BRITAIN AND FRANCE had supplied weapons to Finland and contemplated attacking a strategic vulnerability—the insatiable thirst for oil—of both the Soviets and their trade partners the Germans, with whom the Western powers were at war. In what was designated Operation Pike, the idea emerged to launch air raids using airfields in Syria, Turkey, and Iran to obliterate the rigs, refineries, and storage tanks in Soviet Baku, Grozny, and Batum. The British put out rumors that the plans were afoot, evidently in part to distract the Soviets from possible Western operations planned to defend Scandinavia, but the Royal Air Force did not undertake reconnaissance flights over the intended Caucasus targets until after Finland had capitulated. Of course, any Western bombing of Baku might have backfired, rendering the perennial British-French accusation—that the USSR and Nazi Germany were in alliance—into a reality. Be that as it may, Pike never occurred.3 A French threat to intervene militarily on Finland’s behalf had never materialized, either: Daladier had once more left the key decision to Chamberlain, and when nothing came of it, the French leader resigned. The upshot was the worst of all worlds: Stalin had escaped without damage, but with his profound distrust of the British and French reinforced.4
Hitler, in April 1940, had occupied Norway and Denmark with relative ease, protecting his vital raw material imports from Sweden. On April 9 in Norway, Major Vidkun Quisling seized power in a Nazi-backed coup d’état. Nazi assertions that the Wehrmacht had been compelled to seize these countries to protect them from British-French violations of their neutrality were repeated in the Soviet press. Molotov voiced Soviet approval of the Nazi occupation of Denmark and Norway to Schulenburg, wishing Germany a complete victory in these “defensive measures.” The British, he added, “have gone too far.”5 Similarly, Zhdanov, on April 13, stressed that “from the USSR’s point of view,” it was “more pleasant, useful, and valuable to have nearby not the anti-Soviet Anglo-French allies who intended to attack either Germany or Leningrad, but a country that is in friendly relations with us.”6 Four days later, at a meeting with the high command, Stalin complained of Britain and France that “they are, you know, fighting a war over there, but it is a weak war; either they are in combat or they are playing cards. They might suddenly make peace.”7
Stalin and his minions were dead wrong on the latter point. On May 10, 1940, Germany smashed into the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, on a path to France. Luxembourg effectively did not oppose the German occupation, while the Netherlands capitulated on May 15; the Belgians did so slightly later (without even consulting their French allies). Such was “the peace” between the Nazis and the Western powers: further conquests by Hitler.8 A disgraced Chamberlain announced his resignation to the cabinet. His fate had been sealed with the abysmal failed defense of Norway, which had sparked a searing debate in the House of Commons on May 7–8. (One conservative MP had admonished him, “In the name of God, go.”) No one had contributed more to Britain’s Norway debacle than Winston Churchill, who, as first lord of the Admiralty, was responsible for naval operations. But aided by Conservative rebels, Churchill outmaneuvered his main Tory party rival, foreign secretary Viscount Halifax (a member of the House of Lords, not the Commons), and got himself named the prime minister of a new coalition government with Labour.