LONDON, 26 April 1940

As I was so concerned at the War Cabinet decision to withdraw from
North and South of Trondheim, I went to see Hankey to urge upon
him the necessity of the matter being further examined to see if
nothing could be done to save the position.

I put to him as strongly as I could what I believed to have been
the effect of what amounted to the abandonment of Southern Norway.

I stressed the blow to the Allies' prestige and the corresponding
increase in Hitler's prestige; the probability of Mussolini, who
was only waiting to see the result of the Allied action in Norway,
coming into the war on the German side; the slide that would take
place in South Eastern Europe; the doubts which I feel as to
whether Turkey in this new situation would be able to stand up to
her obligations to the Allies-in fact I used every argument I
could think of to bring home to Hankey how seriously I regarded
the decision that had been taken.

Hankey admitted that the results of the withdrawal would be most
serious but said that there was no possibility of reversing it. He
said that he had always believed that we should have concentrated
first on Southern Norway in preference to Narvik, and that we
should have attempted a frontal attack by the Navy on Trondheim.

These statements were interesting and rather amusing in view of
the fact that a fortnight ago I had been to Hankey and urged these
very things upon him.

He expressed the view that he did not think Mussolini would come
in, and rather suggested that even if he did we would be able to
cope with Italy without suggesting how exactly we were going to do
it. His attitude was very much that in the last war we were
subjected to innumerable reverses and that we had to expect the
same thing in the present war.

While I agreed that that might be so I urged that that in no way
excused lack of thought and vision. I also put to him my anxieties
with regard to Narvik and our position there. He said nothing to
comfort me on this point but reiterated the importance of our
holding Narvik vis-a-vis the Gallivare iron ore supplies.

When I pressed him as to what our forces at Narvik could do to
interfere with the German supplies once Lulea was open he did not
appear, to me to have thought the question out very thoroughly. He
urged that we with a strong air force at Narvik could bomb Lulea
and the German ships in the Gulf of Bothnia.

I pointed out that we could do this only by infringing Swedish
neutrality and to this he had nothing satisfactory to say in
reply.

From my conversation with Hankey I got the impression that nothing
could be done to alter the decision and that in any event Hankey
was not the man to get it altered.