thought more outlandish than the mountain trolls, it was easy enough for the bewildered peasant to fail his country's cause from sheer ignorance.
The President of the Norwegian Storting passes severe judge- ment on the Allied withdrawals : at Aandalsnes, he says, the Norwegian force was left without ships to evacuate in; at Namsos the Norwegians found their flank exposed without warning; and even as regards the final evacuation from Narvik, it is only the French who are described as having good reason to go. But in the absence of the full facts it is as useless for Norwegians to debate this aspect of the campaign as it would be for us to com- plain of Norway's failure to secure a levee en masse or even that limited amount of resolute sabotage which would have de- stroyed Germany's lines of communication. Let us rather rejoice with Mr. Hambro over the energy and idealism which chiefly marked the conduct of the small democracy of Norway in its sudden time of testing. In future the English visitor to Hamar
will recall, not merely its mediaeval associations immortalised by Sigrid Undset, but the Parliament of 1940, which, while the German motorisx1 formations were hot on its trail, without pausing to ask whether help from the Great Powers would be forthcoming, passed its unanimous decision to resist. And when our holiday-makers can visit the peaceful Oslo Fiord again, they will not fail to cherish the memory of such episodes as this :
The first Norwegian ship to open fire was a small whale- boat with one gun. Captain Wielding-Olsen, of the naval reserve, ordered the German ships to stop, and when this order was dis- regarded he attacked the big cruisers with his one gun and wa3 shelled to silence. Both legs were shot under him, but he rolled himself overboard in order not to be taken prisoner by the Germans.
T. K. DERRY.
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