After he realized what was happening, Dau managed to ram Cossack with the aft end of Altmark, without causing any significant damage. The British boarding party entered the German ship and, according to German and Norwegian sources, opened fire on its crew resulting in five (seven according to some sources) dead and a number of wounded. The British reported that they had fired in self-defense after coming under fire from the Germans. Captain Dau denied that the Germans had fired a single shot. Lieutenant Halvorsen left the British destroyer in protest when the firing started, and reported later that he observed the British firing at German crewmembers fleeing on the ice. Two hundred and ninety-nine prisoners were freed and transported to England. Norwegian destroyers escorted Altmark to repair facilities and the ship eventually returned to Germany.
Norway protested the British action. On the legal side, Norway based its position on the claim that Altmark was a warship. “Warships have the rights to passage through neutral waters and the fact that it is carrying prisoners does not change this fact.”25 The British rejected the Norwegian protest. Chamberlain deplored the views of the Norwegians since “it would in their [British] view legalize the abuse by German warships of neutral waters and create a position which His Majesty’s Government could in no circumstances accept.”26
The Altmark affair had no direct effect on Allied planning except for the conclusion that the Norwegians were either in no position or were not inclined to prevent German misuse of their territorial waters. The passive reaction by the Norwegian Navy may also have emboldened the British dramatically to increase their violations, both in number and scope, over the next few weeks. A passage from the Norwegian naval history is illustrative.27
The belligerents’ activities on the Norwegian coast showed a strong increase during March and the first days of April 1940. The number of intentional or unintentional neutrality violations by both warships and aircraft increased continually. From the middle of March until Norway became a participant in the war, there was thus seldom a day when the country’s neutrality was not violated one or several times…. Most violations were, as earlier, carried out by British warships and aircraft …
In the opinion of the Allies, the Altmark incident strengthened their moral justification for their planned action in Scandinavia. Such an underpinning was badly needed since it appeared that the Finnish-Soviet conflict was reaching a climax and could cease to be a motivation for action in Scandinavia.
End of the Winter War and its Effect on Allied plans
The great Soviet offensive against the Finnish Army on the Karelian Isthmus opened on February 1, 1940. It lasted for 42 days. Ten days of heavy bombardment by over 500 aircraft and Soviet guns, massed wheel to wheel, preceded the attack by two armies consisting of 54 divisions. After 12 days of ferocious fighting, resulting in enormous Russian casualties, the Mannerheim Line was breached on February 13, and by March 1 the Finnish right flank was pushed slowly back to the city of Viipuri. The situation for the Finns had become desperate. They were short of ammunition and their troops were exhausted. The hoped-for assistance from the West had not materialized. The total number of foreign volunteers in Finland numbered only 11,500, and 8,275 of these were from Sweden and Norway, mostly from Sweden. The volunteers also included 300 men in the Finnish-American Legion who received their baptism of fire in the last days of the war.
A Finnish delegation proceeded to Moscow to discuss armistice terms on March 7. The Soviet terms were surprisingly lenient, almost the same as those contained in their demands in November 1939 that led to the war. The Russian losses in the war have never been published but most observers believe they suffered more than 200,000 killed and another 400,000 wounded. The Soviets were also alarmed by the cool attitude displayed by Germany in early 1940, and by the prospect of a war with England and France unless they came to quick terms with the Finns. The Finns accepted the Soviet terms on March 12.
The conclusion of peace between the Soviet Union and Finland rendered the underpinnings of Allied plans obsolete. With unenthusiastic agreement by the French leader, Daladier, the British government decided on March 14 to set aside plans for operations in Scandinavia. Since there was no longer the slightest chance that Sweden and Norway would acquiesce to an Allied presence in their countries, active resistance had to be anticipated. This would throw the Scandinavian countries into the arms of Germany.
It is easy to recognize that Allied policy and plans were shortsighted and inadequate. While execution of the policy may have achieved some success against Germany’s peripheral interests, it carried with it huge long-term risks that seriously damaged the Allies’ claim to the high moral ground. The slow-moving Allied planning and preparation machinery was undoubtedly very fortunate for their war effort. Operations in Scandinavia and assistance to Finland would probably have resulted in war with the Soviet Union, while Sweden and Norway might have become Germany’s reluctant allies. This could have had enormous consequences for the outcome of WWII.
The conclusion of peace between the Soviet Union and Finland also saved Chamberlain and Halifax from the precarious position of having to carry out an operation that they believed would remove all possibilities of peace. They no
