How Morgenthau came to the conclusion that France and Great Britain were acting out of moral and legal obligation to help Finland, and not out of self-interest is not clear. See for example Wikipedia on the Winter War: "Within a month, the Soviet leadership began to consider abandoning the operation and Finland's government was approached with preliminary peace feelers (via Sweden's government), first on January 29. Until then, Finland had factually fought for its existence. When credible rumours of this reached the governments in Paris and London, the incentives for military support were dramatically changed. Now Finland fought "only" to keep as much as possible of its territory that lay near Leningrad. To maintain public opinion, though, none of this information was publicized â?? neither in Finland, nor abroad. Finland's fight remained considered a life and death struggle. "In February 1940, the Allies offered to help: the Allied plan, approved on February 5 by the Allied High Command, consisted of 100,000 British and 35,000 French troops that were to disembark at the Norwegian port of Narvik and support Finland via Sweden while securing the supply routes along the way. The plan was agreed to be launched on March 20 under the condition that the Finns plead for help. On March 2, transit rights were officially requested from the governments of Norway and Sweden. It was hoped this would eventually bring the two still neutral Nordic countries, Norway and Sweden to the Allied side â?? by strengthening their positions against Germany, although Hitler had, by December declared to the Swedish government that Western troops on Swedish soil would immediately provoke a German invasion, which in practice meant that Nazi Germany would take the populated southern part of Scandinavia while France and Britain would fight in the furthest North. "However, only a small fraction of the Western troops were intended for Finland. Proposals to enter Finland directly, via the ice-free harbour of Petsamo, had been dismissed. There were suspicions that the objective of the operation was to capture and occupy the Norwegian shipping harbour of Narvik and the vast mountainous areas of the North-Swedish iron ore fields, from which the Third Reich received a large share of its iron ore, critical to war production. If Franco-British troops moved to halt export to Germany, the area could become a battleground for the armies of the Allies and the Third Reich. As a consequence, Norway and Sweden denied transit. Only after the war did it become known that the commander of the Allied expedition force was actually instructed to avoid combat contact with the Soviet troops. "The Franco-British plan initially hoped to capture all of Scandinavia north of a line Stockholmâ??Göteborg or Stockholmâ??Oslo, i.e. the British concept of the Lake line following the lakes of Mälaren, Hjälmaren, and Vänern, which would contribute with good natural defence some 1,700â??1,900 kilometres south for Narvik. The expected frontier, the Lake line, involved not only Sweden's two largest cities, but its consequence was that the homes of the vast majority of the Swedes would be either Nazi-occupied or in the war zone. Later, the ambition was lowered to only the northern half of Sweden and the rather narrow adjacent Norwegian coast. "The Swedish government, headed by Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson, declined to allow transit of armed troops through Swedish territory. Although Sweden had not declared itself neutral in the Winter War, it was neutral in the war involving France, Britain, and Germany. Granting transit rights to a Franco-British corps was at that time considered too great a departure from international laws on neutrality. "The Swedish Cabinet also decided to reject repeated pleas from the Finns for regular Swedish troops to be deployed in Finland, and in the end the Swedes also made it clear that their support in arms and munitions could not be maintained for much longer. Diplomatically, Finland was squeezed between Allied hopes for a prolonged war and Scandinavian fears of a continued war spreading to neighbouring countries (or of the surge of refugees that might result from a Finnish defeat). Also, the Wilhelmstrasse was offering distinct advice for peace and concessions â?? the Germans suggested that concessions "could always later be mended." "While Berlin and Stockholm pressured Helsinki to accept peace on bad conditions, Paris and London had the opposite objective. From time to time, different plans and figures were presented for the Finns. To start with, France and Britain promised to send 20,000 men to arrive by the end of February, although under the implicit condition that on their way to Finland they were given opportunity to occupy North-Scandinavia. "By the end of February, Finland's Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Mannerheim, was pessimistic about the military situation. Therefore, on February 29 the government decided to start peace negotiations. That same day, the Soviets commenced an attack against Viipuri. "When France and Britain realized that Finland was seriously considering a peace treaty, they gave a new offer for help: 50,000 men were to be sent, if Finland asked for help before March 12. Only 6,000 of these would have actually been destined for Finland. The rest were intended to secure harbours, roads and iron ore fields on the way. "Despite the feeble forces that would have reached Finland, intelligence about the plans reached the Soviet Union and contributed heavily to their decision to sign the armistice ending the war. It is argued that without the threat of Allied intervention, nothing would have eventually stopped the Soviets from conquering all of Finland by sheer mass and seemingly endless reserve troops." Cheers, Teemu Helsinki, Finland __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html