One War for Two

One War for Two?

Chill winds and a new fear swept across Europe last week. Ice spread in the Gulf of Bothnia like ink across a blotter. Along the Westwall it was too cold to fight hard. Dirty ice formed on the Danube, and Rome shivered under sharp blasts from the Apennines.

But far more bitter than the cold was a glacial realization which last week for the first time crushed Europe's capitals, big and small: the Continent was on the brink of a general war which might engulf even the most unwilling neutrals. Two wars--Allies v. Germany, Finland v. Russia--seemed dangerously close to merging and swallowing all of Scandinavia.

Small nations, some fear-ridden, some defiant and cocksure, boasted of preparedness. The Netherlands, Rumania warned aggressors away. Hungary edged closer to Italy. Least was said in Scandinavia, which was most squarely on the spot.

The immediate danger to Scandinavia rolled up swiftly like a thundercloud. No Scandinavian head has lain entirely easy since Russia attacked Finland, but the new danger sprang indirectly from a humanitarian impulse. The world's heart had gone out to the Finns, and nation after nation put out a helping hand. Sooner or later Germany was certain to grow uneasy because of this world hostility to her quasi ally, Russia.

Last week Germany awoke when Neville Chamberlain sent a telegram to Secretary General Joseph A. C. Avenol of the League of Nations. In accordance with the League resolution to help Finland, he said, Britain intended "to afford the Finnish Government all the assistance she is in a position to give. She already is taking necessary steps to this end."

Next day a German Foreign Office spokesman tried to be jocular about it. "Germany won't object," he said, "if Britain sends Finland some old cannon from the Tower of London, or gives the Finns the same assistance she gave the Poles. But"--his voice hardened--"active assistance is another matter." Then Germany apparently began to realize how active, and how worldwide, outside assistance not only to Finland, but to Scandinavia in general, had become. Here was a new Spain. Help reported last week:

>> As advisers and to plan for possible future collaboration, 2,000 Italian military experts, a body of French engineers, a British mission were at work. The British were said to be at Goteborg, Sweden, to examine the chances of landing British troops in Sweden via the Skaggerak.

>> To speed up material aid to Finland, Sweden sent in armaments, Britain prepared to replenish Swedish arsenals thus depleted.

>> France was said to be ready to send 10,000 Alpine chasseurs, skilled in ski warfare.

>> Sweden continued to pour in men, released from Sweden's standing Army and allowed to volunteer for Finland.

>> Uruguay prepared to ship rice, shoes, woolens, food. The U. S. raised (up to last week) $538,000 for relief in Finland.

As they do when nervous, Nazis grew sarcastic. "What a sum!" commented Deutscher Dienst on a $100,000 relief installment from the U. S. "Not even a whole airplane; just the left wing of a bomber."

Germany herself was in a spot, for she can hardly afford to let the world, particularly the Allies, join in beating up Russia. Her only means of preventing help to the Finns is herself to invade the Scandinavian countries, which not only are Finland's first-line supporters but lie across all the routes through which aid can reach the Finns (see map).

To invade Scandinavia is something that Germany cannot well look forward to. Berlin, comparatively safe from bombing raids from London, lies less than a Bristol-Blenheim hour from Sweden. Germany's lifeblood supply of Swedish iron ore, most of which has been going out by Narvik (now subject to the Allied blockade), and much of which Britain preempted by purchase fortnight ago, might all be lost if the Allies go to the aid of an invaded Sweden. That would be the end of the traditional Scandinavian-German friendship.

If they help the Finns the Allies are also virtually throwing down the gauntlet to Russia. Still smarting from the League expulsion and from the withdrawal from Moscow of both the British and Italian Ambassadors, the hypersensitive Soviet Union last week received news from London of a forthcoming British White Paper explaining the breakdown of Allied-Russian negotiations last summer. It was said to be so strong that cessation of Allied-Russian diplomatic relations might result.

All this called for an answer from Germany and Russia, who now, willy-nilly had a sort of military alliance on their hands. Germany spoke to Scandinavia, roughly: All assistance and abetting of assistance to Finland must cease, or else Scandinavia would become a bloody battlefield.

Presumably this threat was a bluff. Germany could easily march through flat Denmark, might with difficulty cross the Danish islands and make a landing near Malmo, would then have no trouble advancing through Sweden's flat maritime provinces. But when the force reached Sweden's lakes and mountains, just as rough and even more heavily wooded than Finland's, the drive would be halted and a new front formed by Sweden's well-disciplined, well-armed force, backed by Norway, Britain, France. To the new front the Allies could send reinforcements through ports on the deeply indented, ice-free Norwegian coast.

Whether either Germany or the Allies will want to take the risk of opening such a new front is still a question for armchair strategists. Last week grimmest possibility was that war may come to Scandinavia, although both sides would rather dodge it. The Scandinavians certainly do not want the Finns to be beaten, and the Germans would rather not have Russia lose.

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