How Did Countries Become Neutral?
Craig
and why was it respected by aggressor countries?
Craig
--
David Thornley
Craig <cr...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Just how did Switzerland, Spain? others claim neutral status during WWII
>and why was it respected by aggressor countries?
>
necessity to claim neutral status. Most European countries preferred
to stay neutral, as that was generally the best thing for their people.
For practical purposes, a European country would stay neutral if there
was no good reason for Germany to invade. Some countries remained
neutral by being more bother than they were worth to invade, and by
giving the Germans most of what they wanted anyway. This could
amount to gross violations of the parts of international law respecting
the duties of neutrals. For example, Sweden allowed German soldiers
to cross Swedish territory.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
--
Nik Simpson
> Just how did Switzerland, Spain?
That one is easy, they didn't fight on either side.
> why was it respected by aggressor countries?
>
Typically neutrality was respected for one or more of several reasons:
1. Attacking them wasn't worth the trouble, i.e. it would cost too much in
resources and yeild very little in tangible results, for example, Germany
would gain nothing by attacking Switzerland except a fairly costly and
bloody war in the Swiss Alps.
2. They provided useful services to one or both sides in the conflict, for
example swedish iron ore was useful to Germany and starting a war with
Sweden was of no benefit. Conversely, for the allies, Sweden was a useful
diplomatic & espionage site and anyway there was no way to really attack
Sweden even if the allies wanted to.
--
Nik Simpson
--
Ed Frank
> Just how did Switzerland, Spain? others claim neutral status during WWII
Neutral status is the default condition, not a
claim. That is, barring a declaration of war or
participation in pretty well-defined warlike acts,
a country is assumed to be neutral between
belligerants. (It may be necessary at times to
remind the warring countries and everyone else,
but the basic presumption is that you're either
a neutral or a belligerant.)
> and why was it respected by aggressor countries?
At the most basic level, because the aggressors (and/or
other belligerants) judged the neutrality of country X
to be more in their own interests than country X's
participation. In the cases of Switzerland and Sweden,
there were good reasons for both the Axis and the Allies
not to antagonize them.
Ed Frank
--
Dave Gower
> and why was it respected by aggressor countries?
All a country has to do to be neutral is say they are neutral. To have this
respected by other nations, it is necessary to follow certain procedures
i.e. not sell arms to any combatant, not send troops to fight on behalf of
any combatant, not allow the military forces of any combatant to operate
from your territory. These are somewhat loose i.e. in the early years of the
war Spain allowed volunteers to serve alongside the Axis in the Soviet
Union, while declaring official neutrality.
That said, the neutral nations still has to hope that warring nations
respect their neutrality. As Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg
found in spring 1940 that isn't always the case. Switzerland and Sweden were
not invaded because they were useful to Germany (providing raw materials,
transhipment routes etc), they were not in the way of a major campaign and
also because Germany had her hands full elsewhere. But there is no doubt
that they would have been invaded too if Hitler had decided that was to his
advantage.
--
Erich Adler
news:<c0dnno$cms$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
> "Craig" <cr...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:c0b1fb$l6a$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> > Just how did Switzerland, Spain? others claim neutral status during WWII
> > and why was it respected by aggressor countries?
Easy, give the Germans what they wanted:
Sweden: Provide iron ore for the German War Machine
Switzerland: Process stolen goods from German-looted occupied Europe,
Jews. Provide sanctuary for escaping Nazis.
Spain: Diplomatic liason, provide supplies and temporary sactuary for
U-boats patrolling the Atlantic
Erich Alder
Michael Emrys
davegow.r...@magma.ca wrote on 2/11/04 9:11 AM:
> ...not sell arms to any combatant...
I'm not an international law expert, but I think that's not quite the
case.
My understanding is that it is okay for a neutral to sell arms, but if
it
decides to do so, it must offer to sell them to both sides. The US was
able
to get around this and sell arms to the UK and France by insisting
that the
purchasing country must provide transportation to their own shores,
something that France and the UK were able to do (at least until June,
1940
for France) but Germany could not.
Michael
Geoffrey Sinclair
>> "Craig" <cr...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>> news:c0b1fb$l6a$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
>> > Just how did Switzerland, Spain? others claim neutral status during WWII
>> > and why was it respected by aggressor countries?
>
>Easy, give the Germans what they wanted:
There was more to the Nazi decisions than that, for example the
USSR was more useful as a trading partner.
>Sweden: Provide iron ore for the German War Machine
Be dependent on the Nazis for adequate coal supplies, nearly
5 million tonnes per year in the early war period, also salt and
chemicals.
>Switzerland: Process stolen goods from German-looted occupied Europe,
>Jews. Provide sanctuary for escaping Nazis.
Have a credible defence force, be dependent on the Nazis for food
(how food secure was Switzerland?) and fuel (ditto for coal and oil)?
And so be open to pressure. Not have any vital territory.
>Spain: Diplomatic liason, provide supplies and temporary sactuary for
>U-boats patrolling the Atlantic
Be a long way away with a long vulnerable coastline to defend. The
disruption of important raw materials from Spain and Portugal by an
invasion.
Add Turkey to this mix, all that chrome, the Turkish Air Force flew
Fw190s and Spitfires.
Andorra as well, despite it never having declared peace in 1918,
the name was omitted from the list on the treaties.
The rules allowed trade, the countries, particularly Sweden and
Switzerland needed materials from Nazi controlled Europe. It
was more than just the Swiss and Swedes being defacto axis
allies. Neutrality means no favouring one side over the other,
it does not mean abandoning the pre war trading relationships.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
--
Louis Capdeboscq
> Just how did Switzerland, Spain? others claim neutral status during WWII
Everyone tried to remain neutral.
Here is a list of neutral countries which ended up belligerents:
Poland
Denmark
Norway
Belgium
Holland
Luxembourg
Yugoslavia*
Greece**
Soviet Union
United States***
All these countries were invaded without provokation or declaration of
war by Germany.
*: Germany may have issued a formal declaration of war
**: actually the neutrality was first violated by Italy
***: Germany declared war rather than invade, for practical reasons.
Here is a list of neutral countries which remained neutral:
Sweden
Spain
Switzerland
Portugal
One of the lists is longer than the other.
> and why was it respected by aggressor countries?
Because they had more important things on their plate at the moment.
Louis
--
Remove "e" from address to reply
David Thornley
Louis Capdeboscq <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>
>Here is a list of neutral countries which ended up belligerents:
>
>
>All these countries were invaded without provokation or declaration of
>war by Germany.
>***: Germany declared war rather than invade, for practical reasons.
>
Nitpick: Germany had plenty of provocation to declare war on the US.
The US had been violating the Hague conventions on Rights and Duties
of Neutrals for over a year, and the USN was in a shooting war in the
North Atlantic.
I believe the first violation was the provision of fifty destroyers
to Britain, and the US also repaired British warships more than
necessary to allow them to get to a belligerent port. The "cash and
carry" policy was legally neutral (nothing in the Conventions requires
actions to be neutral in practice as well as legality), but the Lend-
Lease act was not.
Moreover, it was pretty clear that the US was going to go to war
with Germany sooner or later, probably sometime in 1942, and for
international machismo reasons Hitler preferred to declare war
himself rather than wait for the US declaration.
Odd as it may seem, Hitler in this case issued a declaration of
war that was quite justified by the actions of the country being
declared against. Quite contrary to his normal practice.
Cub Driver
>One of the lists is longer than the other.
It's shorter in part because you were selective. You didn't mention
Ireland, for example, a European nation that remained neutral. And
while you mentioned the United States as a neutral that became
involved, you didn't mention the many American countries who remained
neutral throughout the war.
all the best -- Dan Ford
email: cubd...@operamail.com
see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com
David Thornley
>
>
>All these countries were invaded without provokation or declaration of
>war by Germany.
>***: Germany declared war rather than invade, for practical reasons.
>
Andrew Clark
"Louis Capdeboscq" <loui...@yahoo.com> wrote
> Here is a list of neutral countries which
> remained neutral:... Portugal
From a legal point of view, Portugal could be considered a
British ally rather than a neutral, given its willingness to
adhere to the ancient Anglo-Portuguese treaty of mutual
support and to allow British forces to use Portuguese island
territories.
Rich Rostrom
Louis Capdeboscq <loui...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Craig wrote:
>> Just how did Switzerland, Spain? others claim neutral status during WWII
>
>Everyone tried to remain neutral.
Many neutral nations voluntarily entered the war on one side or the
other.
By the end of the war, nearly the entire world had declared war on the
Axis.
Such a declaration was made a condition for joining the United Nations
-
that is, the postwar organization.
>Here is a list of neutral countries which ended up belligerents:
>
>Poland
>Denmark
>Norway
>Belgium
>Netherlands
>Luxembourg
>Yugoslavia*
>Greece**
>Soviet Union
>United States***
I don't see how Poland can be described as "neutral" since the war
began
with fighting between Germany and Poland. There was never a conflict
which
Poland was neutral in.
San Marino was also occupied by German troops.
>All these countries were invaded without provokation or declaration of
>war by Germany.
>*: Germany may have issued a formal declaration of war
>**: actually the neutrality was first violated by Italy
>***: Germany declared war rather than invade, for practical reasons.
>
>Here is a list of neutral countries which remained neutral:
>Sweden
>Spain
>Switzerland
>Portugal
By V-E Day, the only sovereign nations not at war with Germany were
Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland, Yemen, Oman,
Afghanistan,
Nepal, Mongolia, Manchukuo, Thailand, and Japan.
Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary were neutral for the first part
of
the war. Italy declared war on 6/10/1940 by declaring war on Britain
and
France. Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary entered the war on 4/6/1941 by
joining in the German invasion of Yugoslavia.
Egypt was neutral, under British domination. Italy invaded Egypt on
9/31/1940, but Egypt took no part in the fighting. Egypt declared war
on
Germany on 2/26/1945.
Finland was neutral, but was invaded by the USSR on 11/30/1939. After
the
end of this war on 3/13/1940, Finland again became neutral until
6/26/1940,
when Finland declared war on the USSR.
Iran was neutral at the start of the war. On 8/25/1941, British and
Soviet
forces invaded Iran (without a declaration of war); on 8/25/1941, the
Iranian government resigned and a new government agreed to Allied
occupation;
on 9/9/1941, Iran declared war on Germany.
Iraq, like Egypt, was neutral under British domination. After a
pro-Axis
coup and uprising (4/1/1941-5/31/1941), British forces forces deposed
the
Iraqi government. On 1/16/1943 Iraq declared war on Germany.
I believe that elements of Trans-Jordan's Arab Legion fought against
Vichy
French forces in Syria and against pro-Axis Iraqi forces in Iraq, but
I
have no date of a Trans-Jordan declaration of war on Germany.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were neutral until occupied and annexed
by
the USSR in 1940.
--
Were there eight kings of the name of Henry in England, or were there
eighty?
Never mind; someday it will be recorded that there was only one, and
the
attributes of all of them will be combined into his compressed and
consensus
story. --- R. A. Lafferty, _And Read the Flesh Between the Lines_
Lance Visser
news:<4031e5c3...@news.pacific.net.au>...
> Craig wrote:
> > Just how did Switzerland, Spain? others claim neutral status during WWII
>
> Everyone tried to remain neutral.
>
> Here is a list of neutral countries which ended up belligerents:
>
> Poland
> Denmark
> Norway
> Belgium
> Holland
> Luxembourg
> Yugoslavia*
> Greece**
> Soviet Union
> United States***
>
> All these countries were invaded without provokation or declaration of
>
> war by Germany.
In the case of Yugoslavia, the provokation would have been the
coup. The British and US wanted Yugoslavia to enter the war
on the british side without thinking the implications through.
At the same time, the germans were not satisfied with statements
of neutrality and forced Yugoslavia to join the tripartite pact.
Yugoslavia had a special weakness in that the various ethnic
groups could be played off against each other from the outside
without them understanding the consequences.
In retrospect, it would have been better if Yugoslavia had been
left alone. They were surrounded and the army wasn't capable
of resisting the germans. The british were not strong enough
to protect greece let alone yugoslavia. The coup leaders
figured all of that out after it was too late.
For compleness, the neutrals invaded by the allied
side should be listed:
Iceland
Iraq
Iran (persia)
Japan (by the soviet union)
Bulgaria (with respect to the soviet union)
While Bugaria did participate in actions in the balkans, it
didn't participate in barbarossa and was capable of saying
no to the germans. Unfortunatly for them, they were handed
off to the soviet union at Yalta anyway.
Cub Driver
>Hitler in this case issued a declaration of
>war that was quite justified by the actions of the country being
>declared against.
And one that relieved Roosevelt of a huge problem. We like to think
that American isolationism ended in a moment with the attack on Pearl
Harbor, but I doubt that was the case. My father's anti-British
attitude did not change throughout the war, for example. Had Germany
not honored the Tri-partiite treaty and declared war, I am not certain
that the U.S. would have done so, at least not in 1941. The enthusiasm
in the U.S. was for teaching Japan a lesson.
Andrew Clark
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
> For compleness, the neutrals invaded by the allied
> side should be listed:
> Iceland
Iceland was not a neutral because it was not a sovereign
nation. It was an autonomous possession of the Danish Crown,
and was occupied by the British as a preventative measure
only after Denmark itself was under German occupation. This
is hardly an invasion on the Axis model.
> Iraq
> Iran (persia)
Iraq and Iran were tied by treaty to the British. They were
occupied by the British only after pro-German leadership
elements abrogated these treaties. Again, these occupations
were not invasions on the Axis model.
Lance Visser
> I don't see how Poland can be described as "neutral" since the war
> began
> with fighting between Germany and Poland. There was never a conflict
> which
> Poland was neutral in.
Poland technically qualifies as a neutral since it was attacked
without provocation thus starting the war.
> By V-E Day, the only sovereign nations not at war with Germany were
> Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland, Yemen, Oman,
> Afghanistan,
> Nepal, Mongolia, Manchukuo, Thailand, and Japan.
Manchukuo should not be listed as a soverign nation.
Considering that Mongolia was a puppet of the USSR, its strange that
it didn't declare war.
> Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary were neutral for the first part
> of
> the war. Italy declared war on 6/10/1940 by declaring war on Britain
> and
> France. Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary entered the war on 4/6/1941 by
> joining in the German invasion of Yugoslavia.
Bulgaria compromised any neutrality earlier when it allowed the germans
transit rights through the country to attack greece. Bulgaria is a
special case in that it severely limited its participation in the
war and did not participate in the war against the soviet union.
Its a difficult case because if Bulgaria's participation in Yugoslavia
qualifies for entry into the war, Spanish actions (Tangiers 1940) could
qualify spain in a similar way.
> Egypt was neutral, under British domination. Italy invaded Egypt on
> 9/31/1940, but Egypt took no part in the fighting. Egypt declared war
> on
> Germany on 2/26/1945.
> Iran was neutral at the start of the war. On 8/25/1941, British and
> Soviet
> forces invaded Iran (without a declaration of war); on 8/25/1941, the
> Iranian government resigned and a new government agreed to Allied
> occupation;
> on 9/9/1941, Iran declared war on Germany.
I would not describe what happened in Iran that way. The Iranian
government was removed and a government was put in place that did
what it was told. In no sense should the term "government agreed"
be used to describe the situation. It was a military occupation.
> Iraq, like Egypt, was neutral under British domination. After a
> pro-Axis
> coup and uprising (4/1/1941-5/31/1941), British forces forces deposed
> the
> Iraqi government. On 1/16/1943 Iraq declared war on Germany.
The coup wasn't necessary pro-Axis as much as anti-british. The
specific act that triggered the overthrow of the coup leaders was
a refusal to allow british troops to transit the country under the
terms of a treaty that the british forced on Iraq as part of the
independence process.
Iraq did seek military aid from the Axis after british intentions
were clear, but it was opportunism than deep support for the axis
side. I'm not justifying the actions of the coup leaders, but
some would read more politically into their actions than in my opinion
was actually the case.
In the sense that Iraq in 1939 had treaty commitments to the british
that allowed the british to do pratically anything militarily in the
country that they wanted, Iraq wasn't a real neutral. And after
the occupation there wasn't in reality an independent Iraqi government.
So while there was a declaration of war made in 1943, it was
in practice the action of the british.
> I believe that elements of Trans-Jordan's Arab Legion fought against
> Vichy
> French forces in Syria and against pro-Axis Iraqi forces in Iraq, but
> I
> have no date of a Trans-Jordan declaration of war on Germany.
For political reasons, the arab legion wasn't allowed to
fight. It was trained up to a high standard and
prepared, but it was never deployed.
Transjordan was not an independent country until 1946 anyway.
It was a league of nations mandate and could not have declared
war. It was british controlled.
--
Stephen Graham
Lance Visser <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote:
>Bulgaria compromised any neutrality earlier when it allowed the germans
>transit rights through the country to attack greece. Bulgaria is a
>special case in that it severely limited its participation in the
>war and did not participate in the war against the soviet union.
Bulgaria invaded Yugoslavia in concert with Italy, Germany and Hungary,
occupied portions of Yugoslavia and Greece, and took an active part in
the air defense of the Balkans. This is not "severely limited"
participation in a war.
>Its a difficult case because if Bulgaria's participation in Yugoslavia
>qualifies for entry into the war, Spanish actions (Tangiers 1940) could
>qualify spain in a similar way.
This is stretching things too far. Spain undertook a questionable
occupation of a special-status city within Spanish Morocco. Bulgaria
actively fought in the war.
--
weasel
>
> > By V-E Day, the only sovereign nations not at war with Germany were
> > Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland, Yemen, Oman,
> > Afghanistan,
> > Nepal, Mongolia, Manchukuo, Thailand, and Japan.
>
> Considering that Mongolia was a puppet of the USSR, its strange that
> it didn't declare war.
>
war on Japan on 9 August 1945, the same day the USSR declared war. I
believe that the source was the 1946 World Almanac.
I know that Lance was referring to war with Germany...perhaps the
Soviets didn't think Mongolia could contribute anything to the war in
Europe.
***
Thailand DID declare itself neutral- retroactively!
In August, 1945, the pro-Japan government (which had declared war on
the Allies in January of 1942) resigned. The new pro-Allies
government simply declared the the previous declaration to be "null
and void." Thus Thailand avoided the onus of occupation, etc!
***
Question: How sovereign were Yemen and Oman and the Gulf Emirates
1939-1945??
Wes
--
Sigvaldi Eggertsson
> Iceland was not a neutral because it was not a sovereign
> nation. It was an autonomous possession of the Danish Crown,
> and was occupied by the British as a preventative measure
> only after Denmark itself was under German occupation. This
> is hardly an invasion on the Axis model.
Wrong, Iceland became an sovereign independant state on 1st december
1918, sharing a king with Denmark.
The British invasion in 1940 was a breach of Icelandæ„€ sovereignity
and was fully an invasion on the axis model.
--
Lance Visser
message news:<4035a770...@news.pacific.net.au>...
>
> > For compleness, the neutrals invaded by the allied
> > side should be listed:
>
> > Iceland
>
> Iceland was not a neutral because it was not a sovereign
> nation. It was an autonomous possession of the Danish Crown,
> and was occupied by the British as a preventative measure
> only after Denmark itself was under German occupation. This
> is hardly an invasion on the Axis model.
I have not suggested that it was an invasion on the axis model,
but it was a violation of a neutral's territory whatever justification
can be associated with the action. There was no legal basis for
the action and no particular government gave them rights of
occupation.
And given the rather dubious "threat" posed by Iceland, the action
isn't easily defended other than by the ends justify the means.
Iceland
was hardly in a position such that a german invasion was even remotely
possible short of the conquest of the british isles.
> > Iraq
> > Iran (persia)
>
> Iraq and Iran were tied by treaty to the British. They were
> occupied by the British only after pro-German leadership
> elements abrogated these treaties. Again, these occupations
> were not invasions on the Axis model.
In the case of Iraq, it abrograte the treaty it had with the
British. But cancelling the treaty isn't a very solid legal ground
for conducting a war against Iraq or any other neutral. And
considering that what is being called a "treaty" was in fact
a one-way document that was in no meaningful way negotiated
with a government, its difficult to take the treaty as a
justification.
And understand, your reasoning that defends the British action
in Iraq might also equally apply to the german invasion
of Yugoslavia which also involved a coup and going back on a treaty.
To be absolutely clear, I'm not justifying the german invasion
of Yugoslavia, only dealing with both situations in the abstract.
As far as Iran, I'm hard pressed to think of what treaty your
talking about. Almost everything I've ever seen has made it
rather blatently clear that Britain and the soviet union wanted
to use Iran as a supply corridor. And when Iran refused, the
all-purpose excuse of "german agents" was used to justify
the overthrow and occupation of an uncooperative neutral government.
The point of these examples seems to have been misunderstood. I'm
not saying that anyone was "like the axis". The point of the examples
was to show that in a war, the rights of neutrals are consistantly
going to be violated when it is in the interests of one side or the
other to do so. There are always going to be very compelling reasons,
but that doesn't change the basis of whats being done.
Cub Driver
>The British invasion in 1940 was a breach of Icelandæ„€ sovereignity
>and was fully an invasion on the axis model.
Do you really see no difference? How many Icelanders were sent to the
death camps by the British, just to cite the most obvious difference
between the British and Axis models?
all the best -- Dan Ford
email: war...@mailblocks.com (requires authentication)
see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com
--
Lance Visser
news:<c13l61$cnq$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
> Question: How sovereign were Yemen and Oman and the Gulf Emirates
> 1939-1945??
The Gulf Emirates had agreements with the british that gave the
british
complete control over their foreign policy. In theory, they could
have
no direct dealings with other states. I think this also covers
Bahrain,
Qatar and Kuwait. The british also had an obligation to come to their
defense if they were attacked.
I think Oman (Muscat) had a seperate but similar agreement with the
british.
There may have been an RAF base in Oman during the war, but I'm not
sure.
It can be confusing because different entities used "oman" as a name
(trucial oman vs. muscat & Oman).
These states were independent in terms of ruling themselves, but not
in terms of their interactions with other countries.
The Kingdom of Yeman (future North Yeman) as far as I know was totally
independent and had no agreements with the british.
Bill F
news:<c168bv$nfq$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
> >The British invasion in 1940 was a breach of Iceland?s sovereignity
> >and was fully an invasion on the axis model.
>
> Do you really see no difference? How many Icelanders were sent to the
> death camps by the British, just to cite the most obvious difference
> between the British and Axis models?
He answered the question as to the invasion being on the axis model,
not the occupation. So far as their is any model for an axis invasion
it might have the following criteria:
1) It was illegal
2) It was done without a declaration of war to a netural
3) The country was used after the occupation for the military
purposes of the occupier. It was occupied long after any
of the military justifications used (german invasion) had
ceased to be in any sense valid.
4) No legal basis for the invasion (just the invasion) was
ever offered that would have stood up to the standard
applied to axis invasions after the war.
5) Neither the government nor the people in question in any way
gave their consent to the invasion.
Even saying all that, I dont agree with the whole question of
an "axis model" for invasion. The invasion of Iceland on legal
grounds is no more defensible than the german invasion of Belgium
or Luxemborg. In both cases, the invasions happened because
the governments saw a military advantage and disregarded any
rights the country being occupied had. The germans used Belgium
to attack France. The British used Iceland as a base for activities
in the atlantic. And, in both cases, neither of them left after
the nominal reason for them being there (attack france or the
threat of german invasion) had gone.
This is emphatically not however a justification for the policies
or nature of german occupation in any country.
Sigvaldi Eggertsson
> death camps by the British, just to cite the most obvious difference
> between the British and Axis models?
Of course there is a great difference but not in terms of breach of
sovereignity.
--
Louis Capdeboscq
>>One of the lists is longer than the other.
>
> It's shorter in part because you were selective. You didn't mention
> Ireland, for example, a European nation that remained neutral.
True, I had forgotten about the Irish. Thanks for pointing it out.
The conslusion, that the list of countries whose neutrality was violated
by Germany is longer than the list of countries whose neutrality Germany
respected, holds, though.
> And
> while you mentioned the United States as a neutral that became
> involved, you didn't mention the many American countries who remained
> neutral throughout the war.
Yes, I had initially wanted to list European countries only, and then
deleted "European" so as to include the United States - assuming this to
be the "neutral" country that a majority of this group would be most
interested in - and didn't edit further.
Basically, I didn't list countries which were completely out of reach of
Germany, e.g. I don't think that Hitler ever declared war on China for
instance. On the other hand, some Latin American countries (e.g. Brazil)
did declare war on Germany after some of their ships were sunk by U-boats.
Louis
--
Remove "e" from address to reply
--
Louis Capdeboscq
> I know that Lance was referring to war with Germany...perhaps the
> Soviets didn't think Mongolia could contribute anything to the war in
> Europe.
As a matter of fact Mongolia, a country with a tradition of horse
breeding, provided the Soviet Union with a very significant portion of
its cavalry.
Given how much both sides used horses in that war, I would consider that
contribution "anything".
Louis
--
Remove "e" from address to reply
--
Louis Capdeboscq
> In the case of Yugoslavia, the provokation would have been the
> coup.
I'm sorry ? Yugoslavia didn't declare war against Germany.
If refusing to sign in on a coalition constitutes sufficient
provocation
to declare war, then the US could legitimately have declared war on
Russia, China, Germany and France (as well as various others)
following
their refusal to condone the invasion of Iraq. Now whatever you may
think of these countries' attitude, I think it's clear that it didn't
amount to a casus belli.
> In retrospect, it would have been better if Yugoslavia had been
> left alone.
Better for whom ?
The Yugoslavs ? Certainly. On the one hand they would have remained a
Serb-dominated kingdom, but on the other hand they would have been
spared occupation, civil war and Tito.
The Allies ? Not as obviously. After all, Yugoslavia did not provide
Germany with more than it would have as a neutral, but it did tie up
some German resources. So I'd say that from the Allied point of view,
making Yugoslavia commit diplomatic suicide and daring Germany to
commit
to that strategic cesspool was probably a good idea.
> For compleness, the neutrals invaded by the allied
> side should be listed:
>
> Iceland
> Iraq
> Iran (persia)
> Japan (by the soviet union)
> Bulgaria (with respect to the soviet union)
Japan and Bulgaria were belligerents. This is like saying that Britain
and France declared war on a neutral country (Germany) in 1939 because
prior to September 3rd it had not done anything to the British or the
French.
Iran I'll give you, Iraq I don't think was exactly a neutral
independent
country, Iceland wasn't an independent country either (although I
would
be willing to count it in your list)
That's still a much shorter list than that of neutrals invaded by the
Axis...
> While Bugaria did participate in actions in the balkans, it
> didn't participate in barbarossa and was capable of saying
> no to the germans.
Bulgaria was at war with Britain and the United States. It had, as you
noted, never declared war on the Soviet Union. That fine distinction
was
lost on the Soviets in the Summer of 1944, and they issued an
ultimatum.
Bulgaria, in a frantic attempt to stave off the Soviet invasion,
declared war on Germany and tried to open negociations with Britain
and
the US. It was of course futile, as the Soviets promptly declared war
and invaded. But for a few days, Bulgaria was the only WWII country to
be simultaneously at war with the USA, USSR, UK and Germany ! How can
you list such a belligerent country as a neutral ?
Andrew Clark
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
> I have not suggested that it was an invasion
> on the axis model, but it was a violation
> of a neutral's territory whatever justification
> can be associated with the action.
Iceland in 1940 was not a sovereign state recognised by the
rest of the world as such: it was in fact a semi-autonomous
possession of the
Danish Crown under partial Danish control. As such, it could
not be a "neutral" state. Iceland's status after the German
invasion of Denmark was far closer to that of an off-shore
and as yet unoccupied territory of a combatant nation.
> There was no legal basis for the action
Occupying Iceland to prevent a German occupation was fully
in line with international law as it stood at the time, as
was recognised by the Icelandic Republic itself when it was
instituted in 1944.
> and no particular
> government gave them rights of
> occupation.
The Danish government and Crown, who were the only
legitimate authorities under the Treaty of Union who could
authorise the occupation of Iceland, were under German
duress. Nothing in international law requires combatant
nations to sit on their hands in the face of unprovoked
attack on an ally.
> And given the rather dubious "threat" posed by
> Iceland, the action isn't easily defended other
> than by the ends justify the means.
Iceland per se posed no threat. Iceland in German hands,
with U-boat and surface fleet bases, and air bases, was a
mortal threat to the UK.
> Iceland was hardly in a position such that a
> german invasion was even remotely
> possible short of the conquest of the british isles.
Why take chances with your life when you don't have to?
> In the case of Iraq, it abrograte the treaty it had
> with the British. But cancelling the treaty isn't a
> very solid legal ground for conducting a war
> against Iraq or any other neutral.
It is futile to try to retrospectively project 21st century
values and laws back to the 1940s. Like it or not, all the
major powers in WW2 were colonial nations and the whole of
the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire was
under tutelage by one power or another. This *was*
international law at the time, and Britain was fully within
its legal rights to prevent pro-German factions in Iraq
changing sides in the middle of a war.
Of more use is to ask whether it was to the benefit of the
world as a whole that Nazi plans to occupy the Middle East
by subversion and military force were in fact thwarted.
Would a Nazi regime perhaps strengthened and perpetuated by
Middle Eastern oil be a better thing for the world than a
minor rebellion put down with minimal loss of life by a
generally benevolent colonial power?
> And understand, your reasoning that defends the
> British action in Iraq might also equally apply to
> the german invasion of Yugoslavia which also
> involved a coup and going back on a treaty.
> To be absolutely clear, I'm not justifying the german
> invasion of Yugoslavia, only dealing with both
> situations in the abstract.
I don't think you *are* dealing with the situations in the
abstract. You are pedantically and futilely focusing on the
relatively insignificant matter of legality (in a world
where international law was very different to today) and
forgetting the real issues of morality and public benefit.
Hitler, a racist dictator, was bent on a brutal unprovoked
war of enslavement and conquest in which Yugoslavia,
attempting to resist German aggression with British help,
became a victim. Britain, a democracy, was opposing Hitler's
brutal unprovoked war of enslavement and conquest by putting
down a pro-German rebellion put down with minimal loss of
life. Who's in the right here?
> As far as Iran, I'm hard pressed to think of what
> treaty your talking about.
> Almost everything I've ever seen has made
> it rather blatently clear that Britain and the soviet
> union wanted to use Iran as a supply corridor.
> And when Iran refused, the all-purpose excuse
> of "german agents" was used to justify
> the overthrow and occupation of an uncooperative
> neutral government.
Again, Hitler, a racist dictator, was bent on a brutal
unprovoked war of enslavement and conquest and as part of
that war was seeking to seize power, or at least to foment
trouble, throughout the Middle East. Britain, a democracy,
was opposing Hitler's brutal unprovoked war of enslavement
and conquest by opposing Germany's policy. In order to do
so, pro-German rebellions in Iraq, Persia and a pro-German
Vichy administration in Syria were put down with minimal
loss of life. That's the true situation and you need to look
at the larger picture as well as the details.
Specifically about Persia, the British had a long-standing
treaty of alliance with Persia (from before WW1 IIRC) and a
critically vital interest in the British-owned oil fields
and refineries at Abadan. Troops had been stationed in
Persia under the Treaty to defend British interests since
WW1. There was demonstrably an active German presence in
Persia, based on the embassy in Tehran, and it was wholly
logical and appropriate, and legal under the Treaty, for
Britain to ask the Persia government to expel those Germans
as part of their general policy of preventing a German
seizure of power in the Middle East. On 6 August 1941 the
Persian government refused to do so, and on 25 August
British troops entered Persia, whereupon after a very brief
fight the Shah ordered a ceasefire. A change of Government
ensued and German influence was removed, to everyone's
general benefit.
The British invited the USSR to participate in the military
occupation of Persia to help establish a supply line,
certainly, but that is not to say that the British invaded
Persia in order to set up that supply line. The occupation
would still have occurred even without the need for a
Soviet LOC through Persia.
> The point of these examples seems to have been
> misunderstood. I'm not saying that anyone was
> "like the axis". The point of the examples
> was to show that in a war, the rights of neutrals
> are consistantly going to be violated when
> it is in the interests of one side or the
> other to do so.
This may be so, although my perception is that the rights of
neutrals were overwhelmingly respected by Britain in WW2,
sometimes at considerable military and human cost (eg the
Irish Free State). Your problem is that you haven't yet come
up with an example featuring a genuinely neutral nation.
Andrew Clark
"Sigvaldi Eggertsson" <sig...@binet.is> wrote
> Wrong, Iceland became an sovereign independant
> state on 1st december 1918, sharing a king with
> Denmark.
Although Iceland was designated as a "sovereign state" in
the 1918 Act of Union, that phrase isn't accurate as a
description of Iceland's real status. As well as a shared
Head of State, the Danish government also continued to
manage Icelandic foreign affairs and defence matters.
Accordingly, it was entirely reasonable for the UK to
anticipate that the invasion of Denmark by Germany would
bring about quite legal changes in Iceland's relations with
the rest of the world. Occupying Iceland to prevent a German
occupation was fully in line with international law as it
stood at the time, as was recognised by the Icelandic
Republic itself when it was instituted in 1944.
> The British invasion in 1940 was a breach of
> Iceland?s sovereignity and was fully an invasion
> on the axis model.
Leaving aside the fact that the character of the British and
US occupation of Iceland was wholly different from the
character of a German invasion, Iceland in 1940 simply was
weasel
Ahhh...I actually meant that Mongolia was unlikely to contribute
anything further by being officially "at war..."
Were actually Mongolian nationals in the USSR cavalry? I just assumed
that they were from the eastern Republics of the USSR, further
assuming the boundaries between them and Mongolia being fairly
arbitrary (i.e., ethnic groups being "split up" by lines drawn by
faraway influences).
Or were you referring to the horses, not the cavalrymen?
Wes
Michael Emrys
loui...@yahoo.com wrote on 2/23/04 9:26 AM:
> ...some Latin American countries (e.g. Brazil) did declare war on Germany...
Actually, I think most of them did. IIRC, Paraguay did not and there may
have been one or two others. But unless I am mistaken, all the rest had
joined the Allies by 1943. In many instances, it was little or no more than
a pro forma declaration, most of them took no active part in hostilities,
but in some cases they provided basing rights or other assistance to the
Allies.
Michael
--
Lance Visser
> Lance Visser wrote:
> > In the case of Yugoslavia, the provokation would have been the
> > coup.
>
> I'm sorry ? Yugoslavia didn't declare war against Germany.
To be clear, I'm talking about the perceived provokation. But
I'm not suggesting that the reasoning behind the german invasion
was legal or valid based on that provokation.
Yugoslavia did not declare war, but the government was overthrown
by military officers whose political supporters outside the country
were well known.
> If refusing to sign in on a coalition constitutes sufficient
> provocation
> to declare war,
Yugoslavia had already signed the tripartate pact. Its not a matter
of refusing to sign on (which they had done), but a matter of getting
out of something that had already been signed.
>then the US could legitimately have declared war on
> Russia, China, Germany and France (as well as various others)
> following
> their refusal to condone the invasion of Iraq. Now whatever you may
> think of these countries' attitude, I think it's clear that it didn't
> amount to a casus belli.
I agree. But the case of yugoslavia does have meaning for what
happened in Iraq because the british justification was that the
Iraqi government had been overthrown in a coup and that the
subsequent government repudiated certain military rights of the
british in the country. The logic either works in both cases
or neither.
> > In retrospect, it would have been better if Yugoslavia had been
> > left alone.
>
> Better for whom ?
>
> The Yugoslavs ? Certainly. On the one hand they would have remained a
> Serb-dominated kingdom, but on the other hand they would have been
> spared occupation, civil war and Tito.
Yes. That was what I meant. It was an utter disaster for Yugoslavia.
If the British had been strong enough to hold greece or support Yugoslavia,
the calculation would have been different. But as it was, it was
national suicide. Serb-domination was exchanged for german partition and
a civil war. Tito, after the war, held the country together through
violence and force but in the end when the force was removed the whole
thing fell apart.
> The Allies ? Not as obviously. After all, Yugoslavia did not provide
> Germany with more than it would have as a neutral, but it did tie up
> some German resources. So I'd say that from the Allied point of view,
> making Yugoslavia commit diplomatic suicide and daring Germany to
> commit
> to that strategic cesspool was probably a good idea.
Yes. From the british point of view, to ruthlessly throw Yugoslavia to
the wolves in exchange for delaying barbarossa was probably worth it.
But the human cost was very high. The British would probably have been
equally as happy if France had fought to the last man in 1940, but the
cost in lives would have been very high compared to the result.
> > For compleness, the neutrals invaded by the allied
> > side should be listed:
> >
> > Iceland
> > Iraq
> > Iran (persia)
> > Japan (by the soviet union)
> > Bulgaria (with respect to the soviet union)
>
> Japan and Bulgaria were belligerents. This is like saying that Britain
>
> and France declared war on a neutral country (Germany) in 1939 because
>
> prior to September 3rd it had not done anything to the British or the
> French.
Japan did not declare war on the soviet union and did not seek war
with them. Japan was at war with multiple other countries, but they
went out of their way to avoid a war with the soviet union (after
1939 anyway). Japan, for example, did not interfere with soviet
flagged ships in the north pacific. Worse yet, the soviet union
demanded territorial and other concessions as a price for entering
the war. These did not only include japanese territory, but chinese
territory as well.
Bulgaria was a belligerent in the balkans, but it didn't declare
war against the soviet union. It was a belligerant and did decare
war against the US and britain. But it went out of its way not
to participate in Barbarossa or provoke the soivet union in any
way.
> Iran I'll give you, Iraq I don't think was exactly a neutral
> independent
> country, Iceland wasn't an independent country either (although I
> would
> be willing to count it in your list)
Iraq was an independent country. The condition the british imposed
in exchange for independence was a series of treaties dictated to
Iraq which gave the british the right to do whatever they wanted
militarily. The legitimacy of the action in Iraq depends on if
the military goverment can be considered legitimate and if Iraq
revoking treaties is a grounds for war/occupation.
> That's still a much shorter list than that of neutrals invaded by the
> Axis...
>
> > While Bugaria did participate in actions in the balkans, it
> > didn't participate in barbarossa and was capable of saying
> > no to the germans.
>
> Bulgaria was at war with Britain and the United States. It had, as you
>
> noted, never declared war on the Soviet Union. That fine distinction
> was
> lost on the Soviets in the Summer of 1944, and they issued an
> ultimatum.
Its not as if the soviets cared much. Bulgaria had been given to
them in their sphere of influence and they were going to do what
they wanted with it.
The irony is of course that they were much kinder to Finland which
had directly attacked them than they were to Bulgaria whose partipation
in the war amounted to renewing the inter-balkan fight over Macedonia
and taking shots at bomber overflights going to Rumania.
I think a solution similar to Finland might have been more appropriate
for Bulgaria than soviet occupation and replacement of the government.
But thats just an opinion. Poland suffered far worse at the hands
of the soviet union and was on the allied side.
> Bulgaria, in a frantic attempt to stave off the Soviet invasion,
> declared war on Germany and tried to open negociations with Britain
> and
> the US. It was of course futile, as the Soviets promptly declared war
> and invaded. But for a few days, Bulgaria was the only WWII country to
It was futile because I believe the decision had already been made
to hand bulgaria off to Stalin as a war prize. From the point of view
of allied self-interest, it was an incredibly stupid decision. Bulgaria
as a buffer state would have been better after the war than Bulgaria
as soviet-occupied puppet state. For one thing, the greek civil war
might have been over faster after the war.
> be simultaneously at war with the USA, USSR, UK and Germany ! How can
> you list such a belligerent country as a neutral ?
Neutral with respect to the soviet union. You have, in the case of Finland
the opposite situation with Finland fighting the USSR as a german ally while
being neutral with regard to the US and UK (as far as I know anyway).
Finland is saved after the war, Bulgaria is not.
--
Sigvaldi Eggertsson
> "Sigvaldi Eggertsson" <sig...@binet.is> wrote
>
> > Wrong, Iceland became an sovereign independant
> > state on 1st december 1918, sharing a king with
> > Denmark.
>
> Although Iceland was designated as a "sovereign state" in
> the 1918 Act of Union, that phrase isn't accurate as a
> description of Iceland's real status. As well as a shared
> Head of State, the Danish government also continued to
> manage Icelandic foreign affairs and defence matters.
This is not totally accurate, the Danish government was supposed to
provide defence of Iceland but the foreign matters of Iceland were
decided by the Icelandic government but the Danish foreign service
carried out the wishes of the Icelandic government (as in the case of
the trade embargoes of Italy in 1935 when Denmark, as a member of the
League of nations agreed not to trade with Italy and the Danish
envoys, acting on the behalf of Iceland then went and signed lucrative
trade deals with Italy.
> Accordingly, it was entirely reasonable for the UK to
> anticipate that the invasion of Denmark by Germany would
> bring about quite legal changes in Iceland's relations with
> the rest of the world. Occupying Iceland to prevent a German
> occupation was fully in line with international law as it
> stood at the time, as was recognised by the Icelandic
> Republic itself when it was instituted in 1944.
International law? There was a war on!
> > The British invasion in 1940 was a breach of
> > Iceland?s sovereignity and was fully an invasion
> > on the axis model.
>
> Leaving aside the fact that the character of the British and
> US occupation of Iceland was wholly different from the
> character of a German invasion, Iceland in 1940 simply was
> not a sovereign state recognised by the rest of the world as
> such: it was in fact a semi-autonomous possession of the
> Danish Crown under partial Danish control.
Iceland was recognised as an independant country by the rest of the
world from 1918.
--
Stephen Graham
Lance Visser <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote:
>I agree. But the case of yugoslavia does have meaning for what
>happened in Iraq because the british justification was that the
>Iraqi government had been overthrown in a coup and that the
>subsequent government repudiated certain military rights of the
>british in the country.
There was more to it than that. The Iraqi army also attacked
the British garrisons in Iraq. While the repudiation of existing
agreements would most likely have resulted in intervention, these
attacks do create a distinct difference between the Yugoslav and
Iraqi cases.
>Bulgaria was a belligerent in the balkans, but it didn't declare
>war against the soviet union. It was a belligerant and did decare
>war against the US and britain. But it went out of its way not
>to participate in Barbarossa or provoke the soivet union in any
>way.
This is a mischaracterization of Bulgaria's motivations for their
actions in World War II. Had the Bulgarian government thought that
the benefits of declaring war on the Soviet Union would have outweighed
any internal problems, they would have done so. However, the territorial
desires it had were either satisfied by occupation of Yugoslavia and
Greece or concerned Romania (an Axis power) or Turkey (a neutral
sufficiently powerful to remain untouched).
In the summer of 1944, Bulgaria simply didn't get its act together
quickly enough. It attempted desultory negotiations with the Western
Allies. And then there were Soviet troops in Rumania, matters were
pressing, the Tsar abdicated, and the new government dithered. Oops.
>Its not as if the soviets cared much. Bulgaria had been given to
>them in their sphere of influence and they were going to do what
>they wanted with it.
This is an incorrect statement. Bulgaria was not "given" to the
Soviets. As far as I know, no real mention of Bulgaria was made
at the Tehran Conference. By the time Churchill and Stalin worked
out the putative 25%/75% agreement in October 1944, there were
already Soviet troops in Bulgaria and the Communist government
was in power. And we should note that there was a substantial
domestic impetus for the establishment of that government.
>The irony is of course that they were much kinder to Finland which
>had directly attacked them than they were to Bulgaria whose partipation
>in the war amounted to renewing the inter-balkan fight over Macedonia
>and taking shots at bomber overflights going to Rumania.
Well, Finland made the right call in Summer 1944 and got themselves
out of the war in reasonable shape. Finland was also able to maintain
governmental continuity sufficient to maintain its position.
Bulgaria didn't.
--
Lance Visser
> "Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
>
> > I have not suggested that it was an invasion
> > on the axis model, but it was a violation
> > of a neutral's territory whatever justification
> > can be associated with the action.
>
> Iceland in 1940 was not a sovereign state recognised by the
> rest of the world as such: it was in fact a semi-autonomous
> possession of the
> Danish Crown under partial Danish control. As such, it could
> not be a "neutral" state. Iceland's status after the German
> invasion of Denmark was far closer to that of an off-shore
> and as yet unoccupied territory of a combatant nation.
You have already been corrected on this before. In 1918,
Iceland was established as a soverign state. It was not
semi-autonomous. It entered into treaty relationships with
Denmark and recognized a common head of state, but Iceland
was soverign after 1918 and had the full rights of any
other soviergn state to alter the forms of the treaties between
it and Denmark.
> > There was no legal basis for the action
>
> Occupying Iceland to prevent a German occupation was fully
> in line with international law as it stood at the time, as
> was recognised by the Icelandic Republic itself when it was
> instituted in 1944.
How exactly was the german invasion to happen? Was the entire
puny german navy going to take Iceland after they had sunk the
entire british home fleet along the way? Or did the germans
have secret airplanes perhaps that could carry an invasion force
all the way to iceland. There was no credible threat of invasion
of iceland in 1940 or any other time. The British took it because
they wanted a base in the atlantic.
If you could justify violating the neutrality of iceland by threat
of invasion, you could almost justify invading anything.
As far as the Icelandic republic goes, the government did what
it was told to by the men with guns down the road. It did what
the british told it to. And then when the british handed Iceland
off to the americans, it did what they told it to. Form a republic?
Sure. Join NATO? Sure. The basis for the relationship however
was always related to the need for military bases on Iceland.
> > and no particular
> > government gave them rights of
> > occupation.
>
> The Danish government and Crown, who were the only
> legitimate authorities under the Treaty of Union who could
> authorise the occupation of Iceland, were under German
> duress. Nothing in international law requires combatant
> nations to sit on their hands in the face of unprovoked
> attack on an ally.
You are suggesting that the british should disregard and
ignore Iceland, its government and any sense of sovierignty
out of some idea that the British were helping their "Ally"
which in this case would the King of Denmark.
I would also point out to you the words "TREATY OF UNION".
It was a treaty between two soverign entities. And with
the german occupation Iceland had no particular obligations
to Denmark under the treaty anymore.
> > And given the rather dubious "threat" posed by
> > Iceland, the action isn't easily defended other
> > than by the ends justify the means.
>
> Iceland per se posed no threat. Iceland in German hands,
> with U-boat and surface fleet bases, and air bases, was a
> mortal threat to the UK.
Sure. And Ireland in german hands would have been an even
worse threat. But you can't ignore the pratical facts that
you can't justify an occupation if the threat of invasion is
complete nonsense. Short of the British Isles being conquered
or the most of the royal navy being sunk, a german invasion
of Iceland is nonsense. Its so far beyond their reach that
there was no real way for it to happen.
> > Iceland was hardly in a position such that a
> > german invasion was even remotely
> > possible short of the conquest of the british isles.
>
> Why take chances with your life when you don't have to?
Great. That justifies the British invading Ireland and probably
a long list of other countries. If you cease to use even
a reasonable standard for threat, anything is possible.
> > In the case of Iraq, it abrograte the treaty it had
> > with the British. But cancelling the treaty isn't a
> > very solid legal ground for conducting a war
> > against Iraq or any other neutral.
>
> It is futile to try to retrospectively project 21st century
> values and laws back to the 1940s. Like it or not, all the
> major powers in WW2 were colonial nations and the whole of
> the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire was
> under tutelage by one power or another. This *was*
> international law at the time, and Britain was fully within
> its legal rights to prevent pro-German factions in Iraq
> changing sides in the middle of a war.
Great. You have just validated the german invasion of Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia signed the tripartate treaty, the government was overthrown
in a coup and the germans attacked when try tried to go back on
it. Or do "values and laws" only count on one side and not
the other.
> Of more use is to ask whether it was to the benefit of the
> world as a whole that Nazi plans to occupy the Middle East
> by subversion and military force were in fact thwarted.
Of "more use to you" would the actual value of the question.
Because taking that position allows you to ignore fact and law
and wrap yourself in the flag as the defender of the virtue
of the allied cause.
I don't find that line of argument very productive because
you have at that point proved what I have been saying. I've
never denied that there were good reasons for many actions
taken by the allies. But you can't defend them in terms of
law or the idea of neutrality.
> Would a Nazi regime perhaps strengthened and perpetuated by
> Middle Eastern oil be a better thing for the world than a
> minor rebellion put down with minimal loss of life by a
> generally benevolent colonial power?
Another very, very dishonest argument. To disagree with you
is now to support a nazi regime for Iraq. I'm not playing that
game.
If might-makes-right, law is irrelivant and the basis of all action
is need & force then I've proved my point and there is not much
left to say.
> > And understand, your reasoning that defends the
> > British action in Iraq might also equally apply to
> > the german invasion of Yugoslavia which also
> > involved a coup and going back on a treaty.
> > To be absolutely clear, I'm not justifying the german
> > invasion of Yugoslavia, only dealing with both
> > situations in the abstract.
>
> I don't think you *are* dealing with the situations in the
> abstract. You are pedantically and futilely focusing on the
> relatively insignificant matter of legality (in a world
> where international law was very different to today) and
> forgetting the real issues of morality and public benefit.
The whole point of the discussion was pendantic legal issues.
If your not interested in the subject, DONT BOTHER TO RESPOND.
But don't sit there morally grandstanding and covertly attacking
me for being interested in subjects like this.
I have NOT forgotten ANY moral issues with regard to the war.
I dont think you will understand, but being interested in the
war can mean taking deeper looks into complex subjects rather
than just sitting around writing messages about subjects that
have been discussed to death.
> Hitler, a racist dictator, was bent on a brutal unprovoked
> war of enslavement and conquest in which Yugoslavia,
> attempting to resist German aggression with British help,
> became a victim. Britain, a democracy, was opposing Hitler's
> brutal unprovoked war of enslavement and conquest by putting
> down a pro-German rebellion put down with minimal loss of
> life. Who's in the right here?
There has never been any question about who was morally right
and who the evil side in the conflict was. But there are interesting
issues that go a whole lot deeper than a one-paragraph morality
sermon on the war.
I dont find it unacceptable to question british actions during the
war or look at them from different points of view. I dont consider
doing that an endorsement or defense of germany, hitler or any
of their actions.
> > As far as Iran, I'm hard pressed to think of what
> > treaty your talking about.
> > Almost everything I've ever seen has made
> > it rather blatently clear that Britain and the soviet
> > union wanted to use Iran as a supply corridor.
> > And when Iran refused, the all-purpose excuse
> > of "german agents" was used to justify
> > the overthrow and occupation of an uncooperative
> > neutral government.
>
> Again, Hitler, a racist dictator, was bent on a brutal
> unprovoked war of enslavement and conquest and as part of
> that war was seeking to seize power, or at least to foment
> trouble, throughout the Middle East. Britain, a democracy,
> was opposing Hitler's brutal unprovoked war of enslavement
> and conquest by opposing Germany's policy. In order to do
> so, pro-German rebellions in Iraq, Persia and a pro-German
> Vichy administration in Syria were put down with minimal
> loss of life. That's the true situation and you need to look
> at the larger picture as well as the details.
> Specifically about Persia, the British had a long-standing
> treaty of alliance with Persia (from before WW1 IIRC) and a
> critically vital interest in the British-owned oil fields
> and refineries at Abadan.
There was no treaty of alliance with Persia. And lets be
specific about what treaty your talking about. One of them,
from before world war 1, was an agreement with the russians
to carve up Persia into spheres of influence.
There were commerical agreements with Persia over oil.
> Troops had been stationed in
> Persia under the Treaty to defend British interests since
> WW1.
I'm not aware of any british troops stationed in Persia
between 1939 and the invasion in 1941. There were troops in
Iraq and elsewhere in gulf, but not persia.
>There was demonstrably an active German presence in
> Persia, based on the embassy in Tehran, and it was wholly
> logical and appropriate, and legal under the Treaty, for
> Britain to ask the Persia government to expel those Germans
> as part of their general policy of preventing a German
> seizure of power in the Middle East.
Which treaty was it? The scope of treaty you are suggesting
would be one that would give the British full control over the
foriegn affairs of Persia. No such treaty existed.
The handful of germans in Persia were not capable of overthrowing
the government or seizing power. The british used their presence
as a justification for the attack, but not even they really believed
in it.
> On 6 August 1941 the
> Persian government refused to do so, and on 25 August
> British troops entered Persia, whereupon after a very brief
> fight the Shah ordered a ceasefire. A change of Government
> ensued and German influence was removed, to everyone's
> general benefit.
Oh come on. That is such a stupid oversimplification. The
British invaded from Iraq, overthrew the government and then
proceeded to rule over the country with the soviets until
after the war.
Nobody in Iran saw it to their benefit. They had to work
like crazy to get the soviet union out after the war. They
also had to deal with the soviet union's multiple attempts
to subvert the iranian government and either detach the
Azari regions of Iran or create a civil war. Iran is about
the worst possible case to make for a benevolent occupation.
> The British invited the USSR to participate in the military
> occupation of Persia to help establish a supply line,
> certainly, but that is not to say that the British invaded
> Persia in order to set up that supply line. The occupation
> would still have occurred even without the need for a
> Soviet LOC through Persia.
All I can say is that you go read something on the subject.
The supply line was certainly not a concindence or fortutious
situation that just accendently happened. Thats incredibly
naive.
> > The point of these examples seems to have been
> > misunderstood. I'm not saying that anyone was
> > "like the axis". The point of the examples
> > was to show that in a war, the rights of neutrals
> > are consistantly going to be violated when
> > it is in the interests of one side or the
> > other to do so.
>
> This may be so, although my perception is that the rights of
> neutrals were overwhelmingly respected by Britain in WW2,
> sometimes at considerable military and human cost (eg the
> Irish Free State). Your problem is that you haven't yet come
> up with an example featuring a genuinely neutral nation.
And your problem is that your not interested in the issues
involved in the first place. That last bit about how Ireland
should somehow be greatful for not being invaded is a bit
much even for you.
Any point I bring up, your going to counter in the end with
and ends-justifies-means argument positioned in terms of
opposing the nazis. I bring up law, you bring up your
straw man and beat on him. I bring up history, you
live in a world were every allied occupation was benevolent.
I call attention to flawed reasoning about threats, you
get 100% behind the official allied wartime statements without
even questioning if they valid.
You will never accept any example because I dont think you
could accept any discussion of allied or british actions
regardless. Your not interested in discussion.
--
Louis Capdeboscq
the
Soviet armed forces, and would be very surprised if large scale
involvement (even by Mongolian standards) had taken place.
As you guessed, I was referring purely to the horses when I mentioned
cavalry, not to the horsemen.
Lance Visser
> "Sigvaldi Eggertsson" <sig...@binet.is> wrote
>
> > Wrong, Iceland became an sovereign independant
> > state on 1st december 1918, sharing a king with
> > Denmark.
>
> Although Iceland was designated as a "sovereign state" in
> the 1918 Act of Union, that phrase isn't accurate as a
> description of Iceland's real status. As well as a shared
> Head of State, the Danish government also continued to
> manage Icelandic foreign affairs and defence matters.
Iceland was a soverign state in every way in 1918. The
arragements over foreign affairs were encoded within a
treaty between Iceland and Denmark that would have (and
did) cease to have any meaning after the occupation of
Denmark.
The arragements in 1918 were structured in a very particular
way as to make no doubt about the sovereign status of
Iceland.
> Accordingly, it was entirely reasonable for the UK to
> anticipate that the invasion of Denmark by Germany would
> bring about quite legal changes in Iceland's relations with
> the rest of the world. Occupying Iceland to prevent a German
> occupation was fully in line with international law as it
> stood at the time, as was recognised by the Icelandic
> Republic itself when it was instituted in 1944.
This is just wrong. There was no threat of a german invasion.
The germans were as capable of invading the Irish Free state
as they were of invading Iceland. They had no navy to do it,
they had no planes to reach it.
The Icelanic Republic was a wartime creation under military
occupation done to make sure that Iceland was detached from
any association with Denmark after the war. This was done,
among other reasons, because the powers involved wanted
to create a legal basis for preserving their bases in
Iceland after the war. Agreements signed under occupation
and governments formed under occupation, no matter how
benevolent, should not be considered agreements entered
into in free will.
> > The British invasion in 1940 was a breach of
> > Iceland?s sovereignity and was fully an invasion
> > on the axis model.
>
> Leaving aside the fact that the character of the British and
> US occupation of Iceland was wholly different from the
> character of a German invasion, Iceland in 1940 simply was
> not a sovereign state recognised by the rest of the world as
> such: it was in fact a semi-autonomous possession of the
> Danish Crown under partial Danish control.
You are wrong. Iceland was NOT a possession of Denmark
after 1918. It had FULL soverenity over its affairs. It
shared a head of state and a treaty of union with Denmark
under which some activities were shared, but that is NOT
the same thing as being a semi-automonous posession of Denmark.
And I think its well past time for you to stop hiding behind
the germans and their evil behavior and deal with these actions
on their own. Nobody is suggesting as far as I know that
the treatment of the countries under occupation was remotely
similar. But it was clearly a violation of a neutral and
to argue otherwise is just absurd.
And before you get ready to make the argument, I'll make
it for you. The british had military need of Iceland as
an airbase and a naval facility. And its certainly possible
to make a case that their need, in the context of the war,
was more important than respecting the rights of a neutral.
But if your going to make that case, make it plain. Don't
try to deny that Iceland was a neutral or I guess now even
a country.
Rich Rostrom
>So I'd say that from the Allied point of view,
>making Yugoslavia commit diplomatic suicide and
>daring Germany to commit to that strategic cesspool
>was probably a good idea.
The Allies did not "make" Yugoslavia do anything.
Signing on to the Tripartite Pact was extremely
unpopular in Yugoslavia. The Regent, Prince Paul,
who made the decision, was extremely reluctant to
do so, and did it only because of the open threat
from Germany.
But such was the public reaction in Yugoslavia
that within a few days, a "palace coup" ended
Paul's regency and sent him into exile.
Nonetheless, the new government did not repudiate
the Tripartite Pact, and in fact explicitly
assured Germany that it was not doing so.
Yugoslavia continued to reject passage of Axis
troops (which I believe even Paul had not agreed
to).
But it did not matter, as Hitler had already
labelled Yugoslavia a crypto-Ally and ordered
its destruction.
--
Were there eight kings of the name of Henry in England, or were there
eighty?
Never mind; someday it will be recorded that there was only one, and
the
attributes of all of them will be combined into his compressed and
consensus
story. --- R. A. Lafferty, _And Read the Flesh Between the Lines_
Rich Rostrom
>Louis Capdeboscq at loui...@yahoo.com wrote":
>
>>...some Latin American countries (e.g. Brazil)
>>did declare war on Germany...
>
>Actually, I think most of them did.
All of them, eventually.
>IIRC, Paraguay did not and there may have been
>one or two others.
Paraguay declared war on Germany on Feb 8 1945.
>But unless I am mistaken, all the rest had
>joined the Allies by 1943.
Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Cuba,
and Haiti all declared war on either Germany or
Japan or both within a few days of Pearl Harbor.
Mexico declared war on Germany on May 22 1942.
Other Latin American states followed suit later:
Aug 23 1942 Brazil
Apr 7 1943 Bolivia
Nov 27 1943 Colombia
The remaining Latin American states held back
till 1945:
Feb 2 1945 Ecuador
Feb 8 1945 Paraguay
Feb 12 1945 Peru
Feb 14 1945 Chile (Germany)
Feb 16 1945 Chile (Japan)
Feb 16 1945 Venezuela
I don't have a date for Uruguay.
--
Were there eight kings of the name of Henry in England, or were there eighty?
Never mind; someday it will be recorded that there was only one, and the
attributes of all of them will be combined into his compressed and consensus
story. --- R. A. Lafferty, _And Read the Flesh Between the Lines_
--
Michele Armellini
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:c1fv3l$cuk$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> >
> > Japan and Bulgaria were belligerents. This is like saying that Britain
> >
> > and France declared war on a neutral country (Germany) in 1939 because
> >
> > prior to September 3rd it had not done anything to the British or the
> > French.
>
> Japan did not declare war on the soviet union and did not seek war
> with them.
Declarations of war sometimes are seen as superfluous niceties. You are
forgetting Khalkin-Gol. The Japanese fought an undeclared war with the
Soviet Union, and they had been the attackers. Then they (rightly) found it
convenient to let it drop for a while, having taken a beating. For the
Soviet Union it was equally convenient to wait the right time for their
attack. The Soviet Union was fully justified in fighting Japan.
>
> Bulgaria was a belligerent in the balkans, but it didn't declare
> war against the soviet union. It was a belligerant and did decare
> war against the US and britain. But it went out of its way not
> to participate in Barbarossa or provoke the soivet union in any
> way.
>
Which strikes me as very opportunistic and deserving the Soviet attack. Note
also that you did not list Bulgaria as "a belligerent in the Balkans and
against the USA and Britain but not against the USSR"; you had listed it as
a neutral, something it very clearly wasn't. A neutral is a country that
isn't at war. Picking your opponents from among a group of allies does not
define you as a neutral country.
>
> Iraq was an independent country. The condition the british imposed
> in exchange for independence was a series of treaties dictated to
> Iraq which gave the british the right to do whatever they wanted
> militarily. The legitimacy of the action in Iraq depends on if
> the military goverment can be considered legitimate and if Iraq
> revoking treaties is a grounds for war/occupation.
>
If the treaties are considered valid, then the British had good reason to do
what they did. If you prefer to consider the treaties as null and void, then
Iraq amounted to a non-independent country and doesn't qualify for the list
of neutral independent countries.
--
David Thornley
Michael Emrys <michae...@msn.com> wrote:
>joined the Allies by 1943. In many instances, it was little or no more than
>a pro forma declaration, most of them took no active part in hostilities,
>but in some cases they provided basing rights or other assistance to the
>Allies.
>
Some provided military forces, which was always nice. I believe
Mexico provided some fighter forces for the Pacific, and Brazil
sent about a division and some fighter groups to Italy. The fighters
were US-produced, I believe, but by that point the US was able
to produce and deploy more weapons than the US could use.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
--
Lance Visser
> In article <c1fv3l$cuk$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>,
> Lance Visser <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote:
> >I agree. But the case of yugoslavia does have meaning for what
> >happened in Iraq because the british justification was that the
> >Iraqi government had been overthrown in a coup and that the
> >subsequent government repudiated certain military rights of the
> >british in the country.
>
> There was more to it than that. The Iraqi army also attacked
> the British garrisons in Iraq. While the repudiation of existing
> agreements would most likely have resulted in intervention, these
> attacks do create a distinct difference between the Yugoslav and
> Iraqi cases.
That is not totally correct. What happened is that the british forced
the situation to a head by sending an indian brigade to land in Iraq
at Basra which, under the treaty, they had a right to do. Iraq was
notified on April 16 of this. About the same time, the British started
flying troops into the airbases in Iraq from outside the country.
You are correct in that the Iraqis made the final decision to open
hostilties by surrounding the RAF airbase at Habbaniya on the 30th.
But by that time, both sides knew what they were doing and the british
actions in landing troops had nothing to do with actual need to land
troops at that time. It had to do with forcing a showdown over
if Iraq would stand by the treaties.
>From what I remember, the indian troops in question were originally
supposed to go to Malaya and were diverted to Iraq.
The difference with Yugoslavia is that the germans had no right
to enter the country and therefore hostilities opened in a different
way.
On the subject of Iran, there is one thing I want to clarify. Technically,
the soviet union's occupation of northern Iran in 1941 was covered by
a treaty between the USSR and Iran. There was a treaty between the
countries dating from the world war 1 era or before that gave the
soviet union (or possibly russia) the right to send military forces
into northern Iran if the military forces of another country entered
southern Iran.
And if its necessary, the above message deals sometimes with legalistic
and minor issues. In no way does it attack any particular action taken
by the allies based on need in wartime or imply that german occupation
or treatment of occupied countries was in any way similar to actions
taken by the US or UK.
--
Michele Armellini
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
>
> How exactly was the german invasion to happen? Was the entire
> puny german navy going to take Iceland after they had sunk the
> entire british home fleet along the way? Or did the germans
> have secret airplanes perhaps that could carry an invasion force
> all the way to iceland.
You seem to forget that an all-out, open invasion was not the only way
for
Germany to exploit Iceland. A secret base for refueling submarines,
for
instance, would have been extremely dangerous for the Allies. Even
without
going out on such a cloak-and-dagger idea, exploiting Icelandic
fishing
boats as scouts would also have been useful. Why, even just an
additional
weather station would have been very useful for the German subs, and
the
Germans did in reality operate such arctic weather stations.
Cub Driver
cease to have any meaning after the occupation of
>Denmark.
Did the British interpret it that way? More significantly, did the
Germans interpret it that way?
Michael Emrys
rrostrom.2...@rcn.com wrote on 2/25/04 8:52 AM:
Referring to which Latin American countries declared war on the Axis:
> All of them, eventually.
Thanks for the information and correction, Rich. I didn't see the Dominican
Republic on your list. Do you have a date for it too?
Michael
--
Stephen Graham
Lance Visser <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote:
>That is not totally correct. What happened is that the british forced
>the situation to a head by sending an indian brigade to land in Iraq
>at Basra which, under the treaty, they had a right to do. Iraq was
>notified on April 16 of this. About the same time, the British started
>flying troops into the airbases in Iraq from outside the country.
There were already British troops at those airbases (approximately
a battalion each). If the Iraqis were taking offense at the presence
of British troops in their country, those garrisons would suffice.
>But by that time, both sides knew what they were doing and the british
>actions in landing troops had nothing to do with actual need to land
>troops at that time. It had to do with forcing a showdown over
>if Iraq would stand by the treaties.
Arguably that is an actual need to land troops. Iraq had some importance
to the Allies (oil, transport) and the British needed to know whether or
not they could count on their treaty rights. Since the Iraqis weren't
saying, as far as I can tell, the only real way to find out is to
exercise those rights. And if you're going to do so, one should be
prepared for the worse case.
--
--
David Thornley
Michele Armellini <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>
>You seem to forget that an all-out, open invasion was not the only way
>for
>Germany to exploit Iceland. A secret base for refueling submarines,
>for
>instance, would have been extremely dangerous for the Allies.
The Germans would have to get the fuel to Iceland somehow, since IIRC
Iceland does not produce its own diesel fuel. The hard part was
getting it out into the Atlantic; establishing a refueling base
would actually have made the Allied job a bit easier when they
figured out where it was.
If the Germans did something like that, Britain would be completely
justified in having that refueling base shut down, either by
Icelandic authorities or by invasion. Allowing such refueling
is a violation of neutrality.
>going out on such a cloak-and-dagger idea, exploiting Icelandic
>fishing
>boats as scouts would also have been useful.
Assuming that the fishing boats would cooperate, of course. I see
no indication that Iceland was going to be pro-German, and without
Icelandic assistance any German actions on the island would either
be largely useless or violations of neutrality.
Why, even just an
>additional
>weather station would have been very useful for the German subs, and
>the
>Germans did in reality operate such arctic weather stations.
>
The Germans did indeed, and IIRC the last were put out of action
in 1944. However, I don't see what the importance of an Icelandic
station would be, or how that justified the invasion of Iceland.
Again, if there was a German weather station on Iceland, the
British could have the Icelanders destroy it, or, if that failed,
do it themselves.
In short, Iceland wasn't a threat to Britain.
What it was was a very useful airbase location.
Andrew Clark
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
> Iceland was a soverign state in every way in 1918.
> The arragements over foreign affairs were encoded
> within a treaty between Iceland and Denmark that
> would have (and did) cease to have any meaning
> after the occupation of Denmark.
The Treaty of Union was not written that way. It is true
that the Icelandic Parliament decided in 1940 to assume
responsibility for its own defence and foreign affairs, but
that decision wasn't made within the terms of the Treaty: it
was in fact a unilateral abrogation of the treaty. As such,
a German-occupied Denmark was within its rights to take
action against Iceland to enforce its treaty rights, which
is one of the pretexts which Britain feared Germany might
use to justify an occupation of Iceland.
> The arragements in 1918 were structured in
> a very particular way as to make no doubt
> about the sovereign status of Iceland.
Iceland was certainly domestically self-governing after
1918. But a territory not in control of its own defence or
foreign relations, and lacking a diplomatic service, can't
by any means be described as sovereign. Even now the defence
of Iceland is under US control by treaty.
> This is just wrong. There was no threat of a german
> invasion. The germans were as capable of invading
> the Irish Free state as they were of invading Iceland.
> They had no navy to do it, they had no planes to reach it.
None of this is factually accurate. While a full-scale
German sea-borne invasion of Iceland was unlikely in the
light of British domination of the seas, a small force could
easily have been landed by air and from U-boats. Iceland had
no armed forces to speak of in 1940.
> The Icelanic Republic was a wartime creation
> under military occupation done to make sure
> that Iceland was detached from
> any association with Denmark after the war.
By whom? The US or Iceland?
> This was done, among other reasons, because
> the powers involved wanted to create a legal
> basis for preserving their bases in Iceland after
> the war.
Which confirms that the government of Iceland which existed
after the Danish occupation of 1940 was not on sound
constitutional grounds.
> Agreements signed under occupation
> and governments formed under occupation,
> no matter how benevolent, should not be considered
> agreements entered into in free will.
Well, in the last 60 years none of the political parties in
Iceland have seemed to see the need to campaign against the
wartime establishment of the Icelandic Republic. So I think
you are in a minority, here.
> You are wrong. Iceland was NOT a possession of Denmark
> after 1918. It had FULL soverenity over its affairs. It
> shared a head of state and a treaty of union with Denmark
> under which some activities were shared, but that is
> NOT the same thing as being a semi-automonous
> posession of Denmark.
On the facts of the matter, you appear to be wrong, as
explained above. And I never said Iceland was a possession
of Denmark, but of the Danish Crown. The two are different,
you know.
> And I think its well past time for you to stop hiding
behind
> the germans and their evil behavior and deal with these
actions
> on their own. Nobody is suggesting as far as I know that
> the treatment of the countries under occupation was
remotely
> similar. But it was clearly a violation of a neutral and
> to argue otherwise is just absurd.
If the UK and/or the US had invaded Iceland in violation of
international law, I'd be happy to admit that. But on the
facts of the matter, there appears in 1940 to have been
plenty of sensible reasonable evidence that Iceland was
*not* a neutral sovereign nation but a semi-autonomous
territory over which, through the Danish government and or
Crown, the Germans could make a claim for occupation.
> And before you get ready to make the argument, I'll make
> it for you. The british had military need of Iceland as
> an airbase and a naval facility. And its certainly
possible
> to make a case that their need, in the context of the war,
> was more important than respecting the rights of a
neutral.
All this is true. But I'm afraid that trying to cast the UK
and US in the role of invader of hapless neutral Iceland
simply doesn't wash.
> But if your going to make that case, make it plain. Don't
> try to deny that Iceland was a neutral or I guess now even
> a country.
I'm not denying anything. I'm reporting the facts as I'm
aware of them. Don't fall into the trap of assuming I have
any strong personal opinion about the matter one way or
another.
>
--
Andrew Clark
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
(snip Iceland issues dealt with in another post)
> Great. You have just validated the german invasion
> of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia signed the tripartate
> treaty, the government was overthrown
> in a coup and the germans attacked when try
> tried to go back on it. Or do "values and laws"
> only count on one side and not
> the other.
This is a considerable distortion of the true facts.
Yugoslavia barely existed as a coherent political unit in
1940. The majority Serb nationalists, traditionally allied
to Russia, were violently opposed to an alliance with
Germany, while the minority Croat nationalist sought an
independent Croatian state, if necessary brought about by a
German alliance. The Yugoslav leadership, especially the
Regent and Cvetkovic and Markovic, became detached from the
feelings of the population at large. And, of course, Hitler
gave the Yugoslav leadership a straightforward ultimatum:
adhere to the Pact or be invaded. While the leadership (and
the Croats) yielded to this ultimatum, the Serbs did not and
the revolt against the signing of the Pact was essentially a
Serbian army coup, brutally repressed by the Germans by
military occupation.
In Iraq, Britain voluntarily gave up its League of Nations
mandate rights in 1930 and actively assisted Iraq to achieve
independence, albeit within the context of a treaty of
alliance (30 June 1930) which protected British interests.
Britain abided by the treaty and did not interfere in
several military and political coups in Iraq; in fact
British intervention in Iraqi government did not occur until
Pan-Arab extremists forced an open breach of the treaty of
alliance some 11 years later. The legitimate head of state,
the regent, was overthrwon; British bases guaranteed under
the treaty were attacked by the Iraqi army; and Germant
invited to occupy Iraq in breach of the treaty. Britain
moved to restore the constitutional government, which was
achieved without much bloodshed. In 1948, Britain concluded
another treaty which provided for the withdrawal of British
forces from Iraq, and by 1952 had ceased to exercise any
control over Iraqi affairs.
So the true facts are that Germany by threat of invasion
imposed a treaty upon the leadership of Yugoslavia which was
rejected by the majority Serbs, while Britain moved to
establish the legitimate constitutional government of the
Iraqi state after a revolution. Spot the difference?
> Of "more use to you" would the actual value of the
question.
> Because taking that position allows you to ignore fact and
law
> and wrap yourself in the flag as the defender of the
virtue
> of the allied cause.
> I don't find that line of argument very productive because
> you have at that point proved what I have been saying.
I've
> never denied that there were good reasons for many actions
> taken by the allies. But you can't defend them in terms
of
> law or the idea of neutrality.
> Another very, very dishonest argument. To disagree with
you
> is now to support a nazi regime for Iraq. I'm not playing
that
> game.
>
> If might-makes-right, law is irrelivant and the basis of
all action
> is need & force then I've proved my point and there is not
much
> left to say.
No. What I have sought to demonstrate is not only did
Britain act legally in its relations with Iraq, but also
morally. Given the limitations of international law in 1940,
this seems only sensible. You seem to be getting very
excited about a perfectly straightforward issue.
> The whole point of the discussion was pendantic legal
issues.
> If your not interested in the subject, DONT BOTHER TO
RESPOND.
> But don't sit there morally grandstanding and covertly
attacking
> me for being interested in subjects like this.
Given the limitations of internatioanl law in 1940, it is
not possible to deal with issues purely in terms of law.Why
not lie down and relax for a while?
(snip silly abuse)
> There has never been any question about who was
> morally right and who the evil side in the conflict was.
> But there are interesting issues that go a whole
> lot deeper than a one-paragraph morality
> sermon on the war.
Certainly. So why don't you address them rather than blowing
a lot of hot air about me and my alleged motives?
> There was no treaty of alliance with Persia.
> And lets be specific about what treaty your
> talking about.
The Anglo-Persian Agreement 1919 was observed by both
governments for 30 years despite its deliberate
non-submission to the so-called Iranian parliament.
> One of them,
> from before world war 1, was an agreement with
> the russians to carve up Persia into spheres
> of influence.
The Treaty of St. Petersburg of 1907, yes. It stopped
Russian attempts to annex Persia and safeguarded British
mineral concessions dating from 1872 and 1901.
> There were commerical agreements with
> Persia over oil.
The British government bought a majority stake in The
Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which enjoyed the mineral
concessions granted by Persia in 1901. The Anglo-Persian
Agreement of 1919 was thus both a "commercial" agreement and
a political treaty. There were no private commercial
agreements until after WW2.
> I'm not aware of any british troops stationed in Persia
> between 1939 and the invasion in 1941. There
> were troops in Iraq and elsewhere in gulf, but
> not persia.
There was a British-officered "native levy" in each of the
main oil centres for local defence of installations from
1922 to 1941. In January 1940 advance units of what would
become 5th Indian division were sent to Iran to prepare for
an eventual arrival by the whole division; this move was
cancelled in July but about 3 battalions of Indian troops
remained in Persia.
> Which treaty was it? The scope of treaty you are
suggesting
> would be one that would give the British full control over
the
> foriegn affairs of Persia. No such treaty existed.
The Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 required Persia to
maintain a policy of military co-operation with Britain.
> The handful of germans in Persia were not capable
> of overthrowing the government or seizing power.
> The british used their presence as a justification
> for the attack, but not even they really believed
> in it.
So you say. In 1941, Britain was acutely short of troops in
the Middle East. Wavell as C-in-C was highly reluctant to
take on any further committments. The diversion of troops to
Iran was undertaken only because there was a real fear of a
German-inspired and supported revolt in Persia which might
affect oil supplies. If you disagree, post your detailed
evidence.
And in any case, you have conveniently snipped from my post
the fact that on 6 August 1941 the Iranian government
rejected a British ultimatum.
> Oh come on. That is such a stupid oversimplification.
> The British invaded from Iraq, overthrew the government
> and then proceeded to rule over the country with the
> soviets until after the war.
Well, that may be the view from where you sit. All I can say
is that the historical evidence doesn't support such a
Mickey Mouse view of Anglo-Iranian relations.
> Nobody in Iran saw it to their benefit. They had to work
> like crazy to get the soviet union out after the war.
The US took the lead in forcing the USSR out of Iran
post-war, not the Iranian government. And then Iran became a
US-dominated state, remember?
> Iran is about the worst possible case to make
> for a benevolent occupation.
As far as the British south is concerned, the lot of
civilians was greatly improved by occupation. Security and
law and order improved, food distribution increased and
corruption lessened. Or so say Iranian authors, anyway.
Things were a lot worse under Soviet occupation in the
north, however.
> All I can say is that you go read something on
> the subject. The supply line was certainly not
> a concindence or fortutious situation that
> just accendently happened. Thats incredibly
> naive.
I haven't said this. What I said was that the occupation of
Iran by the British would have happened regardless of the
need to establish a supply link to the USSR.
> And your problem is that your not interested in the issues
> involved in the first place. That last bit about how
Ireland
> should somehow be greatful for not being invaded is a bit
> much even for you.
As I said, the rights of neutrals were overwhelmingly
respected by Britain in WW2, sometimes at considerable
military and human cost (eg the
Irish Free State). You are doubtless unaware that Britain
continued to feed the Free State (and supply it with POL)
from its own scarce supplies and imports throughout WW2,
despite its neutrality and de Valera's public admiration of
Hitler.
(snip silly abuse)
--
Andrew Clark
"Sigvaldi Eggertsson" <sig...@binet.is> wrote
> This is not totally accurate, the Danish government was
> supposed to provide defence of Iceland but the foreign
> matters of Iceland were decided by the Icelandic
> government but the Danish foreign service
> carried out the wishes of the Icelandic government...
This arrangement was not by treaty, but by custom and use.
Denmark had the treaty right to regulate Iceland's foreign
relations and defence, even if it didn't always exercise
that right. In the context of a German occupation of
Iceland, one might reasonably expect that a German-dominated
Danish government would exercise its treaty rights to the
disadvantage of Germany's enemies.
> International law? There was a war on!
So why did you talk about the rights of neutrals? Either you
attach value to international law or you don't.
> Iceland was recognised as an independant country
> by the rest of the world from 1918.
This isn't accurate. For example, diplomatic negotiations
between the British and Icelandic government in 1931 were
conducted between the Foreign Office and the Danish
Ambasador to the Court of St James. Iceland had no foreign
service of its own until 1944.
Lance Visser
news:<404004b7...@news.pacific.net.au>...
> cease to have any meaning after the occupation of
> >Denmark.
>
> Did the British interpret it that way?
I dont think the british ever gave an interpertation that
made any sense.
For one thing, immediatly after contact with Denmark was lost
because of the german invasion, Iceland reacted immediatly
(April 10) and its parlament passed two resolutions which
passed executive (king) power to the cabinet and took full
charge of foriegn affairs from Denmark
For confirmation of this fact which never seems to appear
see:
There was no ambiguity about Iceland's status or intentions before
or during 1940.
As far as I know, the british justification has always been
that Iceland was in immediate danger of occupation by germany.
Its sovierign status, its actions after Denmark fell and its
record of neutrality don't really leave much room for another
interpretation.
> More significantly, did the
> Germans interpret it that way?
The germans were clearly going to do whatever they wanted
or more importantly in this case whatever they were capable
of. And I dont see how anyone can make a case that an invasion
of Iceland was even remotely possible in 1940 sort of an
unimaginable disaster like half the royal navy being lost
or the germans suddenly having aircraft capable of reaching
such distances or the invasion and loss of Britain as a whole.
I think the more important question would be if the
government of Iceland was willing to take orders from Denmark
after the occupation. The government of Iceland in April 1940
was as clear as it could possibly be on the subject.
Lance Visser
news:<c1ijsq$rvu$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
> "Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
> news:c1fv3l$cuk$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
>
> > with them.
>
> Declarations of war sometimes are seen as superfluous niceties. You are
> forgetting Khalkin-Gol. The Japanese fought an undeclared war with the
> Soviet Union, and they had been the attackers. Then they (rightly) found it
> convenient to let it drop for a while, having taken a beating. For the
> Soviet Union it was equally convenient to wait the right time for their
> attack. The Soviet Union was fully justified in fighting Japan.
entering
the war with Japan which among other things included military,
economic
and other concessions inside the borders of China. Your logic that
they
were waiting for the right time is rather at odds with their actual
behavior
of trading their entry into the war for territorial and other
concessions
involving both China and japan.
> > Iraq was an independent country. The condition the british imposed
> > in exchange for independence was a series of treaties dictated to
> > Iraq which gave the british the right to do whatever they wanted
> > militarily. The legitimacy of the action in Iraq depends on if
> > the military goverment can be considered legitimate and if Iraq
> > revoking treaties is a grounds for war/occupation.
> >
>
> If the treaties are considered valid, then the British had good reason to do
> what they did. If you prefer to consider the treaties as null and void, then
> Iraq amounted to a non-independent country and doesn't qualify for the list
> of neutral independent countries.
I consider a treaty an agreement entered into by two countries
negotiated
and signed in good faith. The treaty in question here was not
negotiated,
but rather was dictated and forced on Iraq. Iraq, being a soverign
country
had every right after to alter or get out of the treaty in whatever
way
it wished. Entering into or getting out of treaties is one of the
rights
of soverignty. The right of invasion and occupation based on the
cancelling
of a treaty isn't exactly a clear concept anyway.
Michele Armellini
> The soviet union negotiated with other countries on a price for
> entering
> the war with Japan which among other things included military,
> economic
> and other concessions inside the borders of China. Your logic that
> they
> were waiting for the right time is rather at odds with their actual
> behavior
> of trading their entry into the war for territorial and other
> concessions
> involving both China and japan.
>
My logic that they were waiting for the right time is based on the fact that
they somehow had their hands a bit full with the Germans for some time after
having defeated the Japanese at Khalkin-Gol. I think this isn't such a
far-fetched idea. Are you arguing about that?
In any case, I'm glad to see that you don't reply on the issue, and
therefore accept it as a fact, that there was a de facto war between Japan
and the Soviet Union since the Japanese aggressive moves of 1938-1939.
Which, regardless of negotiations of concessions that took place later,
makes the point of Japan being neutral towards the USSR very moot.
Besides, the same logic that disqualifies Bulgaria from the list of neutral
countries also and very obviously disqualifies Japan. A neutral country is
not at war with anybody; a country at war is not neutral. Carefully picking
your enemies from among a group of allies doesn't qualify you as a neutral.
Why, most defensive treaties clearly state that if a third party attacks one
of the members, it's exactly as if it had attacked each and every member.
This wasn't clearly stipulated in all the alliance treaties of WWII; but
it's only plainly logic.
Since you did not reply to the point about Bulgaria, I suppose you accepted
that - and the same holds true for Japan.
> I consider a treaty an agreement entered into by two countries
> negotiated
> and signed in good faith. The treaty in question here was not
> negotiated,
> but rather was dictated and forced on Iraq. Iraq, being a soverign
> country
> had every right after to alter or get out of the treaty in whatever
> way
> it wished.
OK, so it wasn't an independent country as long as it had a treaty forced on
it, then it was an independent country and wanted out of the treaty. Let's
accept that for the sake of the discussion.
The problem is that the "whatever way" it chose out of the treaty was by
attacking the British troops deployed there. It's a casus belli, isn't it?
--
Michele Armellini
"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:c1l7p3$8qo$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> In article <403e049c...@news.pacific.net.au>,
> Michele Armellini <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> >
> >You seem to forget that an all-out, open invasion was not the only way
> >for
> >Germany to exploit Iceland. A secret base for refueling submarines,
> >for
> >instance, would have been extremely dangerous for the Allies.
> establishing a refueling base
> would actually have made the Allied job a bit easier when they
> figured out where it was.
(Ah, sure. But first they'd need to do that figuring part, eh?)
>
> If the Germans did something like that, Britain would be completely
> justified in having that refueling base shut down,
(snip)
> and without
> Icelandic assistance any German actions on the island would either
> be largely useless or violations of neutrality.
(Somebody else, not me, says the locals did what the men with the guns
ordered them to do. We might therefore assume that a detail from the
Kriegsmarine could order them to cooperate).
(snip)
> Again, if there was a German weather station on Iceland, the
> British could have the Icelanders destroy it, or, if that failed,
> do it themselves.
>
So, in practice you agree that these actions by Germany would have justified
a British reaction.
Since the Germans had already violated Danish neutrality, and since the
separation of Danish from Icelandic neutrality seems to have been a very
dubious "this-is-not-a-colony" concept at best, pre-emptive measures to
forestall such German initiatives were no less justified than the reactive
measures to close them down, which you see as justified.
Assuming we do believe that Iceland was an independent country and its
neutrality still not violated by the Germans, then the British move was a
first violation of its neutrality, of course.
But the gist of my post wasn't that. It was that the Germans did not need to
send out the whole Kriegsmarine in the face of the Royal Navy to take
Iceland, fully occupy it, and exploit it. They could have used subtler
means, and still exploit the island for their own purposes. Without a proper
defensive force, Iceland could not have prevented that.
> What it was was a very useful airbase location.
Ah, of course.
Regards,
Michele Armellini
--
Lance Visser
> "Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
>
> > Iceland was a soverign state in every way in 1918.
> > The arragements over foreign affairs were encoded
> > within a treaty between Iceland and Denmark that
> > would have (and did) cease to have any meaning
> > after the occupation of Denmark.
>
> The Treaty of Union was not written that way. It is true
> that the Icelandic Parliament decided in 1940 to assume
> responsibility for its own defence and foreign affairs, but
> that decision wasn't made within the terms of the Treaty: it
> was in fact a unilateral abrogation of the treaty. As such,
> a German-occupied Denmark was within its rights to take
> action against Iceland to enforce its treaty rights, which
> is one of the pretexts which Britain feared Germany might
> use to justify an occupation of Iceland.
The Icelandic Parliament acted in totaly accord with the treaty
of union in 1940. I'm totally confused as to the point your
making. Iceland was independent. After Denmark fell, its
parlament made its relationship with Denmark under the
union treaty totally clear.
You also seem to be suggesting that treaties are in full effect
even if one side is under military occupation. I just don't
understand that particular logic at all. Denmark was under
occupation and iceland, a fully soverign and independent
country was under no obligation to fufill the terms of the union
treaty with an entity that was certianly not recognized by
Iceland as a government of Denmark.
If the germans had the ability to occupy Iceland, the would not have
needed a pretext any more than they did in the occupation of Denmark.
They might have used cooperation with the government of Iceland, but
the government of Iceland made its intentions utterly clear after
the fall of Denmark.
> > The arragements in 1918 were structured in
> > a very particular way as to make no doubt
> > about the sovereign status of Iceland.
>
> Iceland was certainly domestically self-governing after
> 1918. But a territory not in control of its own defence or
> foreign relations, and lacking a diplomatic service, can't
> by any means be described as sovereign. Even now the defence
> of Iceland is under US control by treaty.
I dont know how many ways to say this. The treaty in 1918 created
a fully independent Iceland. Iceland, as a soverign entity entered
into the union treaty with created a personal union between the
kingdoms in the form of the king and established joint agreements
for the diplomatic service. The form was always a joint agreement.
Denmark can never have been said under the terms of the agreements
to be "running" the forign service of Iceland. It was constructed
as a partnership of equal states.
Whatever treaties Iceland enters into (or is forced into), are its
business. The treaties for defense or any other purpose do not
mean that Iceland is less than a real country nor does it support
in any way your notion that Iceland was a dependancy of Denmark.
(or the US I guess now for that matter).
> > This is just wrong. There was no threat of a german
> > invasion. The germans were as capable of invading
> > the Irish Free state as they were of invading Iceland.
> > They had no navy to do it, they had no planes to reach it.
>
> None of this is factually accurate. While a full-scale
> German sea-borne invasion of Iceland was unlikely in the
> light of British domination of the seas, a small force could
> easily have been landed by air and from U-boats. Iceland had
> no armed forces to speak of in 1940.
So please explain how an isolated handful of soliders landed
and supplied by u-boat are going to take over Iceland, let
alone keep posession of it. The same silly argument could be
about places in Scotland or the Isle of Man. Its utter nonsense.
Any invasion of Iceland would require either a sea force to
protect and supply it. Or airplanes that could reach it and
supply it. A country doesn't need an army to repel a handful
of men landed by u-boat.
> > The Icelanic Republic was a wartime creation
> > under military occupation done to make sure
> > that Iceland was detached from
> > any association with Denmark after the war.
>
> By whom? The US or Iceland?
Who is in charge of a country when a foreign army has
conquered the country?
> > This was done, among other reasons, because
> > the powers involved wanted to create a legal
> > basis for preserving their bases in Iceland after
> > the war.
>
> Which confirms that the government of Iceland which existed
> after the Danish occupation of 1940 was not on sound
> constitutional grounds.
When someone breaks into a house, passing a series of laws
to make the housebreaking legal after the fact is good
for the conscience of the person breaking in, but any
rational person isn't going to accept changing the law
after the fact to be the same thing as something being
legal.
> > Agreements signed under occupation
> > and governments formed under occupation,
> > no matter how benevolent, should not be considered
> > agreements entered into in free will.
>
> Well, in the last 60 years none of the political parties in
> Iceland have seemed to see the need to campaign against the
> wartime establishment of the Icelandic Republic. So I think
> you are in a minority, here.
You might want to check out various unhappy people since the
war with regard to the presence of american bases and nuclear
weapons in the country.
> > You are wrong. Iceland was NOT a possession of Denmark
> > after 1918. It had FULL soverenity over its affairs. It
> > shared a head of state and a treaty of union with Denmark
> > under which some activities were shared, but that is
> > NOT the same thing as being a semi-automonous
> > posession of Denmark.
>
> On the facts of the matter, you appear to be wrong, as
> explained above. And I never said Iceland was a possession
> of Denmark, but of the Danish Crown. The two are different,
> you know.
On the facts of the matter, you are splitting hairs to prove
yourself right. Lets look exactly at what you said:
Iceland in 1940 simply was
not a sovereign state recognised by the rest of the world as
such: it was in fact a semi-autonomous possession of the
Danish Crown under partial Danish control.
1) You have presented no evidence to suggest that Iceland
was not a soviergn state.
2) You have presented no evidence to prove that Iceland
was not recognized as a soverign state.
3) You have not made a case as to why Iceland should be
considered "semi-automomous" with regard to the Danish
Crown. The union treaty and the realtionship of Iceland
and Denmark does not have any provision that I am aware
of that puts iceland at a "semi-automonous" position
vs. the position of Denmark. They are equal and Soverign.
4) "under partial Danish control". There was no danish
control. The union treaty specified a joint head of state
in the king and joint (not dependent) coordination of
foriegn affairs. The treaty does not in any way put
Iceland or its status in a subordinate position to
that of Denmark.
So other than the fact that you are wrong on every single
point in the statement you made, you are correct that
you said "Danish Crown" and not Denmark. However, in saying
that, Iceland had and exercised before the british invasion
the right to take the powers of the danish crown into the
hands of a caretaker if the king was incapacitated or
(as in this case) a prisoner of the germans. They respected
the form by first investing executive power in the cabinet
and then (after the invasion) by the appointment of a regent.
There is simply no way to make a case that Iceland is an inferior
position to Denmark on the question of the king. Iceland had
every right with regard to the monarchy that Denmark had. If
the king had been kidnapped to germany rather than Denmark being
occupied, Denmark would not have followed the orders of the king
and would have installed a regent or invested the powers in
something else.
> > And I think its well past time for you to stop hiding
> behind
> > the germans and their evil behavior and deal with these
> actions
> > on their own. Nobody is suggesting as far as I know that
> > the treatment of the countries under occupation was
> remotely
> > similar. But it was clearly a violation of a neutral and
> > to argue otherwise is just absurd.
>
> If the UK and/or the US had invaded Iceland in violation of
> international law, I'd be happy to admit that. But on the
> facts of the matter, there appears in 1940 to have been
> plenty of sensible reasonable evidence that Iceland was
> *not* a neutral sovereign nation but a semi-autonomous
> territory over which, through the Danish government and or
> Crown, the Germans could make a claim for occupation.
You have presented zero sources and no credible argument for
your claims that Iceland was not a country. As I have
said, what difference would an excuse have made to the
germans. They had already invaded and occupied Denmark.
If it were in their power, they would occupy Iceland in
the same way they occupied Denmark.
> > And before you get ready to make the argument, I'll make
> > it for you. The british had military need of Iceland as
> > an airbase and a naval facility. And its certainly
> possible
> > to make a case that their need, in the context of the war,
> > was more important than respecting the rights of a
> neutral.
>
> All this is true. But I'm afraid that trying to cast the UK
> and US in the role of invader of hapless neutral Iceland
> simply doesn't wash.
First, the US is not mentioned in the reasoning given. You
have included it yourself for reasons I dont understand.
Second, the UK clearly invaded and occupied iceland for reasons
that had to with building bases far more than they did with
the completely fantastic idea of a german invasion or the
government of Iceland agreeing to being ruled from occupied Denmark.
> > But if your going to make that case, make it plain. Don't
> > try to deny that Iceland was a neutral or I guess now even
> > a country.
>
> I'm not denying anything. I'm reporting the facts as I'm
> aware of them. Don't fall into the trap of assuming I have
> any strong personal opinion about the matter one way or
> another.
Given that you have gone out on the weakest possible limb imaginable
and arguing from an utterly irrational position that Iceland wasn't
a sovierign country, I'm really lost as to what your motives are
in keeping this going.
--
Michele Armellini
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:404a01a0...@news.pacific.net.au...
> Cub Driver <war...@mailblocks.com> wrote in message
> news:<404004b7...@news.pacific.net.au>...
> > cease to have any meaning after the occupation of
> > >Denmark.
> >
> > Did the British interpret it that way?
> For one thing, immediatly after contact with Denmark was lost
> because of the german invasion, Iceland reacted immediatly
> (April 10) and its parlament passed two resolutions which
> passed executive (king) power to the cabinet and took full
> charge of foriegn affairs from Denmark
> There was no ambiguity about Iceland's status or intentions before
> or during 1940.
There was no ambiguity about Iceland's intentions in 1940, as soon as
the
Althing passed its resolutions. They wanted to undertake all the
defense
policy and foreign policy tasks that the Danish government had kept
for
itself until that time. That's what they wanted to do. Unfortunately,
they
lacked the means for actually doing it.
As to Iceland's status, as long as a significant number of other
countries
had not publicly acknowledged that Iceland's foreign policy and above
all
defense was indeed in the (unarmed) hands of the Icelanders, there was
no
ambiguity either: Iceland's status as an independent country capable
of
carrying out a foreign policy and above all of defending itself had
not been
internationally recognized and thus remained wishful thinking by the
Althing.
Albania had been a semi-independent country - with no self-defense
capability. The rump Czechoslovakia (after chunks had been sliced off)
had
been an independent country - with no self-defense capability.
Luxembourg
had been an indepedent country - with no self-defense capability.
Denmark
had been an independent country - with no self-defense capability to
speak
of.
In other words, in those years being independent but lacking
self-defense
capability was less than healthy for the independence. Even countries
having
a much, much more significant self-defense capability than Iceland
lost
their independence.
Why on earth would one want to add Iceland to that list? True, Iceland
was
farther off than any of the above. But not as far off as to be
completely
safe from being possibly exploited even short of outright, open and
complete
occupation.
Lance Visser
> "Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
> > Great. You have just validated the german invasion
> > of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia signed the tripartate
> > treaty, the government was overthrown
> > in a coup and the germans attacked when try
> > tried to go back on it. Or do "values and laws"
> > only count on one side and not
> > the other.
> This is a considerable distortion of the true facts.
I agree with everything you wrote in the paragraph that followed.
But it doesn't change what I said or the facts that I laid
out. Its just a long-winded form going over more detail.
> In Iraq, Britain voluntarily gave up its League of Nations
> mandate rights in 1930 and actively assisted Iraq to achieve
> independence, albeit within the context of a treaty of
> alliance (30 June 1930) which protected British interests.
Iraq became a fully independent state in 1932. A treaty requies
that both sides negotiate and that it be signed in good faith.
The treaty to which you refer was neither. It was written and
dictated by the british and gave them an almost unlimited right
to station or transit troops through Iraq. Iraq, being a soverign
country after 1932, had the right to exit the treaty as any
other nation has the right to leave a treaty.
I dont quite understand how the a treaty signed in 1930 before
an independent government existed to sign it in good faith could
be considered valid anyway. But I suppose the Iraqi (british
controlled)
Parlament will be found by you to be a valid body to make decisions
on treatries while the Iranian parlament was apparently not a valid
body according to you in the case of the anglo-persian "treaty".
> Britain abided by the treaty and did not interfere in
> several military and political coups in Iraq; in fact
> British intervention in Iraqi government did not occur until
> Pan-Arab extremists forced an open breach of the treaty of
> alliance some 11 years later. The legitimate head of state,
> the regent, was overthrwon; British bases guaranteed under
> the treaty were attacked by the Iraqi army; and Germant
> invited to occupy Iraq in breach of the treaty.
1) The military coup was a military coup by officers, not by
"pan-arab extremists" whatever that means to you.
2) The british, according to an established plan, diverted military
forces into Iraq in order to test Iraq's compliance with the
treaty. After the british landed troops in Iraq and reinforced
their bases in Iraq, fighting broke out. That is not the same
thing as just saying that the bases were attacked. Both sides
were making calculated moves toward a confrontation and both
sides intended to get their way.
3) Fighting broke out before any german involvement in Iraq as
far as I know.
>Britain
> moved to restore the constitutional government, which was
> achieved without much bloodshed. In 1948, Britain concluded
> another treaty which provided for the withdrawal of British
> forces from Iraq, and by 1952 had ceased to exercise any
> control over Iraqi affairs.
The british Occupied Iraq for the duration of the war. Trying
to make a military occupation by anyone into some sort of positive
event is absurd. The government they put in place was weak, corrupt
and eventually was overthrown in another coup because it essentially
did whatever it was told by the british no matter how unpopular it
was at home. This includes british bases
and the baghdad pact. Your idea that the british had no role in Iraq
after 1952 is wrong.
The bases were still in Iraq until 1955. For proof, consult the
timeline at:
http://www.regiments.org/milhist/mideast/iraq.htm
The british also attempted to push a new treaty on Iraq after the war
in 1948, but ultimately failed because the treaty caused mass
demonstrations in the streets. Maybe, as per your Iran logic
that one is actually in effect as well despite not being accepted
by Iraq.
> So the true facts are that Germany by threat of invasion
> imposed a treaty upon the leadership of Yugoslavia which was
> rejected by the majority Serbs, while Britain moved to
> establish the legitimate constitutional government of the
> Iraqi state after a revolution. Spot the difference?
I dont see any difference at all. You have two governments
with treaties who were overthrown by military coups. There
is no constitutional process or vote that allows "the majority
serbs" to anything outside of the law any more than there
is justification for generals in Iraq taking power in the
name of the "arabs".
For all your long recitation of facts not even at issue, you
didn't really make any real case for a difference.
> No. What I have sought to demonstrate is not only did
> Britain act legally in its relations with Iraq, but also
> morally. Given the limitations of international law in 1940,
> this seems only sensible. You seem to be getting very
> excited about a perfectly straightforward issue.
Then you have utterly failed to demonstrate your point. You
have rattled off a tremendous amount of information most
of which I agreed with but that didn't really address the
law or put forward a reasoning why a serb coup is more
meaningful than an Iraq coup.
> Given the limitations of internatioanl law in 1940, it is
> not possible to deal with issues purely in terms of law.Why
> not lie down and relax for a while?
If you find it impossible to deal with the legal issues of
1940, then the discussion is rather pointless because I have
since before the beginning of this conceeded on the moral
and practical reasons for the actions.
The discussion of those aspects of the actions is dead. I dont
have any interest or motivation in going over point after point
that I agree with. Thats whats most confusing to me about
this. You obviously know why these things were done, but
you persist in presenting justification for
every single action even when the justification on any other
basis than need is non-existant.
> Certainly. So why don't you address them rather than blowing
> a lot of hot air about me and my alleged motives?
I've addressed them at length. I would ask that you
stop making inferences and accusations that are off
the subject.
> > There was no treaty of alliance with Persia.
> > And lets be specific about what treaty your
> > talking about.
>
> The Anglo-Persian Agreement 1919 was observed by both
> governments for 30 years despite its deliberate
> non-submission to the so-called Iranian parliament.
You can continue to try argue this line of reasoning if
you want, but I can tell you right now that I'm never
going to agree that an unratified treaty was actually
in effect. And I'm also not going to agree with you
that an autocrat who was in the process of selling his
country out the british on the cheap was a better
representative of Iran than its parlament.
>
> > I'm not aware of any british troops stationed in Persia
> > between 1939 and the invasion in 1941. There
> > were troops in Iraq and elsewhere in gulf, but
> > not persia.
>
> There was a British-officered "native levy" in each of the
> main oil centres for local defence of installations from
> 1922 to 1941.
This may be true, but I don't have a reference for a unit
as obscure as that. If it still existed in 1941, it was
neither part of the regular british army or the indian
army. And I can't find it on any order of battle I have
access to.
> In January 1940 advance units of what would
> become 5th Indian division were sent to Iran to prepare for
> an eventual arrival by the whole division; this move was
> cancelled in July but about 3 battalions of Indian troops
> remained in Persia.
I can't make any sense of this.
The 5th Indian Division did not send any unit, advance or
otherwise to Iran in January 1940 as far as I can determine.
The 5th Indian Division was sent to the middle east (Sudan)
in the fall of 1940. I can account for 9th and 10th Indian
Brigade. I find no indication of any movement to Persia
in early 1940. There are two choices for the third brigade.
The original third brigade would be 7th Indian. I dont have
7th Indian brigade down as leaving India (again) until the
fall of 1940 and then either going to Egypt or Sudan. The true
third brigade was the 29th Indian formed in Sudan.
I'm sitting here looking the official indian history, the unit
histories of battalions in 5th Indian division and I'm not
seeing any movement into Persia in 1940. Further, I have not
been able to find any reference to any indian battalions landing
anywhere in Persia in 1940.
In August 1939, there was a plan prepared in India (K-3) which
involved sending a brigade group to Iran to secure the oilfields.
Abadan (Persia) was evaluated as a base and rejected in favor
of Basra.
In March 1940, K-3 was re-evaluated and now involved a much larger
force but was directed against a possible soviet threat rather
any german threat.
Further, considering that well into 1940 the British and Indian armies
were making contingency plans for landing a brigade in Iran at Abadan,
I can't figure out why they would be doing that if a brigade had
already landed there in early 1940.
Now as far as planning for Trout, 9th Indian Brigade (of 5th Division)
was the designated force if "Trout" had been ordered to be carried
out,
but it never was (at least in 1940). If you have information to the
contrary I would be very interested because its going to mean that
something is very wrong with several sources.
I can find an an indian anti-aircraft battery stationed in Bahrain at
some ambigious point in 1940 and 1941, but nothing at Abadan.
I've looked through most of the orders of battle for the region and
the units on the indian order of battle. I can't find anything in
Persia (let alone three battalions or an entire brigade) before
the invasion in 1941.
I'm looking at the regimental histories of the component battalions
of 5th Indian Division, "Defense of India: Policy and Plans", an
outline
history of the regiment of artillery (India) and I can't find any
sign of three battalions landing in early 1940.
Now since I've spend a whole lot of time and effort tonight going out
of my way to check out something I didn't believe was true in the
first place, I'm expecting to see you explain where this stuff is
coming from.
> > Which treaty was it? The scope of treaty you are
> suggesting
> > would be one that would give the British full control over
> the
> > foriegn affairs of Persia. No such treaty existed.
>
> The Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 required Persia to
> maintain a policy of military co-operation with Britain.
The treaty was null and void. An agreement that is not
ratified or even accepted by one side cannot be considered
to be in force. The british never considered the treaty
to be actual effect. And certainly given the history of that
treaty in Iran, you must know that the Iranians never considered
themselves as agreed to it or bound by it in any way.
That 1919 agreement among other things would have turned
Iran into a british colony with civil and military affairs
in the hands of the british. There was no way it was ever
going to be approved and it wasn't.
> > The handful of germans in Persia were not capable
> > of overthrowing the government or seizing power.
> > The british used their presence as a justification
> > for the attack, but not even they really believed
> > in it.
>
> So you say. In 1941, Britain was acutely short of troops in
> the Middle East. Wavell as C-in-C was highly reluctant to
> take on any further committments. The diversion of troops to
> Iran was undertaken only because there was a real fear of a
> German-inspired and supported revolt in Persia which might
> affect oil supplies. If you disagree, post your detailed
> evidence.
Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the second World
War 1939-1945: Campaign in Western Asia. (1957)
Page 36
"The necessity for implementing trout would arise only if Iran
showed an attitude of hostility towards britain. At that moment
[1940], however, the policy of the Shah of Iran seemed
to be genuinely one of neutrality and it did not appear that he would
abandon it willingly. But he might be forced to do so by soviet
pressure
or alternatively, a threat to abadan might develop through actual
soviet
invasion".
Page 300
"The German attack on Russia in June 1941, however, completely changed
the situation. The main problem now was to organize the despatch of
supplies
to russia by using Persia as a channel for that purpose".
Source is cited as file reference 601/9758/H in the book.
P. 303
August 11, 1941
Sir R. Bullard
[the germans] were "so closely watched by Iranian authorities that I
do not
think they could give serious trouble".
Secretary of State for India
"Not many germans have left I believe, but the supervision by
autorities
is now very close. German archaeologist Eilers has been summoned from
Isfahan and is closely watched there. Dossiers of all germans are
being
re-examined by the Tehran police. Police in oil area have orders to
apprehend any german found there. Acting minister for foreign affairs
states that german residents in Tabriz number only 34 and this is
confirmed
by the British Bank Manager, Mr. Turner, who has just returned from
Tabriz."
cited as File 890 Serial 18
The governor-general however did not agree with these views. He
severely
crticised this attitude saying it "gives us impression that the
Persians
believe themselves to have Bullard in their pocket." He also hoped
that
"local complacency will not be permitted to divert HMG from pressing
home their demands on Iran".
cited as File 890 Serial 23
> And in any case, you have conveniently snipped from my post
> the fact that on 6 August 1941 the Iranian government
> rejected a British ultimatum.
Pot. Kettle. Black. If you want to start making petty arguments
about snipping look at your own choices first.
Now if you really want to get into this, you have the date wrong.
A final memorandum was presented to the government of Iran on
August 17th 1941.
The Iranian oral reply, the british summary actually, was:
P. 307
"Three germans mentioned in the memorandum to leave within a week;
at least 100 germans to leave within a month from that day;
thereafter
elimination to be accelerated on basis of schemes being prepared by
all ministries; no lists to be furnished but he might give him now and
then names and jobs of germans who had left; the germans allowed to
stay would be closely watched"
citation File 830 Serial No. 83
The Iranians had agreed to expel 100 vs. the 500 germans the british
had demanded. that doesn't seem like total rejection of the british
demands. The police and other actions of the Iranians in watching
and controling the germans are validated by Bullard's own comments
presented earlier. Bullard issued the ultimatium.
> > Oh come on. That is such a stupid oversimplification.
> > The British invaded from Iraq, overthrew the government
> > and then proceeded to rule over the country with the
> > soviets until after the war.
>
> Well, that may be the view from where you sit. All I can say
> is that the historical evidence doesn't support such a
> Mickey Mouse view of Anglo-Iranian relations.
Thats great coming from a person who considers unratified treaties
to be in effect. Your views on Anglo-Iranian relations are the
worst sort of pre-colonial reactionary nonsense.
> > Nobody in Iran saw it to their benefit. They had to work
> > like crazy to get the soviet union out after the war.
>
> The US took the lead in forcing the USSR out of Iran
> post-war, not the Iranian government. And then Iran became a
> US-dominated state, remember?
No. I remember Iranians going to the soviet union after the
war and offering stalin oil concessions, cabinet posts and
whatever else it would take to get the soviet union out of the
country. The US took the credit more than they took the lead
regardless of if the impression created.
See:
Re: Soviet Troops in Iran, 1945-46
Message-ID: <bta6bq$ld4$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>
> > Iran is about the worst possible case to make
> > for a benevolent occupation.
>
> As far as the British south is concerned, the lot of
> civilians was greatly improved by occupation. Security and
> law and order improved, food distribution increased and
> corruption lessened. Or so say Iranian authors, anyway.
> Things were a lot worse under Soviet occupation in the
> north, however.
I'm obviously not going to agree on this point, but I dont
think either of us is going to convince the other on that
subject.
> > And your problem is that your not interested in the issues
> > involved in the first place. That last bit about how
> Ireland
> > should somehow be greatful for not being invaded is a bit
> > much even for you.
>
> As I said, the rights of neutrals were overwhelmingly
> respected by Britain in WW2, sometimes at considerable
> military and human cost (eg the
> Irish Free State). You are doubtless unaware that Britain
> continued to feed the Free State (and supply it with POL)
> from its own scarce supplies and imports throughout WW2,
> despite its neutrality and de Valera's public admiration of
> Hitler.
I would not go so far as to sign on to the idea that de Valera
was a public admirer or Hilter or (as seems to be implied) a
supporter of Hitler. The event at the end of the war is difficult
to explain, but there isn't much else before or sense that I know
of to brand de Valera as a hitler admierer.
I am aware that Britain did not attempt
to starve Ireland during the war. But keep in mind that the Irish
neutrality wasn't always what it seemed. RAF pilots were released
while axis pilots were interned. Industries within Ireland
were immune from attack and there was lots of individual irish
participation labor and otherwise which the government as far I know
never interfered with. There were overflights of Ireland on a regular
basis that were ignored.
Louis Capdeboscq
(snip)
> I agree. But the case of yugoslavia does have meaning for what
> happened in Iraq because the british justification was that the
> Iraqi government had been overthrown in a coup and that the
> subsequent government repudiated certain military rights of the
> british in the country. The logic either works in both cases
> or neither.
I see your point.
I'm afraid I don't know enough of the legal issues involved, and am
not
willing to give existing treaties a close reading to make an informed
decision. So I'll take your word for it.
> Japan did not declare war on the soviet union and did not seek war
> with them.
I simply don't agree that Japan should count in any WWII list of
neutrals being invaded. The Soviet Union did have a bad record in that
area, and I would agree to include Finland (1939, not 1944), the
Baltic
states and Bessarabia in that list.
I disagree that invading 1945 Japan - an Axis power, which although
not
directly at war with the Soviet Union had fought it before and made
plans to do it again, had sunk Soviet ships and was indirectly helping
Germany by preventing the US/UK from deploying their full might in the
ETO - qualifies as invading a neutral country. Yes, technically Japan
was neutral in the German-Soviet war. But as the thread was about
countries which managed to remain neutral and not about countries
which
ended up not fighting everyone in the enemy coalition, I don't think
that Japan qualifies.
> Japan was at war with multiple other countries, but they
> went out of their way to avoid a war with the soviet union (after
> 1939 anyway).
They certainly did not go out of their way. They had plans to invade
the
Soviet Union, and Kwantung Army almost pulled another fait accompli
with
the 1941 mobilization, but it was too closely watched from Japan for
that.
> Japan, for example, did not interfere with soviet
> flagged ships in the north pacific.
That's not "going out of their way", as it freed up Japanese naval
resources to prosecute their war elsewhere. The Japanese were just as
interested in not opening a new front as the Soviets.
> Worse yet, the soviet union
> demanded territorial and other concessions as a price for entering
> the war. These did not only include japanese territory, but chinese
> territory as well.
Chinese territory was ceded to China - and if you want to be legal,
how
Chinese was Mandchuria at the time ? - after 1949.
And again, nobody said that the Soviets were nice people, but this
thread was about invading neutrals.
> Bulgaria (...) went out of its way not
> to participate in Barbarossa or provoke the soivet union in any
> way.
How exactly did Bulgaria go out of its way not to participate in
Barbarossa, rather than simply not take on an additional commitment
for
which it had no interest ?
This would be like saying that Italy went out of its way to avoid
fighting the Dutch, either in Europe or the Pacific: they just didn't
find it convenient to do so.
> Its not as if the soviets cared much. Bulgaria had been given to
> them in their sphere of influence and they were going to do what
> they wanted with it.
Nobody gave the Soviets anything.
The US/UK were not in a position to give or keep Bulgaria in 1944. The
Soviets simply took over what had been an Axis country.
> The irony is of course that they were much kinder to Finland which
> had directly attacked them than they were to Bulgaria whose partipation
> in the war amounted to renewing the inter-balkan fight over Macedonia
> and taking shots at bomber overflights going to Rumania.
It would only be ironical is the Soviets had been operated from moral
principles about the rights of neutrals, which they most definitely
didn't.
Both Finland and Bulgaria had participated in the war as Axis allies.
That the Finnish participation involved direct combat with the Soviets
as opposed to "merely" freeing up German manpower to fight in Russia
makes little difference.
The Soviets neutralized both threats, and the reason why Bulgaria
became
a socialist republic while Finland was merely "finlandized" was
opportunity, not principles. Invasion of Finland was militarily and
diplomatically more costly, so it wasn't pursued after the initial
attempt had failed.
> I think a solution similar to Finland might have been more appropriate
> for Bulgaria than soviet occupation and replacement of the government.
Appropriate from whose point of view ?
From our point of view, an appropriate solution would have been to
turn
all these countries into democracies, as was done in Germany, Italy
and
Japan. The sidekicks generally got a worse deal than the main
offenders.
> Neutral with respect to the soviet union. You have, in the case of Finland
> the opposite situation with Finland fighting the USSR as a german ally while
> being neutral with regard to the US and UK (as far as I know anyway).
Britain had declared war on Finland. The US and Finland were at peace.
Louis Capdeboscq
> On the facts of the matter, you appear to be wrong, as
> explained above. And I never said Iceland was a possession
> of Denmark, but of the Danish Crown. The two are different,
> you know.
Perhaps because neither of you has really laid out "the facts of the
matter" as opposed to repeating your interpretation, or perhaps simply
because I didn't understand your own position, I would tend to agree
with Lance that Iceland was, for practical purposes, an independent
nation.
1. The military threat from Germany, I don't buy. The Germans might
land
a handful of raiders by U-boats, they couldn't support them. A landing
party from a couple of British destroyers would quickly root them out.
2. That such a low-level threat justified British occupation, I don't
understand. After all, the Germans were certainly as capable of
landing
a handful of spies or saboteurs in Eire as they were in Iceland, yet
Britain didn't invade Ireland.
3. That being unable to defend itself was sufficient ground to make a
country less than neutral is also something which I don't understand.
Britain in 1914 went to war largely because Germany had invaded
Belgium.
Generally speaking, the German invasions of the Low Countries, both in
1914 and in 1940, were regarded as an invasion of sovereign neutral
countries despite these countries being utterly unable to defend their
neutrality against any one of their neighbor (Britain, France or
Germany).
4. Sharing a same head of state does not necessarily make a country
less
than sovereign. As far as I'm aware, the Australians are a possession
of
the British Crown yet they are not a semi-autonomous possession of
Britain.
Georg Schwarz
> In other words, in those years being independent but lacking
> self-defense
> capability was less than healthy for the independence. Even countries
> having
> a much, much more significant self-defense capability than Iceland
> lost
> their independence.
if it was for that reasoning that the UK and US occupied Iceland they
should surely have occupied Ireland, i.e. the Irish Free State, in the
first place. To my knowledge the Irish Free State at that time did not
have a very capable army, air force or navy, and due to simple
geographical reasons it was definitely much more in danger of an Axis
occupation than Iceland.
--
Georg Schwarz http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
ge...@epost.de +49 177 8811442
Lance Visser
news:<4040c43b...@news.pacific.net.au>...
Note. The quoted portions of this message have been edited in
format.
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
> > There was no ambiguity about Iceland's status or intentions before
> > or during 1940.
> There was no ambiguity about Iceland's intentions in 1940, as soon asthe
> Althing passed its resolutions. They wanted to undertake all thedefense
> policy and foreign policy tasks that the Danish government had keptfor
> itself until that time. That's what they wanted to do. Unfortunately,they
> lacked the means for actually doing it.
That is simply wrong. They had the means to do both. Did they have
the means to repel an invasion from a large country? No. But if
thats the status for independence, you reduce "real" countries to
a handful of great powers.
> As to Iceland's status, as long as a significant number of othercountries
> had not publicly acknowledged that Iceland's foreign policy and aboveall
> defense was indeed in the (unarmed) hands of the Icelanders, there wasno
> ambiguity either: Iceland's status as an independent country capableof
> carrying out a foreign policy and above all of defending itself hadnot been
> internationally recognized and thus remained wishful thinking by theAlthing.
You are inventing criteria for soverignty that quite frankly didn't
exist then and didn't exist now. Iceland had been recognized
internationally
as a soverign state, without qualification, since the the treaty with
denmark. I believe among other things (but I do have the exact date)
that Iceland did set up a foriegn policy apperatus immediatly after
the fall of denmark.
As far as defense, the capability of a country to defend itself has
never been a criteria for soverign status. If you think otherwise,
lets see something to back that up.
> Albania had been a semi-independent country - with no self-defense
> capability.
This is just not correct. Its a seperate discussion, but Italy
invaded
and occupied Albania. It was not a semi-independent country, it was
a conquered country.
>The rump Czechoslovakia (after chunks had been sliced off)had
> been an independent country - with no self-defense capability.
I'm not sure what your talking about here specifically. The Czech
state after it had been sold out still had an army and still had
the capability to fight. Of course it was fighting from a much
weaker defense position than it would have been before munich,
but it still had an army when the germans marched in. And in the
end they decided not to fight. But thats not the same as no
self-defense capability.
> Luxembourghad been an indepedent country - with no self-defense capability.
> Denmarkhad been an independent country - with no self-defense capability to
> speakof.
Your really streaching things here. Denmark had a limited capability
for defence. They just didn't have the capability of standing up
to a much larger state like germany. It is not a matter of
self-defense
"capability", its a matter of the size of country. No matter how
much either country spent on defense, they were not going to be able
to fight off an full german invasion.
> In other words, in those years being independent but lackingself-defense
> capability was less than healthy for the independence. Even countrieshaving
> a much, much more significant self-defense capability than Icelandlost
> their independence.
This is totally confusing. You seem to be saying that any country
not strong enough to take on germany should not be considered
independent
and any neturalty of said country should be ingored.
Iceland's primary defense was that it was out in the atlantic. It
didn't
border germany like every other example you have presented. And aside
from
strange ideas about u-boat based conquests, a German invasion of
Iceland
was not practical or even conceivable in 1940.
> Why on earth would one want to add Iceland to that list? True, Icelanwas
> farther off than any of the above. But not as far off as to becompletely
> safe from being possibly exploited even short of outright, open andcomplete
> occupation.
Given that the government had made its view clear right after denmark
had been occupied, how was it to be exploited short of invasion?
There
is zero evidence of any collaboration or any desire for collaboration
on the part of the government.
As far as invasion. A sea-borne invasion was impossible short of half
the royal navy sinking. An air invasion was impossible because of the
range. A handful of men could be landed by u-boat, but a u-boat
invasion
conquering the island is almost silly. A handful of men without
supplies
or the ability of re-supply are not going to be able to conquer or
hold
Iceland for germany.
Rich Rostrom
>Rich Rostrom at rrostrom.2...@rcn.com wrote on 2/25/04 8:52 AM:
>
>Thanks for the information and correction, Rich. I didn't see the Dominican
>Republic on your list. Do you have a date for it too?
No. My information is from the Harper Collins _Atlas of the
Second World War_, pp206-207. Map 1 on this two-page spread,
"The World at War 1939-1945", shows the whole world, with each
nation colored by its status in the war - Allied, Axis, Axis
then Allied, neutral. Each Allied nation has the date of its
declaration(s) of war indicated under its name.
The map shows all of the Americas in "Allied" blue. However,
the names of Uruguay and the Dominican Republic are omitted,
as are the dates of any declarations of war.
Andrew Clark
"Louis Capdeboscq" <loui...@yahoo.com> wrote
> Perhaps because neither of you has really laid out
> "the facts of the matter" as opposed to repeating
> your interpretation, or perhaps simply because
> I didn't understand your own position, I would tend
> to agree with Lance that Iceland was, for practical
> purposes, an independent nation.
1. The Head of State of Iceland was the Danish King
2. The defence of Iceland was the formal responsibility of
the Danish government by treaty
3. The foreign relationships of Iceland were the the formal
responsibility of the Danish government by treaty
4. Iceland had no foreign office, no ambassadors and no
formal diplomatic relations with other nations
5. No other state recognised Iceland as a sovereign state
separate to Denmark
These are all facts, not interpretations. In 1940, Iceland
was not an independent sovereign state as that term was
understood.
>
> 1. The military threat from Germany, I don't buy. The
> Germans might land a handful of raiders by U-boats,
> they couldn't support them. A landing party from a
> couple of British destroyers would
> quickly root them out.
Let's recall that Germany had landed several divsions of
troops in Norway in the face of British and French naval and
air superiority and successfully repelled Anglo-French
attempts to turn them out. While hindsight might suggest
that a German invasion was impractical, at the time hard
experience suggested otherwise.
> 2. That such a low-level threat justified British
occupation,
> I don't understand. After all, the Germans were certainly
> as capable of landing a handful of spies or saboteurs in
> Eire as they were in Iceland, yet Britain didn't invade
Ireland.
The Free State was heavily defended by sea and air against
any sizable German landing by UK mainland forces and forces
in Northern Ireland. It was felt at the time, in the light
of the Norewegian example, that this degree of protection
against a sizable German landing could not be achieved in
respect of Iceland without occupation.
(snip point I haven't made)
> 4. Sharing a same head of state does not
> necessarily make a country less than sovereign.
> As far as I'm aware, the Australians are a possession
> of the British Crown yet they are not a semi-autonomous
> possession of Britain.
A good analogy. In 1940, the Dominion of Australia shared a
head of state with the UK, but unlike Iceland the UK
government was not specifically and solely responsible for
Australia's defence (although there were Imperial
arrangements, of course), for Australia's foreign policy and
for Australia's diplomatic representation abroad. And
Australia was recognised as an independent state by other
powers, unlike Iceland. The differences are clear.
--
Lance Visser
> 1. The Head of State of Iceland was the Danish King
After the occupation of Denmark, Iceland transferred the powers
of the head of state, in accordance with the law, to the cabinet
of Iceland which given the circumstances of the King's captivity in
Denmark it was entitled to do so constitutionally. This all happened
before the british occupation.
> 2. The defence of Iceland was the formal responsibility of
> the Danish government by treaty
Incorrect. The defense of Iceland and Denmark was a "joint"
responsibility of the two countries. Obviously one side contributed
more, but was never legally the case that Iceland was subordinate
in defense terms to Denmark. Beyond that, the impression that you
create of an undefended Iceland isn't quite true. See:
http://www.randburg.com/is/general/general_15.html
The highlight being:
"On becoming an independent state in 1918, Iceland soon assumed
control of its own Coast Guard operations. During the 1920s, Iceland
acquired its first armed Coast Guard vessels, with a displacement of
200 tons and equipped with a 47-mm cannon."
Are you going to say now that a country with an armed coast guard
under its own control has left all defense matters in the hands of
denmark?
> 3. The foreign relationships of Iceland were the the formal
> responsibility of the Danish government by treaty
Again. Incorrect. The treaty specified that the relations were
a joint responsibility, not the responsiblity of Denmark. Iceland
was not in a subordinate position by the terms of the treaty. And
after the fall of Denmark, Iceland took over the responsibility.
> 4. Iceland had no foreign office, no ambassadors and no
> formal diplomatic relations with other nations
It did have an embassy in Copenhagen which opened in 1920.
And on April 10, 1940, it took full charge of its diplomatic
affairs.
"When Denmark was occupied by Germany on 9th April 1940, all
communications between Iceland and Denmark were broken off. It was no
longer possible for Iceland to communicate with its king and no
instructions could be given to the Danish Foreign Minister regarding
Icelandic foreign affairs. The following day, the Althingi passed two
resolutions: royal power was preliminarily transferred to the cabinet
in ReykjavÃk, and Iceland took full charge of the conduct of its
foreign affairs. Accordingly, it may be said that the Iceland's
foreign service formally dates from 10th April 1940."
Above is from a iceland government website.
> 5. No other state recognised Iceland as a sovereign state
> separate to Denmark
This one isn't even up for question. Iceland was recognized
as a soverign state after the treaty of union.
> These are all facts, not interpretations. In 1940, Iceland
> was not an independent sovereign state as that term was
> understood.
You "facts" are all wrong.
---------
http://www.south.is/milestones.html
1918 The Act of Union gives full recognition to Iceland's
independence.
1919 The Icelandic Coast Guard begins operating around Iceland.
---------
Above, from what appears to be another neutral web site, there is a
reference
to Iceland operating a coast guard around the Island as early as 1919
as
well as the words "full recognition to Iceland's independence".
--
Michele Armellini
> "Michele Armellini" <miarmelnientepubblicita'@tin.it> wrote in message
> news:<4040c43b...@news.pacific.net.au>...
> > There was no ambiguity about Iceland's intentions in 1940, as soon asthe
> > Althing passed its resolutions. They wanted to undertake all thedefense
> > policy and foreign policy tasks that the Danish government had keptfor
> > itself until that time. That's what they wanted to do.
Unfortunately,they
> > lacked the means for actually doing it.
>
> That is simply wrong. They had the means to do both. Did they have
> the means to repel an invasion from a large country? No. But if
> thats the status for independence, you reduce "real" countries to
> a handful of great powers.
>
I'm not claiming it's a requisite for independence. I'm claiming that
the
resolutions passed by the Althing were wishful thinking with no
practical
means to be carried out. If you think they had the means to carry out
a
foreign policy and even a minimal defense, present your evidence.
>
> > As to Iceland's status, as long as a significant number of
othercountries
> > had not publicly acknowledged that Iceland's foreign policy and aboveall
> > defense was indeed in the (unarmed) hands of the Icelanders, there wasno
> > ambiguity either: Iceland's status as an independent country capableof
> > carrying out a foreign policy and above all of defending itself hadnot
been
> > internationally recognized and thus remained wishful thinking by
theAlthing.
>
> You are inventing criteria for soverignty that quite frankly didn't
> exist then and didn't exist now.
Recognition by other countries is and was considered a requisite for
sovereignty.
Iceland had been recognized
> internationally
> as a soverign state, without qualification, since the the treaty with
> denmark.
Sure, because Denmark had reserved foreign policy and defense. And one
might
suppose *as long as* that arrangement was in place.
I believe among other things (but I do have the exact date)
> that Iceland did set up a foriegn policy apperatus immediatly after
> the fall of denmark.
>
Such as?
> As far as defense, the capability of a country to defend itself has
> never been a criteria for soverign status. If you think otherwise,
> lets see something to back that up.
>
I do not think that. I think, however, that sometimes existing
countries do
not recognize the claims of independence of local rulers, and if no
other
established country recognizes your independence, then your claim to
sovereignty is rather flimsy; and furthermore I believe that when no
other
country decides to recognize your claim, it might well be because your
supposed state is not feasible. And furthermore I think that one of
the
feasibility parameters is the capability for self-defense. Especially
during
a world war.
The Western Allies recognized the Polish provisional government after
WWI.
Poland was a feasible state and had military capability to speak of.
The
Western Allies, roughly at the same time, did not recognize each and
every
republic sprouting up in the ex-Czarist lands, even though they sent
troops
there.
>
>
> > Albania had been a semi-independent country - with no self-defense
> > capability.
>
> This is just not correct. Its a seperate discussion, but Italy
> invaded
> and occupied Albania. It was not a semi-independent country, it was
> a conquered country.
>
Formally independent, yes. But if Italy, instead of invading, had
severed
all of its economic ties to Albania, that country would have gone
bankrupt
in six months.
>
> > In other words, in those years being independent but lackingself-defense
> > capability was less than healthy for the independence. Even
countrieshaving
> > a much, much more significant self-defense capability than Icelandlost
> > their independence.
>
> This is totally confusing. You seem to be saying that any country
> not strong enough to take on germany should not be considered
> independent
> and any neturalty of said country should be ingored.
Of course not. I'm saying that being a weak neutral meant invasion by
Germany if a) it was in Germany's interest and b) Germany could pull
it off.
And I'm saying that since Germany had already violated the country
that was
responsible for Iceland's foreign policy and defense, Iceland's status
was
not so neatly set aside as you argue, neither as an independent
country nor
as an untouched neutral country.
A handful of men could be landed by u-boat, but a u-boat
> invasion
> conquering the island is almost silly. A handful of men without
> supplies
> or the ability of re-supply are not going to be able to conquer or
> hold
> Iceland for germany.
I never said that a handful of men from a U-Boot could conquer the
whole of
the island. I said they could find ways to exploit it short of total
conquest.
You claimed that the Icelanders acquiesced to the British (and then
US)
occupation because those were the men with guns, didn't you? Why
shouldn't
they acquiesce if the guns were held by Germans? Please don't tell me
that
the men from the U-Boot were too few. What if they showed up with a
couple
of Danish collaborationists who told the local Icelanders: "we run
things
now. If you don't comply, you are enemies, and your fishing boats will
be
considered as contributing to the enemy war effort - and the U-Boot
will
sink them".
Michele Armellini
"Georg Schwarz" <ge...@epost.de> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:4048235...@news.pacific.net.au...
> Michele Armellini <miarmelnientepubblicita'@tin.it> wrote:
>
> > In other words, in those years being independent but lacking
> > self-defense
> > capability was less than healthy for the independence. Even countries
> > having
> > a much, much more significant self-defense capability than Iceland
> > lost
> > their independence.
>
> if it was for that reasoning that the UK and US occupied Iceland they
> should surely have occupied Ireland, i.e. the Irish Free State, in the
> first place. To my knowledge the Irish Free State at that time did not
> have a very capable army, air force or navy, and due to simple
> geographical reasons it was definitely much more in danger of an Axis
> occupation than Iceland.
>
1. "not very capable an army, air force or navy" is different from no
army
or navy at all. I know almost nothing about the Irish armed forces of
the
time, but I wouldn't be surprised if they could deal with the same
very-low-level threat that the Germans could bring to Iceland - and
that the
Icelanders would be unable to cope with;
2. Ireland did not have another country run its foreign policy and
defense,
a country that had been conquered by the Germans.
Regards,
Michele Armellini
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@starcottDELETETHISBIT.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Let's recall that Germany had landed several divsions of
>troops in Norway in the face of British and French naval and
>air superiority and successfully repelled Anglo-French
>attempts to turn them out. While hindsight might suggest
>that a German invasion was impractical, at the time hard
>experience suggested otherwise.
>
Iceland, in contrast, is much too far for Axis air forces to be
used.
Nor is the geography the same. Norway is across a very narrow
stretch of water from Denmark, one that the Allies could penetrate
only at great risk. The only German force that went much beyond
that was the one landing at Narvik, which was carried by destroyers
that were subsequently destroyed in battle.
The Germans lost quite a few ships in this invasion.
Now, let's look at Iceland. The invasion force has to traverse a
long stretch of open ocean, with no Axis air support available.
There is a good chance it will be spotted en route, and if spotted
it will be destroyed. Assuming it arrives at Iceland, it can be
cut off from Germany with relative ease, and can be ousted almost
at will. There can't be enough troops to defend Iceland against
counterinvasion. Consider all the force Germany put into Norway
to stop counterinvasions, and that could be supplied over a
fairly short sea route.
Lance Visser
> My logic that they were waiting for the right time is based on the fact that
> they somehow had their hands a bit full with the Germans for some time after
> having defeated the Japanese at Khalkin-Gol. I think this isn't such a
> far-fetched idea. Are you arguing about that?
My logic that they were not waiting for the right time is based on certain
actions during the war and the negotiations that made with countries in
exchange for entering the war. When you say "I will enter the war if
you give me these territorial concessions", especially when some of
those concessions are coming from a country (China) you have no conflict
with, the border battles of five or six years before would not seem
to be on the agenda.
> In any case, I'm glad to see that you don't reply on the issue, and
> therefore accept it as a fact, that there was a de facto war between Japan
> and the Soviet Union since the Japanese aggressive moves of 1938-1939.
> Which, regardless of negotiations of concessions that took place later,
> makes the point of Japan being neutral towards the USSR very moot.
I would not make that assumption. In spite of 1938-39, you still have to
deal with the 1941 non-aggression pact signed between the USSR and Japan.
On a legal basis, signing the non-aggression agreement would seem to
void 1938-39 as a valid reason for war. I have not seen the exact terms
of the agreement in 1941. I think it ran to 1946, but I don't remember
exactly.
You can't use an event that happened previous to signing a non-aggresion
pact as a basis for a future war years later.
> Since you did not reply to the point about Bulgaria, I suppose you accepted
> that - and the same holds true for Japan.
My replying or not replying on any particular subject does not necessarly
suggest agreement or disagreement. I really have nothing to say more
about Bulgaria right now because its repeating what I've said before.
In addition, I'm required to either respond line-for-line with what you
have written or to chop the material I quote from you down. Sometimes
that requires cuts be made that I don't like, but I have no choice.
I don't agree with your idea that being at war with one country means
implicitly that a country can choose to be at war with other countries.
> OK, so it wasn't an independent country as long as it had a treaty forced on
> it, then it was an independent country and wanted out of the treaty.
More to the point, it did not negotiate the treaty that was forced upon
it while it was under the control of the british. And it did not want
the treaty after it gained independence. To have a treaty or a contract,
it requires two sides. There were not two sides negotiating that treaty.
--
David Thornley
Michele Armellini <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>
>You claimed that the Icelanders acquiesced to the British (and then
>US)
>occupation because those were the men with guns, didn't you? Why
>shouldn't
>they acquiesce if the guns were held by Germans? Please don't tell me
>that
>the men from the U-Boot were too few. What if they showed up with a
>couple
>of Danish collaborationists who told the local Icelanders: "we run
>things
>now. If you don't comply, you are enemies, and your fishing boats will
>be
>considered as contributing to the enemy war effort - and the U-Boot
>will
>sink them".
>
in Iceland? It would have to be a bit more covert than that, but
what were the British going to do to safeguard Icelandic fishing
boats from U-boats?
Moreover, given that collaborationists "ran things", what could they
have done with the power? Raise a flag and wait for the British to
land a battalion and imprison them? Appropriate the native oil
production, make diesel fuel in the Icelandic refineries, and
refuel U-boats? Send merchant ships past either Portsmouth or
Scapa Flow to supply things there?
It seems to me that any threat the Germans had that could be
handled by the British occupation forces could be handled by
the Icelanders themselves.
Lance Visser
> "Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
> news:4047234...@news.pacific.net.au...
>
> resolutions passed by the Althing were wishful thinking with nopractical
> means to be carried out. If you think they had the means to carry outa
> foreign policy and even a minimal defense, present your evidence.
1) Its insulting to suggest that Iceland incapable of carrying out
a foreign policy. They had a parlament, a cabinet and a host of
government officials to do whatever was necessary. Their reaction
in April is proof that the notion that they could do nothing
is just wrong.
2) As was presented in another message, Iceland had an armed coast
guard starting in 1920. That would seem to meet the criteria of
"even a minimal defense".
> > You are inventing criteria for soverignty that quite frankly didn't
> > exist then and didn't exist now.
> Recognition by other countries is and was considered a requisite for
> sovereignty.
And where is the evidence that Iceland was not recognized? You can't
imply recognition of a country by exchange of ambassidors or foriegn
relations because those formalities are not the same as recognition
of soverignty.
> Sure, because Denmark had reserved foreign policy and defense. And one
> might
> suppose *as long as* that arrangement was in place.
The words "denmark had reserved" are inconsistant with the form of the
treaty or the actual implementation of the union treaty. Iceland was
sovereign in every respect and had an independent coast guard starting
two years after the treaty.
> I believe among other things (but I do have the exact date)
> > that Iceland did set up a foriegn policy apperatus immediatly after
> > the fall of denmark.
> Such as?
The Althingi took full charge of the conduct of the country's foriegn
affairs on April 10, 1940. This was done at the same time that
the powers of the king were provisionally transferred to the cabinet
given that the king was a prisoner.
> Formally independent, yes. But if Italy, instead of invading, had severed
> all of its economic ties to Albania, that country would have gone bankrupt
> in six months.
If you use economics as a standard for determining the independence of
a country, your getting into really subjective definitions of soverignty.
As far as non-subjective grounds go, Albania was independent until the
Italian occupation.
> And I'm saying that since Germany had already violated the countrythat was
> responsible for Iceland's foreign policy and defense, Iceland's statuswas
> not so neatly set aside as you argue, neither as an independentcountry nor
> as an untouched neutral country.
And given that Iceland clarified the situation in rather absolute terms
one day after the occupation makes no difference? Iceland had no intention
of surrendering to germany or inviting a german occupation. Iceland had
no intention of treating a king in german captivity as a head of state
and immediatly took action. Where is the ambiguity exactly?
Who exactly was confused about Iceland's status? What about their
actions in April 1940 wasn't clear.
> I never said that a handful of men from a U-Boot could conquer the whole of
> the island. I said they could find ways to exploit it short of total conquest.
> You claimed that the Icelanders acquiesced to the British (and then US)
> occupation because those were the men with guns, didn't you? Why
> shouldn't
> they acquiesce if the guns were held by Germans?
Because the germans had no means of landing or supplying a force as large
as the British landed in Iceland in 1940. The only even halfway credible
invasion possibility offered is one by u-boat. it was too far for
airplanes and there is just simply no way that the german fleet could
sail all the way to iceland, land troops and secure the island and
survive.
Iceland made it clear in April that they were not going to cooperate with
the germans. The germans had no practical means of putting pressure on
them to make them cooperate. Its up to you to show how germany
could exploit the situation in some even half-way believable way.
If Iceland had been 50 miles from Norway, the calculations would all
be different. But Iceland is way out in the North Atlantic beyond
any reach of the germans short of sinking the royal navy or conquering
the british isles.
>Please don't tell me that
> the men from the U-Boot were too few. What if they showed up with a couple
> of Danish collaborationists who told the local Icelanders: "we run
> things now. If you don't comply, you are enemies, and your fishing boats will be
> considered as contributing to the enemy war effort - and the U-Boot will
> sink them".
I'm sorry but I will tell you that the idea of an invasion by u-boat isn't
even worth thinking about. A handful of men landed without supplies and
cut off from any possiblity of resupply are not going to be able to
conquer or hold the island. And if the germans did try, the presence or
non-presence of Danish collaboraters would be meaningless. The people
of Iceland were hardly going to listen to them nor would the british
be likely to sit back and respect such a government. The idea that
Denmark could control Iceland and its people like simple-minded puppets
is just not even worth discussing.
--
Georg Schwarz
> It did have an embassy in Copenhagen which opened in 1920.
what did that embassy do during the occupation of Denmark? Did it stay
open?
Andrew Clark
"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
> What Allied air superiority? The Allies were hard
> pressed by air.
Sorry, I ought to have said potential air superiority. The
British and French had 8 aircraft carriers; the Germans had
none. Britain and France had a far superior ability to
transport land-based squadrons to Norway by sea. And despite
these advantages, the Luftwaffe ruled supreme over Norway
for most of the short campaign.
> Iceland, in contrast, is much too far for Axis
> air forces to be used.
Iceland from Norway was well within combat range of
Luftwaffe medium bombers, twin engined fighters and
transport aircraft, and within ferry range of some
single-seat fighters. A parachute landing was quite feasible
given good weather.
> Nor is the geography the same. Norway is across a very
narrow
> stretch of water from Denmark, one that the Allies could
penetrate
> only at great risk. The only German force that went much
beyond
> that was the one landing at Narvik, which was carried by
destroyers
> that were subsequently destroyed in battle.
This isn't accurate. German forces landed by sea
simultaneously at Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen, Trondheim, and
Narvik. Only the former two ports are on the Skaggerak.
Given the relative superiority of the British and French
navies versus that of Germany, landings by sea north of
Bergen ought to have been impossible.
> The Germans lost quite a few ships in this invasion.
Indeed. Most of their surface navy, in fact, albeit
temporarily.
> Now, let's look at Iceland. The invasion force
> has to traverse a long stretch of open ocean, with
> no Axis air support available. There is a good
> chance it will be spotted en route, and if spotted
> it will be destroyed.
All of this was true for northern Norway.
> Assuming it arrives at Iceland, it can be
> cut off from Germany with relative ease,
> and can be ousted almost
> at will.
This was also said of northern Norway.
My point is not whether with hindsight we can argue that
occupation of Iceland was unnecessary, but whether, at the
time and on the available evidence, it was reasonable for
the British and US to consider it necessary to occupy
Iceland.
Louis Capdeboscq
> 1. The Head of State of Iceland was the Danish King
This also applies to Australia, so let's forget about this point from
now on.
> 2. The defence of Iceland was the formal responsibility of
> the Danish government by treaty
My understanding is that this was not so, that Iceland and Denmark had
a
joint defence. Again, the analogy would be with the British Dominions.
> 3. The foreign relationships of Iceland were the the formal
> responsibility of the Danish government by treaty
Assuming that to be correct, so what ? If there had been a risk that
Iceland would be ordered by the Danish government (now under German
control) to declare war on the UK, you might have a valid point.
However, Iceland immediately took over its own foreign policy, making
it
clear, after the occupation of Denmark and before the British
invasion,
that it was not going to collaborate with the Nazis simply because
Copenhagen might ask it to.
> 4. Iceland had no foreign office, no ambassadors and no
> formal diplomatic relations with other nations
Not before April 1940.
I'm not sure how valid that point is, however. Today, there are lots
of
states which don't have diplomatic representation in the UN. Would a
state that has no consulate in, say, Tonga islands, be entitled to
occupy the place ?
> 5. No other state recognised Iceland as a sovereign state
> separate to Denmark
Leaving aside the legal hair-splitting here (though I would tend
toward
Lance's interpretation here, too), so what ?
> These are all facts, not interpretations. In 1940, Iceland
> was not an independent sovereign state as that term was
> understood.
When in 1940 ? States become independent sovereign states when they
proclaim themselves to be so. Britain could simply have recognized the
independent Icelandic republic rather than invading.
This is all from a legal point of view, of course. Let me restate that
I
have no problem with the US/UK stepping on a few toes to win the
Battle
of the Atlantic. I just find your justification of the invasion of
Iceland to be strange.
> Let's recall that Germany had landed several divsions of
> troops in Norway in the face of British and French naval and
> air superiority and successfully repelled Anglo-French
> attempts to turn them out.
The Allies did not have air superiority in Norway, and they did turn
the
Germans out from Narvik. They would have finished them off had they
not
decided to reimbark, which had nothing to do with the local Germans
but
everything to do with the Battle of France and German air supremacy
over
Norway.
The RN could not operate easily off Norway, and interdicting the
Skaggerak, while effective, was very costly. Interdicting German sea
LOC's to Iceland would be far easier.
> While hindsight might suggest
> that a German invasion was impractical, at the time hard
> experience suggested otherwise.
What "hard experience" ? Battle of Britain experience had provided
excellent information on the range of the German planes. The Allies
knew
the Luftwaffe to be simply unable to support an invasion of Iceland.
> The Free State was heavily defended by sea and air against
> any sizable German landing by UK mainland forces and forces
> in Northern Ireland. It was felt at the time, in the light
> of the Norewegian example, that this degree of protection
> against a sizable German landing could not be achieved in
> respect of Iceland without occupation.
British forces in immediate reach of Iceland were of course far weaker
than British forces within reach of Ireland, however the German
ability
to make "a sizable landing" was also far more limited.
Do you mean that the British at the time considered a German invasion
of
Iceland to be a serious threat ? Have you, by any chance, an idea of
where to look up such considerations ? Collier ?
Michele Armellini
> "Michele Armellini" <miarmelnientepubblicita'@tin.it> wrote in message
news:<c1nta0$pce$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
>
> > My logic that they were waiting for the right time is based on the fact
that
> > they somehow had their hands a bit full with the Germans for some time
after
> > having defeated the Japanese at Khalkin-Gol. I think this isn't such a
> > far-fetched idea. Are you arguing about that?
>
> My logic that they were not waiting for the right time is based on certain
> actions during the war and the negotiations that made with countries in
> exchange for entering the war. When you say "I will enter the war if
> you give me these territorial concessions", especially when some of
> those concessions are coming from a country (China) you have no conflict
> with, the border battles of five or six years before would not seem
> to be on the agenda.
So if the USSR had been offered some Chinese territory in 1942, they
would
have happily gone to war with Japan at that time? All that mattered
was
getting those concessions, fighting for their survival much farther
West was
not an issue at all? I think you know the answer.
>
> > Since you did not reply to the point about Bulgaria, I suppose you
accepted
> > that - and the same holds true for Japan.
>
> My replying or not replying on any particular subject does not necessarly
> suggest agreement or disagreement. I really have nothing to say more
> about Bulgaria right now because its repeating what I've said before.
Fine.
>
> I don't agree with your idea that being at war with one country means
> implicitly that a country can choose to be at war with other countries.
That's not my idea at all. It's not a matter of "can choose". My idea
is
that if country A attacks and goes to war against country B, this
often, and
sometimes automatically means to be at war with countries C and D, if
B and
C and D are allies. This may well often require countries C and D to
declare
war on A, *but* this will not mean they are the "aggressors" of poor,
neutral, peace-loving country A. The aggressor is country A and most
definitely it's not a neutral.
Your idea that this is not true is somewhat revolutionary in the
history of
international relationships.
You try this in the 1970s: you are the Soviet Union and you attack
Western
Germany; meanwhile, you tell the rest of the NATO "oh, I'm not at war
with
you, I'm a neutral towards you, I'm only attacking Western Germany".
This is what you are proposing for Bulgaria and Japan in WWII. I'm not
surprised that nobody bought it at the time; I'm surprised that you
offer it
today.
Andrew Clark
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
> After the occupation of Denmark, Iceland transferred
> the powers of the head of state, in accordance
> with the law, to the cabinet of Iceland which
> given the circumstances of the King's captivity in
> Denmark it was entitled to do so constitutionally.
You seem to be gaining all your information from the
Icelandic government's English-language web site and from
other websites which quote from it. The actual
constitutional position was somewhat more complicated, as
explained in "Iceland and Its Alliances: Security for a
Small State" (Michael Corgan, Edwin Mellen 2003).
The Act of Union 1918 specifically reserved the foreign
relations and defence of Iceland to the Danish government,
and made no provision for the incapacity of the Danish Crown
or the invasion and occupation of Denmark. The Atheling's
action in 1940 was thus a direct breach of the Treaty and
was not constitutional, a fact which the website fails to
mention. As I have remarked before, this sort of breach of
the Treaty is precisely the sort of pretext which, the
British feared, might be exploited by the Germans to justify
their occupation of Iceland. Equally, as the action of the
Atheling in arrogating royal powers to the Icelandic
government was unconstitutional, Iceland could not
legitimately claim in 1940 to be an sovereign independent
nation with neutral status.
Now, unless you can produce some other academic source which
directly bears upon the matter of Icelandic sovereignty in
1940, I'm not minded to keep responding to your repetitive
assertions.
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>
>mention. As I have remarked before, this sort of breach of
>the Treaty is precisely the sort of pretext which, the
>British feared, might be exploited by the Germans to justify
>their occupation of Iceland. Equally, as the action of the
>Atheling in arrogating royal powers to the Icelandic
>government was unconstitutional, Iceland could not
>legitimately claim in 1940 to be an sovereign independent
>nation with neutral status.
*What* occupation of Iceland? Having some sort of legal claim
to occupy Iceland is irrelevant. What matters is whether the
Germans had the capability to do this, which they most
decidedly did not, and whether the locals were going to tolerate
it, and they had made it very clear that they were not. If
Iceland was willing to do unconstitutional things to make it
clear that they were not in any way on the German side,
shouldn't that be considered at least a hint?
Suppose I agree that you are completely right about the legalities,
and that Germany had a legal right to regulate Icelandic defense
and foreign policy. What does that matter? Germany had no way
to enforce this, and Iceland no desire to comply.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
--
Sigvaldi Eggertsson
> My point is not whether with hindsight we can argue that
> occupation of Iceland was unnecessary, but whether, at the
> time and on the available evidence, it was reasonable for
> the British and US to consider it necessary to occupy
> Iceland.
I fully agree with you that it was resonable and necessary for the UK
to occupy Iceland.
But I remain convinced that the UK was invading a sovereign and
independant nation doing that.
In war you have to do what you see as being necessary (invade Iceland,
sink the fleet of your allies etc) in order to survive.
--
Y. Macales
Just out of curiousity, why was it that the British declared war on
Finland and the Americans didn't? Do you know if there was
a US Embassy operating in Helsinki during the war? Actually, it
would be a good place to do intelligence work since Germany had
army and Luftwaffe units stationed in Finland during the war.
--
Michele Armellini
> "Michele Armellini" <miarmelnientepubblicita'@tin.it> wrote in message
news:<40445720...@news.pacific.net.au>...
> > "Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
> > news:4047234...@news.pacific.net.au...
> >
> > I'm not claiming it's a requisite for independence. I'm claiming thatthe
> > resolutions passed by the Althing were wishful thinking with nopractical
> > means to be carried out. If you think they had the means to carry outa
> > foreign policy and even a minimal defense, present your evidence.
>
> 1) Its insulting to suggest that Iceland incapable of carrying out
> a foreign policy. They had a parlament, a cabinet and a host of
> government officials to do whatever was necessary. Their reaction
> in April is proof that the notion that they could do nothing
> is just wrong.
Making declarations and passing resolutions is a good step - it's still
very, very different from *doing* something in a useful way, and from *being
able* to do something. San Marino declared its neutrality and stated it
would defend it. That's not what they did when their statements were
challenged in practice.
>
> > Sure, because Denmark had reserved foreign policy and defense. And one
> > might
> > suppose *as long as* that arrangement was in place.
>
> The words "denmark had reserved" are inconsistant with the form of the
> treaty or the actual implementation of the union treaty. Iceland was
> sovereign in every respect and had an independent coast guard starting
> two years after the treaty.
Who was footing the bill for that? Where had the vessels been built? By whom
were they manned? You see, even if the answers are "Iceland, in Iceland,
Icelanders", there still remains the little point that the defense policy
*was* carried out by Denmark, wasn't it? It's in that treaty.
Come on. Let's take your claim at face value. Suppose Iceland was indeed
able to carry out a foreign policy on its own, and a defense policy on its
own. Then, ask yourself why ... on earth ... it ... *didn't*. Why Denmark
did that, if Iceland was really capable of doing it?
>
> > I believe among other things (but I do have the exact date)
> > > that Iceland did set up a foriegn policy apperatus immediatly after
> > > the fall of denmark.
>
> > Such as?
>
> The Althingi took full charge of the conduct of the country's foriegn
> affairs on April 10, 1940. This was done at the same time that
> the powers of the king were provisionally transferred to the cabinet
> given that the king was a prisoner.
>
Again, see above. Stating intentions is not the same as implementing them,
or being able to.
> > Formally independent, yes. But if Italy, instead of invading, had
severed
> > all of its economic ties to Albania, that country would have gone
bankrupt
> > in six months.
>
> If you use economics as a standard for determining the independence of
> a country, your getting into really subjective definitions of soverignty.
> As far as non-subjective grounds go, Albania was independent until the
> Italian occupation.
>
Fine. Let's drop that. I was somewhat interested in practicalities, beyond
the polite figments. But let's agree that Albania was independent. It still
remains in the list of neutral countries that had no significant
self-defense capability. While I'm not claiming that this is a good reason
for more powerful countries at war to occupy them, it is a good reason to
see the Icelandic situation with concern. Especially considering its
relationship with occupied Denmark.
>
> > And I'm saying that since Germany had already violated the countrythat
was
> > responsible for Iceland's foreign policy and defense, Iceland's
statuswas
> > not so neatly set aside as you argue, neither as an independentcountry
nor
> > as an untouched neutral country.
>
> And given that Iceland clarified the situation in rather absolute terms
> one day after the occupation makes no difference? Iceland had no
intention
> of surrendering to germany or inviting a german occupation. Iceland had
> no intention of treating a king in german captivity as a head of state
> and immediatly took action. Where is the ambiguity exactly?
>
> Who exactly was confused about Iceland's status? What about their
> actions in April 1940 wasn't clear.
Status: it was an independent country - whose foreign policy and defense had
been carried out by another country. This is not exactly the benchmark of
independent countries. What country had carried out Iceland's foreign policy
and defense? A country now occupied by the enemy. No, I don't see it as a
nice and clear-cut case.
Actions: its ability to carry out real *actions* in order to implement its
stated intentions was rather unclear.
>
>
> > I never said that a handful of men from a U-Boot could conquer the whole
of
> > the island. I said they could find ways to exploit it short of total
conquest.
> > You claimed that the Icelanders acquiesced to the British (and then US)
> > occupation because those were the men with guns, didn't you? Why
> > shouldn't
> > they acquiesce if the guns were held by Germans?
>
> Because the germans had no means of landing or supplying a force as large
> as the British landed in Iceland in 1940. The only even halfway credible
> invasion possibility offered is one by u-boat. it was too far for
> airplanes and there is just simply no way that the german fleet could
> sail all the way to iceland, land troops and secure the island and
> survive.
>
See Andrew Clark's replies.
>
> >Please don't tell me that
> > the men from the U-Boot were too few. What if they showed up with a
couple
> > of Danish collaborationists who told the local Icelanders: "we run
> > things now. If you don't comply, you are enemies, and your fishing boats
will be
> > considered as contributing to the enemy war effort - and the U-Boot will
> > sink them".
>
> I'm sorry but I will tell you that the idea of an invasion by u-boat isn't
> even worth thinking about. A handful of men landed without supplies and
> cut off from any possiblity of resupply are not going to be able to
> conquer or hold the island. And if the germans did try, the presence or
> non-presence of Danish collaboraters would be meaningless. The people
> of Iceland were hardly going to listen to them nor would the british
> be likely to sit back and respect such a government. The idea that
> Denmark could control Iceland and its people like simple-minded puppets
> is just not even worth discussing.
> --
It's you who stated that the Icelanders obeyed the British like
simple-minded puppets.
Certainly the British could and did land an overwhelming force; but a couple
of German subs could very well apply sufficient force, if they threatened to
starve the population by sinking the fishing boats. There would be no need
to occupy the whole island, as I have repeated several times.
So, either the Icelanders are simple-minded puppets in the face of Germans
and Danish collaborationists, too, which makes the hypothetical scenario
above a danger (if not now with hindsight, then certainly at the time) or
they aren't simple-minded puppets in the face of the British either - which
means that their welcoming the British and US help, and the establishment of
the Republic later on, were not what you would like to believe they were.
--
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>> What Allied air superiority? The Allies were hard
>> pressed by air.
>
>Sorry, I ought to have said potential air superiority. The
>British and French had 8 aircraft carriers; the Germans had
>none.
Hardly matters. Norway was close enough to Germany for land-based
air to be effective, and Germany had plenty of that.
Britain and France had a far superior ability to
>transport land-based squadrons to Norway by sea.
Irrelevant, since the Germans didn't have to transport their squadrons
overseas. They needed to supply them over the Skaggerak, which is
not quite the same thing.
And despite
>these advantages, the Luftwaffe ruled supreme over Norway
>for most of the short campaign.
>
Which should show that the Luftwaffe benefitted greatly from
the fact that Norway is physically near Denmark and Germany.
>> Iceland, in contrast, is much too far for Axis
>> air forces to be used.
>
>Iceland from Norway was well within combat range of
>Luftwaffe medium bombers, twin engined fighters and
>transport aircraft, and within ferry range of some
>single-seat fighters. A parachute landing was quite feasible
>given good weather.
>
Okay, looking in the atlas, it appears to me that the closest
distance from Iceland to Norway is about 650 miles. Let's look
at some German aircraft ranges and see how they compare to
1300 miles.
He 111: maximum range in the 1000-1200 mile range
Do 17: under 1000 miles as bomber, about 1300 as reconnaisance
Ju 88: maximum range about 1700 miles
Ju 52: normal range well under 1000 miles
Bf 110: maximum range about 700 miles
In short, the Ju 88 is the only one of these with the range, and
that's probably not carrying any actual bombs. An airlanding
could only take place by having and operating an airfield or
by sacrificing the aircraft.
Bf 109: maximum range about 400-500 miles, so it might well
be possible to ferry them to Iceland.
I'm not aware of large airfield complexes on the Norwegian coast
between Trondheim and Bergen, and if we measure to actual Norwegian
major cities we start adding on the miles. Moreover, this is the
eastern part of Iceland, the part which is extremely rugged and
often impassible.
In short, your claim is groundless, and you may want to retract it.
>> Nor is the geography the same. Norway is across a very
>narrow
>> stretch of water from Denmark, one that the Allies could
>
>This isn't accurate. German forces landed by sea
>simultaneously at Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen, Trondheim, and
>Narvik. Only the former two ports are on the Skaggerak.
Right, but Bergen isn't far from it. Trondheim was more of
a stretch, but it was reachable without really going far into
the North Sea. Narvik was the exception. The Narvik force
was transported by destroyer, and that destroyer force was
lost due to British action.
>Given the relative superiority of the British and French
>navies versus that of Germany, landings by sea north of
>Bergen ought to have been impossible.
>
Really? The Germans were able to cling to the east side of the North
Sea.
>> Now, let's look at Iceland. The invasion force
>> has to traverse a long stretch of open ocean, with
>> no Axis air support available. There is a good
>> chance it will be spotted en route, and if spotted
>> it will be destroyed.
>
>All of this was true for northern Norway.
>
Nope.
The invasion force never had to get far from land. It was supportable
by German land-based air.
>> Assuming it arrives at Iceland, it can be
>> cut off from Germany with relative ease,
>> and can be ousted almost
>> at will.
>
>This was also said of northern Norway.
>
One issue with Norway was that it was very heavily garrisoned, with
German occupying forces comprising about 5% of the total population.
Another was that it was considered a dead end.
>My point is not whether with hindsight we can argue that
>occupation of Iceland was unnecessary, but whether, at the
>time and on the available evidence, it was reasonable for
>the British and US to consider it necessary to occupy
>Iceland.
>
Right. So far, nobody has shown that to my satisfaction.
The British had some experience with sea power by that time
in history.
Lance Visser
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
> You seem to be gaining all your information from the
> Icelandic government's English-language web site and from
> other websites which quote from it. The actual
> constitutional position was somewhat more complicated, as
> explained in "Iceland and Its Alliances: Security for a
> Small State" (Michael Corgan, Edwin Mellen 2003).
>
> The Act of Union 1918 specifically reserved the foreign
> relations and defence of Iceland to the Danish government,
Except that Iceland had a coast guard since 1920 that was
armed.
Except that Iceland actually operated a full embassy in Denmark.
Except that the official views of the government of Iceland don't
agree with your source. (if your source agrees with you).
> and made no provision for the incapacity of the Danish Crown
> or the invasion and occupation of Denmark.
Quote? Where does your source make that conclusion?
>The Atheling's
> action in 1940 was thus a direct breach of the Treaty and
> was not constitutional, a fact which the website fails to
> mention.
Your saying that someone outside Iceland knows more about
what was consitutional in Iceland than the government of
Iceland itself.
>As I have remarked before, this sort of breach of
> the Treaty is precisely the sort of pretext which, the
> British feared, might be exploited by the Germans to justify
> their occupation of Iceland.
And has been said to you before, the germans needed no pretext
to invade Iceland. Had they been capable of it, they would have
given such a thing as much consideration as they did to their
occupation of Denmark. The German threat to Iceland is related
to their actual capability to reach out into the north atlantic
that far. They could not.
>Equally, as the action of the
> Atheling in arrogating royal powers to the Icelandic
> government was unconstitutional, Iceland could not
> legitimately claim in 1940 to be an sovereign independent
> nation with neutral status.
I've produced multiple sources to validate the claim that
Iceland was soverign in 1918. I have not seen anything
that makes a case that Iceland was not soverign or that
its actions in 1940 were considered unconsitutional.
> Now, unless you can produce some other academic source which
> directly bears upon the matter of Icelandic sovereignty in
> 1940, I'm not minded to keep responding to your repetitive
> assertions.
I guess it will have to end there then. Because I can't think
of anything more authoritative than the government of Iceland
and the views of the foriegn service of Iceland on the subject.
To take this any further would require that I spend significant
amounts of time to go out and get the relivant documents (in English)
including the treaty of union and the primary legal documents of
Iceland. I dont intend to do that because I've seen zero credible
evidence to suggest that I would find anything different than what
I have already seen.
The fact that you have not even quoted from your source doesn't
lend any support to the stream of wrong statements being made.
Lance Visser
> > "Michele Armellini" <miarmelnientepubblicita'@tin.it> wrote in message
> very, very different from *doing* something in a useful way, and from *being
> able* to do something. San Marino declared its neutrality and stated it
> would defend it. That's not what they did when their statements were
> challenged in practice.
The power of a country has nothing to do with the decision of if a country
is independent or not. Most of the countries in europe could not stand
up to the german army or could do so at best in a useless way (Denmark).
That does not mean that they are not independent countries.
> > The words "denmark had reserved" are inconsistant with the form of the
> > treaty or the actual implementation of the union treaty. Iceland was
> > sovereign in every respect and had an independent coast guard starting
> > two years after the treaty.
>
> Who was footing the bill for that? Where had the vessels been built? By whom
> were they manned? You see, even if the answers are "Iceland, in Iceland,
> Icelanders", there still remains the little point that the defense policy
> *was* carried out by Denmark, wasn't it?
Iceland formed an armed coast guard itself in 1920
that was responsible to Iceland. Repeating *your* statement that "defense
policy was carried out by Denmark" is meaningless given the existance of
the coast proves that the statement is factually wrong.
Now you can ask for more proof in the form of raising questions about who
paid for what, but I'm not inclined at this point to launch a research
project to gather that sort of detailed information when I don't see anyone
else around here putting that kind of effort in.
> It's in that treaty.
> Come on. Let's take your claim at face value. Suppose Iceland was indeed
> able to carry out a foreign policy on its own, and a defense policy on its
> own. Then, ask yourself why ... on earth ... it ... *didn't*. Why Denmark
> did that, if Iceland was really capable of doing it?
It did so in April 1940. It took on part of its own defense by having
an armed coast guard as early as 1920. I'm having difficultly taking any
of your claims at face value because there are no facts to back them up.
You twist soverignty to mean whatever you need it to mean at the time. You
invent whatever standard is necessary to make iceland less than a country
regardless of weither than standard existed or anyone at the time (including
Iceland) agreed with your ideas.
> Again, see above. Stating intentions is not the same as implementing them,
> or being able to.
Again, there is precident for saying that only strong countries are real
countries. There is no standard to say that Luxemborg is less than a
country because it could not defeat germany in a war. Capacity for
war is not the standard for considering countries to be soverign.
>
> Fine. Let's drop that. I was somewhat interested in practicalities, beyond
> the polite figments. But let's agree that Albania was independent. It still
> remains in the list of neutral countries that had no significant
> self-defense capability. While I'm not claiming that this is a good reason
> for more powerful countries at war to occupy them, it is a good reason to
> see the Icelandic situation with concern. Especially considering its
> relationship with occupied Denmark.
And as I've said before, its silly to think that Iceland was full of stupid
people who were going to follow the orders of the King of Denmark or any
orders coming from Denmark. The day after the occupation of Denmark, their
government made it abundantly clear what their relationship with occupied
denmark would be (none).
The germans didn't need a complex claim on Iceland based on the king of
Denmark because if they could have invaded, they would have invaded and
not have concerned themselves about legalities anymore than they did in
the case of Denmark itself.
>
> Status: it was an independent country - whose foreign policy and defense had
> been carried out by another country. This is not exactly the benchmark of
> independent countries. What country had carried out Iceland's foreign policy
> and defense? A country now occupied by the enemy. No, I don't see it as a
> nice and clear-cut case.
You can make up any standard you wish to deny that Iceland was an independent
country, but there is nothing to support such a claim other than inventing
criteria that did not exist.
In the case of defense, you are wrong. Having an armed coast guard since
1920 means that Iceland was not the helpless country you have been portraying
with no defensive capability at all. You can now invent new criteria to
say that an armed coast guard isn't a defense or that somehow it doesn't
count, but you can't do away with the fact that Iceland initiated a coast
guard itself which makes the claim that it had no power over defense
utterly false.
> Actions: its ability to carry out real *actions* in order to implement its
> stated intentions was rather unclear.
Norway and Denmark could not carry out actions any more *real* in the end
than Iceland. Were they not independent?
Iceland had a functioning government and through an armed coast guard of
its own a modest ability to defend itself. As diplomatic relations have
never been a standard for soverignty, the lack of ambassidors in other
countries is not a meaningful criteria.
> > Because the germans had no means of landing or supplying a force as large
> > as the British landed in Iceland in 1940. The only even halfway credible
> > invasion possibility offered is one by u-boat. it was too far for
> > airplanes and there is just simply no way that the german fleet could
> > sail all the way to iceland, land troops and secure the island and
> > survive.
> >
>
> See Andrew Clark's replies.
The germans in 1940, short of major changes on the british side, had no
means of invading iceland. The aircraft do not have the range, the german
navy could not sail past northern scotland without being sunk and the island
could not be supplied even if german soldiers appeared there. Its just too
far.
I suppose naive people can start quoting maximum ranges on aircraft without
understanding the carrying capacity or routes or time over target for
fighters, but its all absurd.
If you want to compare norway, where the germans lost most of their fleet
and the invasion was only saved by air superiority from ground-based planes,
with Iceland out in the middle of the atlantic your not going to make
a credible case.
--
Geoffrey Sinclair
>In article <404cef92...@news.pacific.net.au>,
>Andrew Clark <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>>
>>mention. As I have remarked before, this sort of breach of
>>the Treaty is precisely the sort of pretext which, the
>>British feared, might be exploited by the Germans to justify
>>Atheling in arrogating royal powers to the Icelandic
>>government was unconstitutional, Iceland could not
>>legitimately claim in 1940 to be an sovereign independent
>>nation with neutral status.
>
>to occupy Iceland is irrelevant. What matters is whether the
>Germans had the capability to do this, which they most
>decidedly did not, and whether the locals were going to tolerate
>it, and they had made it very clear that they were not. If
>Iceland was willing to do unconstitutional things to make it
>clear that they were not in any way on the German side,
>shouldn't that be considered at least a hint?
By the looks of it Reykjavik is around 900 miles from Norwegian
airbases. This is out of range of JU52s so airlift would require the
few Fw200s or improvisation with He111s, with the latter having the
problem of finding fuel to return. If the Germans controlled Iceland
it would appear they could have flown some of the Bf110D models
to the island, those with the correct external fuel tanks.
The island is clearly within range of the Kreigsmarine. During the
1940/41 period both Hipper and Sheer went out into the Atlantic
and back again, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau went out, having to
wait a while after being detected on their first attempt. Bismarck
and Prinz Eugen made it to the Denmark strait before being
detected. There were plenty of German supply ships ready to
support the Bismarck, think of how long Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
cruised the Atlantic.
Narvik is around 1,100 miles from Wilhelmshaven.
Also add 5 of the disguised merchant raiders.
It is obvious should Britain stay in the war the Germans cannot hold
Iceland for any length of time.
It is not so obvious that in mid 1940 with much of the RN tied down
in anti invasion work, that the British could have stopped the Germans
taking Iceland in a similar manner to Norway. After all Oslo's airport
was taken by Bf110s, using their rear gunner machine guns, Iceland
did not have a large army. Add a regiment shipped by warship and
a load of avgas for a Bf110 Gruppe and Fw200 reconnaissance
aircraft and the British are faced with needing to mount a counter
invasion, while keeping forces to oppose any German invasion of
Britain in place. With the possibility the weather and troop availability
would mean such a counter invasion would have to wait until mid 1941.
Given the resistance the Icelanders could have put up and British
strength available it was possible the Germans could successfully
invade Iceland in mid 1940. Whether it would be worth it is another
matter, most probably depending on how the Battle of Britain went.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
--
Michele Armellini
>
> Your saying that someone outside Iceland knows more about
> what was consitutional in Iceland than the government of
> Iceland itself.
Do you really believe government sources always tell the truth?
Haven't you
ever noticed that sometimes they offer slightly embellished versions
of the
facts?
>
> I guess it will have to end there then. Because I can't think
> of anything more authoritative than the government of Iceland
> and the views of the foriegn service of Iceland on the subject.
Then you will have noticed that the same source doesn't agree with
your
views about the arrival of Allied troops and the establishment of the
Republic in 1944. So that source is right and unquestionable when it
agrees
with you, otherwise it's wrong?
Andrew Clark
"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
> *What* occupation of Iceland?
Sorry (again) - a potential German invasion is what I meant.
> Having some sort of legal claim to occupy Iceland
> is irrelevant. What matters is whether the
> Germans had the capability to do this, which
> they most decidedly did not, and whether the
> locals were going to tolerate it, and they
> had made it very clear that they were not.
I'm not sure this is so clear cut. A German occupation with
arguable legality might well enable a degree of Vichy-like
divided loyalty on the part of the authorities and
collaborationist support from the population. This would
certainly make the occupation easier for the Germans by
tending to undercut resistance. Having an arguable legal
claim to occupation would also help German diplomatic
relations with other neutrals and indeed with US opinion.
> If Iceland was willing to do unconstitutional things
> to make it clear that they were not in any way
> on the German side, shouldn't that be considered
> at least a hint?
I think it is unwise to reason from a decision by the
Icelandic leadership, fiercely pro-independence from
Denmark, to assume greater domestic powers to the existence
of an anti-German attitude in Iceland. Iceland might, for
example, be willing to cooperate with Germany over the
basing of U-boats on its territory in return for German
sponsored full independence from Denmark, just as
historically Iceland was willing in 1944 to cooperate with
the US in return for US-sponsored independence.
(snip repetition)
Andrew Clark
"Lance Visser" <lvi...@chiaro.com> wrote
> Except that Iceland had a coast guard since 1920
> that was armed.
By 1925, Iceland had three civilian fishery protection
vessels, armed with a single 47mm gun and small arms, to
patrol Icelandic three-mile territorial waters and prevent
fish poaching by, mainly, British trawler fleets. This was,
to repeat, a civilian service with an economic, not
military, purpose. Its existence confirms, not denies,
Iceland's limited sovereignty and reliance on Denmark for
defence and foreign relations.
> Except that Iceland actually operated a full embassy
> in Denmark.
The Icelandic office in Copenhagen was termed an embassy,
but it wasn't an embassy as that term is usually understood.
> Except that the official views of the government of
> Iceland don't agree with your source.
To be precise, the summary of the history of Iceland posted
on the Iceland tourist website doesn't agree with an
academic source. To repeat, unless you can produce some
other academic source which directly bears upon the matter
of Icelandic sovereignty in 1940, I'm not minded to keep
responding to your repetitive assertions.
> Your saying that someone outside Iceland
> knows more about what was consitutional
> in Iceland than the government of
> Iceland itself.
I'm saying that governments and peoples often spin the facts
to suit themselves, and that this is particularly so in
matters of "national pride".
> And has been said to you before, the germans needed no
pretext
> to invade Iceland.
See my post to David Thornley. Having a arguably legal
reason to invade Iceland was worth a lot to Germany in 1940.
(snip remaining)
Andrew Clark
"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
> Which should show that the Luftwaffe benefitted
> greatly from the fact that Norway is physically
> near Denmark and Germany.
I agree. But the German invasion plan was not in reality a
step by step approach moving north from the Skaggerak
coastline under air cover ferried *from* Denmark, but a
daring series of sea and airborne landings on the major
coastal towns and cities of Norway *simultaneous with* the
invasion of Denmark. Such a plan, particularly in northern
Norway, was in theory quite untenable in the light of
British sea and carrier-borne air superiority in the North
Sea. That shock, of being beaten at sea by the Kriegsmarine,
was a major psychological blow to the British - for obvious
reasons - and one of the main reasons why Chamberlain met
with such Parliamentary opposition. The RN in home waters
had to be supreme.
(space snip)
> In short, your claim is groundless, and you may want to
retract it.
It was quite possible for the Kriegsmarine to land a small
force at Reykjavik, seize the airfield, then for the
Luftwaffe to fly in aircraft from Bardufoss on a one way
trip. This is what I meant, not that the Luftwaffe would fly
combat patrols over Iceland from Norway.
> Right, but Bergen isn't far from it.
Bergen is 200 miles north of the Josenfjord at the opening
of the Skaggerak. 200 miles is quite a long way.
> Trondheim was more of
> a stretch, but it was reachable without
> really going far into
> the North Sea.
Trondheim is about 450 miles north of the Josenfjord at the
opening of the Skaggerak. 450 miles is certainly a very long
way.
> Narvik was the exception. The Narvik force
> was transported by destroyer, and that destroyer
> force was lost due to British action.
But not in the landing operation on 9 April. In fact, two RN
destroyers were sunk by the KM destroyers ferrying troops to
Narvik. It was not until 10-13 April that the KM destroyer
force was sunk, shortly before the Anglo-French landing on
15 April. Had the KM force withdrawn after making the
landing it would have survived. The parallel with a descent
at Reykjavik is quite close.
> Nope.
> The invasion force never had to get far from land.
> It was supportable
> by German land-based air.
I'm afraid not. The landing forces had to penetrate hundreds
of miles of RN-dominated waters without any air support and
then hold off determined Allied attacks for in some cases
four weeks until German land-based troops and aircraft could
filter north from Oslo.
> Right. So far, nobody has shown that to my satisfaction.
> The British had some experience with sea power by that
time
> in history.
The Norwegian campaign proved that the Wehrmacht could
penetrate hundreds of miles into waters dominated by the RN
and land fairly large bodies of troops which are quickly
reinforced by air support from local airfields. The lesson
for Iceland (and indeed for the UK mainland) was clear: give
these people an opportunity and they will take it. It was
clearly potentially within Whereat capabilities to land a
force on Iceland, fly aircraft into support it and generally
establish a garrison which would be troublesome to remove at
a time when forces were stretched elsewhere. There was an
arguable case that Germany could use with other nations that
this action would be legal under international law.
A pre-emptive occupation of Iceland by the British was
clearly the best option in the circumstances.
Lance Visser
> By 1925, Iceland had three civilian fishery protection
> vessels, armed with a single 47mm gun and small arms, to
> patrol Icelandic three-mile territorial waters and prevent
> fish poaching by, mainly, British trawler fleets. This was,
> to repeat, a civilian service with an economic, not
> military, purpose. Its existence confirms, not denies,
> Iceland's limited sovereignty and reliance on Denmark for
> defence and foreign relations.
I'm sorry, but an armed coast guard consitutes a military
capability. An armed force of boats with guns is an armed
force with guns no matter how you wish to twist words like
"economic" and "civilian" to make it mean something else.
Armed boats with guns are armed boats with guns and they are
not consistant with the helpless image of Iceland that
has been painted by some. An armed force operating under
a government (A coast guard) is a military force. The motives
for operating such a force (economics) and the terms of service
(civil) dont change the fact that the country is operating armed
boats.
> > Except that Iceland actually operated a full embassy
> > in Denmark.
>
> The Icelandic office in Copenhagen was termed an embassy,
> but it wasn't an embassy as that term is usually understood.
So it was an embassy and called an embassy but it wasn't
an embassy. It was an embassy as far both governments were
concerned.
> > Except that the official views of the government of
> > Iceland don't agree with your source.
>
> To be precise, the summary of the history of Iceland posted
> on the Iceland tourist website doesn't agree with an
> academic source. To repeat, unless you can produce some
> other academic source which directly bears upon the matter
> of Icelandic sovereignty in 1940, I'm not minded to keep
> responding to your repetitive assertions.
To be even more precise, MENTIONING THE TITLE OF A BOOK PROVES
NOTHING. IF YOU HAVE A POINT TO MAKE QUOTE YOUR SOURCE RATHER
THAN PRESENT A BOOK TITLE AS IF THE TITLE ALONE VALIDATES THE
POINTS YOU ARE MAKING. If you have quoted from the book, I have
not seen it.
> > Your saying that someone outside Iceland
> > knows more about what was consitutional
> > in Iceland than the government of
> > Iceland itself.
>
> I'm saying that governments and peoples often spin the facts
> to suit themselves, and that this is particularly so in
> matters of "national pride".
Every source has its biases. But if you consider the government
of Iceland not any sort of authority on its own constitution, your
going to have a difficult time finding a better authority.
To make the case that Iceland isn't the authority, your going to have
to have a book that actually presents as source material the treaty
of union, the fundemental legal documents of Iceland and Denmark and
have the book written by someone who has the academic background in
constitutional law to make conclusions based on those documents.
You can't just grab any old book written by someone at a university
and claim its authortative. Its only authoritative based on who
wrote the document, what sources they have available and what
their qualfications in a particular subject area are.
> > And has been said to you before, the germans needed no
> pretext
> > to invade Iceland.
>
> See my post to David Thornley. Having a arguably legal
> reason to invade Iceland was worth a lot to Germany in 1940.
And I would repeat, what do the germans care about a legal pretext
after they have invaded and conquered Denmark without one? If the
germans had the ability to conquer Iceland, they would have. Legal
pretext in the case of the germans would mean nothing except
perhaps propoganda in places like eastern europe.
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>> *What* occupation of Iceland?
>
>Sorry (again) - a potential German invasion is what I meant.
>
>I'm not sure this is so clear cut. A German occupation with
>arguable legality might well enable a degree of Vichy-like
>divided loyalty on the part of the authorities and
>collaborationist support from the population.
Except that the Icelandic authorities took immediate steps to
prevent this. They explicitly rejected Danish authority once
the Germans moved into Denmark. They were determined to reject
any possible legality Germany might take advantage of.
>tending to undercut resistance. Having an arguable legal
>claim to occupation would also help German diplomatic
>relations with other neutrals and indeed with US opinion.
>
Not if the people of Iceland were firmly set against it.
>I think it is unwise to reason from a decision by the
>Icelandic leadership, fiercely pro-independence from
>Denmark, to assume greater domestic powers to the existence
>of an anti-German attitude in Iceland.
It was a rejection of any possible German authority derived
from the conquest of Denmark. The timing makes it very, very
clear.
Iceland might, for
>example, be willing to cooperate with Germany over the
>basing of U-boats on its territory in return for German
>sponsored full independence from Denmark,
What would Icelandic basing of U-boats do for the Germans?
Iceland couldn't supply diesel fuel or torpedoes in any
quantities. It would, moreover, be very risky for Iceland
to do this. If they were caught, which was very likely,
they would be in gross violation of the rights and duties of
neutrals.
If Germany was seen as more likely to control the North Atlantic
than the British, that just might have been seen as worth the
risk. If the Allies were to control the North Atlantic, which
seems a much better bet, then Iceland would be better off going
along with the Allies, trading (say) basing rights for recognition
of Icelandic independence.
Louis Capdeboscq
> The Atheling's action in 1940 was thus a direct breach of the
Treaty
> and was not constitutional, a fact which the website fails to
> mention. As I have remarked before, this sort of breach of
> the Treaty is precisely the sort of pretext which, the
> British feared, might be exploited by the Germans to justify
> their occupation of Iceland. Equally, as the action of the
> Atheling in arrogating royal powers to the Icelandic
> government was unconstitutional, Iceland could not
> legitimately claim in 1940 to be an sovereign independent
> nation with neutral status.
Firstly, I will point out that many nations emerge from
unconstitutional
acts. Although the Vichy regime was, at least initially,
constitutional,
most regime changes are unconstitutional (the examples that I can
think
of are either pre-1918 or post-1945 and therefore off-topic)
The world at large doesn't much care about constitutional law. I have
seen argued the constitutionality of Vichy both ways, the point
remains
that it was the legitimate French government until the Allies decided
not to recognize it as such any longer (after Torch).
The Atheling's action exploited a gap in the constitution, and could
be
made constitutional by simply recognizing its sovereignty, and
therefore
its right to rewrite its own constitution. That was a political
decision
which was but for the British and/or Americans to take, rather than
invasion.
Ditto with breach of the Treaty as a legal pretext for German
intervention. The German invasion of Denmark was illegal. Just because
Germany invaded Denmark, it had a legal claim on the Danish colonies
(assuming Iceland was one) ? I'm sure that neither Churchill nor
Roosevelt would have found it very difficult to push an different
legal
interpretation of the matter.
Therefore I believe that 1/ the constitutional character (or lack
thereof) of the Icelandic independence was not a good reason for
British
intervention, and 2/ Germany had no legal grounds to gain control of
Iceland (and even if it had, all it would take for Britain would be to
recognize Iceland as an independent sovereign state, after all it did
recognize De Gaulle who was anything but constitutional).
My conclusion is therefore that the British decided not to take any
chances about the possibility that the Germans might be able to walk
on
water. Those wanting to criticize that and similar British actions
(Iceland, Operation Catapult, Madagascar...) will say that they were
simply panic moves, while those approving of them will say that they
were wise precautionary actions - why take chances when you can afford
not to ?
However I still have a question. Your own justification aside, is
there
a source that the British at the time seriously considered that 1/
Iceland was not a sovereign nation, 2/ a German invasion or takeover
attempt was possible, and 3/ Germany might have legal justifications
in
such a case, and that these were the reasons why Iceland was invaded /
occupied ? I would be very interested in such accounts. Meanwhile, I
will refresh my memory on what Churchill has to say about it.
LC
Louis Capdeboscq
> Sorry, I ought to have said potential air superiority. The
> British and French had 8 aircraft carriers; the Germans had
> none. Britain and France had a far superior ability to
> transport land-based squadrons to Norway by sea.
8 aircraft carriers mean a top figure of some 300 mostly inferior
aircraft, less if you want the carriers are to retain a limited
ability
to defend themselves.
That is far from "potential air superiority". As David noted, the
Allies
had a far superior ability to transport land-based squadrons to Norway
by sea, but so what ? The Germans could simply fly the aircraft to
Norway. And they had the better airbases, too.
> And despite
> these advantages, the Luftwaffe ruled supreme over Norway
> for most of the short campaign.
...which shows that these advantages were not important, and therefore
that listing them was largely irrelevant to the real issues involved.
A
few qualifiers to the 8:0 carrier comparison would be (in no
particular
order)
- the fact that not all Allied carriers were available, or deployed
where they could operate near Norway, at least initially. It took
Germany a couple of days to gain airbases from which they could fly
planes directly to Norway.
- the fact that Germany was in range of the best Norwegian airbases,
which it could quickly reinforce by air. The Allies arrived later
(because sea transport is slower than air transport) so they had to
build their own airfields.
- the fact that Germany could bring to bear more and better aircraft
than the Allies could deploy by using their carriers.
These in my opinion are more important than a count of available
carriers. The decisive factor was that Norway - and especially the
best
airbases - was well within the German air umbrella, but out of direct
RAF operating range (appart from a few harrassment raids by unescorted
bombers or by inferior carrier aircraft).
>>Iceland, in contrast, is much too far for Axis
>>air forces to be used.
>
> Iceland from Norway was well within combat range of
> Luftwaffe medium bombers, twin engined fighters and
> transport aircraft, and within ferry range of some
> single-seat fighters. A parachute landing was quite feasible
> given good weather.
I disagree. Iceland from Norway was a long distance over water, which
meant reduced air activity (range reduces the number of sorties),
higher
operational losses, problems with navigation, detection, etc. More
importantly, Iceland was _not_ within combat range of Norway-based
fighters, which means that British aircraft carriers could
successfully
contest air superiority (as they did over northern Norway initially).
> This isn't accurate. German forces landed by sea
> simultaneously at Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen, Trondheim, and
> Narvik. Only the former two ports are on the Skaggerak.
> Given the relative superiority of the British and French
> navies versus that of Germany, landings by sea north of
> Bergen ought to have been impossible.
You miss the point.
The Germans managed to slip a force through the Allied loose blockade,
using protected waters (i.e. sailing some of the transports in
Norwegian
territorial waters as "neutral civilian ships") and distance from
British bases. The equation would be far less favorable for an
invasion
of Norway.
More importantly, the whole idea behind the landings was that this was
a
sort of commando operation, not an amphibious assault like the later
Allied ones were. Germany could not support the landed forces, and
relied on overland advances to do so. The Narvik destroyers were sunk
because they did not have the fuel to make the return trip, and the
tankers which were supposed to resupply them had been sunk or
captured.
Other German forces, e.g. at Bergen, had the same problem, like air
units running very low on fuel and bomb inventories. These problems
were
solved by a combination of three factors: 1/ some of the German supply
ships managed to evade Allied interception and make it to their
destination (or an alternate, more urgent one) taking advantage of
Norwegian coastal waters, 2/ the Luftwaffe could run an emergency
airlift from German-controlled airbases, and 3/ the German overland
advance pushed the air umbrella steadily northward.
None of these factors would be present in the case of an Icelandic
operation. German supply ships could not hide in coastal waters, and
could not seek the protection of neutral territorial waters. The
Luftwaffe could not operate an effective airlift over that distance,
which was greater than for the Stalingrad airlift, and their operating
bases (in Norway) would be inadequate in the first place. Finally,
there
would be no "cavalry" to relieve the German raiding forces.
If you take Narvik as a comparison, the facts are that the Germans
managed to surprise the Allies and slip a force to Narvik. However,
the
naval component of that force was largely destroyed, and the land
component was rooted out of its objective, because of the superior
Allied sea transport capability which you mentioned above. The Allied
then evacuated Narvik because the German overland advance from the
south
made enemy air superiority inevitable. Had the Germans landed in
Iceland, they _might_ have managed to put a few men ashore, but after
a
few days/weeks these would have been rooted out as there was no way
for
Germany to resupply and reinforce them.
>>Now, let's look at Iceland. The invasion force
>>has to traverse a long stretch of open ocean, with
>>no Axis air support available. There is a good
>>chance it will be spotted en route, and if spotted
>>it will be destroyed.
>
> All of this was true for northern Norway.
No.
The invasion force did not cross open ocean for northern Norway, and
some critical elements of the German plan involved "neutral"
"civilian"
merchant shipping to carry troops and supply. That's not going to
happen
for Iceland.
>>Assuming it arrives at Iceland, it can be
>>cut off from Germany with relative ease,
>>and can be ousted almost
>>at will.
>
> This was also said of northern Norway.
It was true of northern Norway, until the Germans managed to advance
on
the ground to a point which was within fighter combat range.
As I don't see a similar peninsula stretching from Norway to Iceland,
I
have to conclude that the fate of such an operation would be the same
as
that of Narvik until the cavalry arrived.
> My point is not whether with hindsight we can argue that
> occupation of Iceland was unnecessary, but whether, at the
> time and on the available evidence, it was reasonable for
> the British and US to consider it necessary to occupy
> Iceland.
At the time and on the available evidence, there was no way that the
Germans were going to land in Iceland, and no way that the Japanese
were
going to capture Madagascar.
On the other head, it's much easier to make such a cool analysis when
you're not staking your country's existence on the results. Therefore
the British overreacted. That's fine, other countries did it, too, and
you and I would probably have acted the same under the circumstances.
Let's just not invent a completely nonexistant invasion threat to
retroactively justify the move.
Louis
Georg Schwarz
> The German invasion of Denmark was illegal.
no doubt about that.
The question which comes to my mind, following the discussion re. the
occupation of Iceland, is:
Germany justified her invasion of Norway and Denmark with the claim
that
the British were about to do the same thing so they had to act (in
fact
Britain on her way to Norway to land some troops).
Now isn't that similar reasoning as Britain's re. her occupation of
Iceland (except that Germany was far away from sending any troops, but
let's ignore that for the moment)?
Andrew Clark
"Louis Capdeboscq" <loui...@yahoo.com> wrote
> Firstly, I will point out that many nations
> emerge from unconstitutional acts.
Of course, and indeed almost by definition. I'm not really
concerned with the emergence of the Icelandic Republic per
se, but with the narrower question of whether, in 1940, it
is justified to say that Iceland was a sovereign neutral
state.
(space snips of agreed stuff)
> Therefore I believe that 1/ the constitutional
> character (or lack thereof) of the Icelandic
> independence was not a good reason for
> British intervention,
I'm not, I think, arguing that it was. I'm arguing against
the previous poster's assertion that Iceland in 1940 was a
sovereign neutral state invaded by the UK. Britain's
occupation of Iceland was purely for reasons of
self-interest, but the uncertain constitutional status of
Iceland at the time made the occupation something short of
an invasion of a sovereign neutral state.
> and 2/ Germany had no legal grounds to
> gain control of Iceland
Germany had an arguable legal case which would be to
Germany's benefit in its diplomatic relations. I share your
view that the case probably wasn't sound, but that isn't the
point I'm making.
(snip agreed stuff)
> However I still have a question. Your own justification
> aside, is there a source that the British at the time
> seriously considered that 1/ Iceland was not a sovereign
> nation, 2/ a German invasion or takeover
> attempt was possible, and 3/ Germany might
> have legal justifications in
> such a case,
See "Iceland and Its Alliances: Security for a Small State"
(Michael Corgan, Edwin Mellen 2003), previously cited.
> and that these were the reasons why
> Iceland was invaded.
As stated above, Britain's occupation of Iceland was purely
for reasons of self-interest.
> Meanwhile, I will refresh my memory on
> what Churchill has to say about it.
"It has been said that 'wheover possesses Iceland holds a
pistol firmly pointed at England, America and Canada'. It
was upon this thought that, with the concurrence of its
people, we had occupied Iceland when Denmark was overrun in
1940" - The Grand Alliance, Chapter 8.
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>> Which should show that the Luftwaffe benefitted
>> greatly from the fact that Norway is physically
>> near Denmark and Germany.
>
>I agree. But the German invasion plan was not in reality a
>step by step approach moving north from the Skaggerak
>coastline under air cover ferried *from* Denmark,
Correct. A step by step approach would have worked, at least
as far north as Trondheim (although staged landings outside
the Skaggerak would not have worked), but it's not what the
Germans did. However, that is sort of the way the Germans got
air power to cover the invasion: across from Denmark, and up
Norway. They didn't have any other way, and it proved sufficient.
>invasion of Denmark. Such a plan, particularly in northern
>Norway, was in theory quite untenable in the light of
>British sea and carrier-borne air superiority in the North
>Sea.
Provided the British were patrolling out there. There was no
particular reason for the RN to be going around the coast of
Norway, and it isn't real close to the vital British shipping
routes.
>> In short, your claim is groundless, and you may want to
>retract it.
>
>It was quite possible for the Kriegsmarine to land a small
>force at Reykjavik,
Possible in the sense that it might work. The force would have
to be transported over the high seas, and the ships would
probably be sunk. The idea in the invasion of Narvik was not,
I think, to lose all the German destroyers involved, but once
the RN decided it was going to take them down there wasn't much
the Germans could do about it.
However, I don't see how the Germans could have any confidence that
they could get a small force that far. If spotted, it was doomed.
seize the airfield, then for the
>Luftwaffe to fly in aircraft from Bardufoss on a one way
>trip. This is what I meant, not that the Luftwaffe would fly
>combat patrols over Iceland from Norway.
>
Okay. And what would the Germans gain from this?
The air bases in Norway could be supplied through the Skaggerak
ports. That was a fairly safe supply route. There would be no
way for the Germans to supply air forces operating out of Iceland.
Such air forces could use local supplies (which would presumably
not include bombs or torpedoes), what was carried on the warships
transporting the force (nothing large), and what could be flown
in.
Not to mention we're talking about *long* flights over water,
which would be a new and not entirely welcome thing for a
Europe-based air force, and operations from Iceland would also
require a good deal of over-water flying. I'm not at all convinced
that the Luftwaffe was up to that at that tim.
>> Right, but Bergen isn't far from it.
>
>Bergen is 200 miles north of the Josenfjord at the opening
>of the Skaggerak. 200 miles is quite a long way.
>
I don't know offhand what the Germans were using for transports,
but if they could make ten knots that's less than a day's steaming.
>> Trondheim was more of
>> a stretch, but it was reachable without
>> really going far into
>> the North Sea.
>
>Trondheim is about 450 miles north of the Josenfjord at the
>opening of the Skaggerak. 450 miles is certainly a very long
>way.
>
At ten knots, less than two days. At six knots, a bit over three.
Unless the British were mounting frequent patrols around Norway,
it would be reasonable to expect the transports to not get seen.
The 450 miles is a definite handicap in case the British intercept,
of course.
>> Narvik was the exception. The Narvik force
>> was transported by destroyer, and that destroyer
>> force was lost due to British action.
>
>But not in the landing operation on 9 April.
So? It was sunk during the course of the operations. Similarly,
any KM warships transporting stuff to Iceland were in great danger
of simply being lost, and that would be a bad thing for the KM.
It worked, didn't it?
>> Right. So far, nobody has shown that to my satisfaction.
>> The British had some experience with sea power by that
>time
>> in history.
>
>The Norwegian campaign proved that the Wehrmacht could
>penetrate hundreds of miles into waters dominated by the RN
>and land fairly large bodies of troops which are quickly
>reinforced by air support from local airfields.
Which would be a lot less possible in Iceland.
>A pre-emptive occupation of Iceland by the British was
>clearly the best option in the circumstances.
>
Only in Iceland? Shouldn't the British have been conducting
preemptive occupations all over the place? Consider Ireland.
It wasn't quite disarmed, but it was closer to German bases,
and the Irish army was very small.
David Thornley
Louis Capdeboscq <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>
>On the other head, it's much easier to make such a cool analysis when
>you're not staking your country's existence on the results. Therefore
>the British overreacted. That's fine, other countries did it, too, and
>you and I would probably have acted the same under the circumstances.
>
>Let's just not invent a completely nonexistant invasion threat to
>retroactively justify the move.
>
useful in the Battle of the Atlantic, and the not-completely-clear
constitutional status of Iceland meant that Churchill could go
ahead with the occupation with enough obfuscation so it didn't
look too bad in the US.
I don't know offhand why the British occupied Iceland, but this looks
like a possible reason. Another, as Louis suggests, is that the
British got a bit panicky and overreacted, and as he points out
this sort of thing does happen when national survival is on the
line.
Georg Schwarz
> Germans did. However, that is sort of the way the Germans got
> air power to cover the invasion: across from Denmark, and up
> Norway. They didn't have any other way, and it proved sufficient.
an interesting article on operation Weser=FCbung can be found here:
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/jfq1301.pdf
--=20
Lance Visser
news:<40546f15...@news.pacific.net.au>...
> In article <40507710...@news.pacific.net.au>,
> Louis Capdeboscq <ww2...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> >
> >On the other head, it's much easier to make such a cool analysis when
> >you're not staking your country's existence on the results. Therefore
> >the British overreacted. That's fine, other countries did it, too, and
> >you and I would probably have acted the same under the circumstances.
> >
> >Let's just not invent a completely nonexistant invasion threat to
> >retroactively justify the move.
> >
> Right. We should also note that Icelandic airbases were extremely
> useful in the Battle of the Atlantic, and the not-completely-clear
> constitutional status of Iceland meant that Churchill could go
> ahead with the occupation with enough obfuscation so it didn't
> look too bad in the US.
It was never really an issue in the US as far as I've ever seen in
documents. As far as I know, the notions
of "obfuscation" as to the constitutional status of Iceland never
really
came up in the US. Iceland, in the US, was usually sold as being part
of the
outer defenses of North America with the additional reasoning being
that it was too weak to defend itself.
When the americans stationed troops in Iceland under FDR (taking over
from the british), FDR's message made that very clear:
"This Government will insure the adequate defense of Iceland with full
recognition of the independence of Iceland as a sovereign state."
(July 7, 1941)
The US role in Iceland was always conducted with recognition of
Iceland
and agreements negotiated with Iceland. The conditions under which
the agreements were negotiated and Iceland's ability to freely
negotiate
after the british occupation can be disputed of course.
> I don't know offhand why the British occupied Iceland, but this looks
> like a possible reason. Another, as Louis suggests, is that the
> British got a bit panicky and overreacted, and as he points out
> this sort of thing does happen when national survival is on the
> line.
As far as I know, the planning for the occupation of Iceland came out
of Churchill's Admiralty. The Foriegn office objected to the
operation,
but the Cabinet was won over to doing the invasion. There are always
multiple people involved in these decisions and while I would tend to
agree that at the level of the Cabinet, panic and overreaction were
involved, I think there was calculation on the usefulness of Iceland
at the Admiralty and possibly other places.
Given Churchill's style of decision-making and tendancy to say one
thing
while doing another, I've found it very difficult to pin down real
motives
for many things he was involved in. Sometimes he just seemed to
develop strong opinions and acted on them. The underestimation and
slow response time to the german moves north into Norway could
certainly
have created doubt in any opinions as to what was possible or
impossible
in the case of an invasion of Iceland.
The RAF was evaluating Iceland's value as a base as early as 1938.
(See
AIR 2/3610 "Report on the visit by Mr. Gage as to the value of Iceland
as
an RAF base in time of war".)
The Army and Royal Navy on the other hand seemed to show little
interest
in Iceland until May 1940.
Louis Capdeboscq
> Germany justified her invasion of Norway and Denmark with the claim
> that the British were about to do the same thing so they had to act
> (in fact Britain on her way to Norway to land some troops).
As a matter of fact, I don't think that there were British troops on
the
way when Germany launched Weseruebung.
I would also note that 1/ those troops which the Allies did think of
sending - when they could make up their minds about it - were not
tasked
for an occupation of Norway, but "only" for a partial one (not a
justification), and 2/ the Allies move was itself a riposte to
repeated
violations of Norwegian territorial waters by the Germans (not a
justification either). None of these were, to my knowledge, the case
regarding Norway, i.e. the British were not abusing Icelandic neutral
rights and a German invasion, had it been planned (which as far as I
know it was not), would have been the real thing.
But I see your point: preemptive invasion is no justification in
either
case, and I tend to agree.
> Now isn't that similar reasoning as Britain's re. her occupation of
> Iceland (except that Germany was far away from sending any troops, but
> let's ignore that for the moment)?
Yes, absolutely. That's why I and many others have been rather puzzled
by what appeared to be Andrew Clark's attempts to claim it wasn't in
fact an invasion, until Andrew in one of his latest posts wrote that
he
hadn't in fact claimed that.
I will add that for a comparison one would have to ignore quite a few
things besides the fact that Germany was not planning an invasion of
Iceland, namely 1/ occupation of Iceland was temporary, the Allies
planned to (and in fact did) move out after the war, while the Germans
were in Denmark and Norway to stay, 2/ the diplomatic excuse
(preempting
an enemy invasion) was the same but not the reasoning. The British
occupied Iceland because they didn't want to take chances, while the
German invasion of Denmark & Norway was simply moved ahead. The
Germans
intended to invade anyway, fears of Allied landings simply gave the
matter a greater urgency.
Louis