Northern European Overture to War offers an international perspective on the diplomatic and military factors that shaped the course of events in Northern Europe as the region became increasingly drawn into the wider great power war.

List of Illustrations ix List of Contributors xi Introduction ... 1 Michael H. Clemmesen and Marcus S. Faulkner PART I : THE GREAT POWERS AND THEIR APPROACHES TO THE REGION Containment and Cold War before the Nuclear Age: The Phoney War as Allied Strategy According to Liddell Hart ... 9 Azar Gat Responding with Kindness or in Kind? On Conceptions of War and the Democracies’ Responses to Military Threats ... 23 Jeppe Plenge Trautner The Only British Advantage: Sea Power and Strategy, September 1939–June 1940 ... 45 Andrew Lambert The Soviet Policy towards the Baltic States in 1939–41 ... 75 Boris Vadimovich Sokolov Soviet Naval Perceptions of the Baltic Sea, 1938–41 ... 91 Gunnar Åselius The Long and Winding Road to Weserübung ... 115 Michael Epkenhans Slipping into the War: German Naval Strategy between 1920 and 1940 ... 129 Jörg Hillmann PART II: THE FOURTH PARTITION OF POLAND-LITHUANIA AND OTHER EFFECTS OF THE MOLOTOV-RIBBENTROP PACT The Lithuanian Reaction to the Loss of Klaipėda and the Combined Gift of Soviet “Security Assistance” and Vilnius ... 167 Česlovas Laurinavičius Polish Perceptions of the Strategic Situation on the Eve of the Second World War ... 189 Sławomir Dębski Government and Public Reaction in Estonia to Soviet Pressure and the Events of September–December 1939 ... 209 Magnus Ilmjärv Responses During the First Months of the Second World War: The Latvian Government, Army, Society and the Finnish Winter War ... 229 Valters Ščerbinskis PART III: SCANDINAVIA AND WESERÜBUNG Norway and the Withering League of Nations ... 249 Karl Erik Haug A German Menace to Norway: The Evolution of Threat Perceptions and Strategy between the Wars ... 271 Tom Kristiansen The Strategic Considerations and Actions of the Danish Commanding Admiral in the Years before the German Occupation in 1940 ... 295 Hans Christian Bjerg The Armoured Commerce Raider: The Concept that Guided German Naval Lobbying for Control of Norway ... 307 Michael H. Clemmesen Unternehmen Weserübung April 1940: The German and Allied Strategy and Operational Approaches in Northern Europe 1939–40 ... 331 Werner Rahn (in cooperation with Milan Vego) British Operational Responses to German Control of Denmark and Norway, April 1940–June 1941 ... 361 Marcus S. Faulkner The Two Norways, 1940–41 ... 383 Ole Kristian Grimnes PART IV: THE FINAL MONTHS OF SOVIET GEOSTRATEGIC PREPARATIONS Soviet Military Preparations in Estonia during the Year before Barbarossa ... 405 Toomas Hiio Swedish Responses to Soviet Moves East of the Baltic Sea: The Baltic States in Swedish Military Planning, 1939–41 ... 433 Lars Ericson Wolke PART V: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY Weserübung in German and Norwegian Historiography ... 449 Rolf Hobson Conspiracy, Guilt and Rationality: The Memory and History of the German Military Occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940 ... 465 Palle Roslyng-Jensen Problems of Baltic Historiography, 1939–41 ... 491 Alfred Erich Senn Index of Names ... 511