Chapter 454: Iceland

London, England. Perhaps this city would soon become German London, but at least in Churchill’s heart, it would always be the London of Britain. Churchill stood at the entrance of the basement, looking at the black smoke rising from an exploding shell in the distance, at the rubble at his feet, and at the three British officers who had been hanged a few steps away.

The bodies of the three men hung from a lamppost, with signs that read “I AM A COWARD” hanging from their chests. These officers were men who had attempted to flee or had retreated and lost their positions. But the key point was not that they were truly cowardly, but that they had questioned Churchill’s leadership. The moment they received His Majesty the King’s telegram, they had wanted to overthrow Churchill’s authority, but Churchill had detected their plot in advance and had had them hanged.

Now, Churchill’s word was still law in southern England, because most of those who remained were his confidants and die-hard loyalists. They publicly declared that the King’s order was a fake, that the radio broadcasts had been taken over by the Germans, and they incited the people to continue resisting to the last moment. But with the battered southern regions of England, how could they possibly stand against the hundreds of thousands of troops of the German Army Group A, backed by the full might of Germany?

Defeat, for the current Churchill, was only a matter of time. He turned his head and looked at the few soldiers following behind him. He pointed dejectedly at the three bodies and said, “Take them down. Find a cemetery and give them a proper burial.”

The gray sky of London made one feel nostalgic. Churchill gave a bitter smile, watching his soldiers clumsily untie the ropes from the lamppost and take down the bodies. He suddenly felt that he shouldn’t have complained in the past about London’s sky always being gray. Because even a gray sky, it seemed, the sky of one’s homeland, was more beautiful than the sky of a conquered land.

But he had no time for sentimentality, because another round of German artillery fire had begun. Escorted by several soldiers and officers, he returned once more to the dim basement, back to the cruel reality. The German army was only 700 meters away from his location in a straight line. At this distance, even a 60mm mortar could easily fire on them.

“Prime Minister… we don’t have to be trapped here. If you are willing, we can leave soon and go to Brighton. We can board a ship in the southern region and then retreat to the southwest, to the Cornwall Peninsula,” an officer behind Churchill suggested. “As long as we shorten our defensive front, with the forces we have now, holding the Cornwall Peninsula should not be a problem.”

“Don’t try to persuade me anymore,” Churchill said with a wave of his hand. “I know you mean well, and I am very grateful. But your suggestion ignores one point: if we lose London, what is the meaning of our resistance? Once the German army occupies London, Britain will be completely finished. At that point, even if we hold the Cornwall Peninsula, no one will be willing to follow me.”

There was another problem Churchill did not mention. With the combat effectiveness of the German armored forces, it was one thing in the cities, but once out in the open field, who could say they could hold their defensive line? Wouldn’t it just be a series of retreats? And if he were to flee from London, where could he ultimately retreat to?

In fact, the reason he still held power here, and the reason the Royal Family or other British factions had not kicked him while he was down, was partly because Chamberlain’s Scottish regime hoped that Churchill would bloody the Germans, thereby securing a better position and stability for the future northern British government. Another reason was the difficult situation the British Royal Family was facing in Canada; they also needed time to find a true place of refuge for themselves.

Fleeing to Canada was, to put it bluntly, only a stopgap measure. The real home the British government was looking for was Iceland, the Danish overseas territory. The British Royal Family had drawn troops from the south and was deploying a massive plan to “shed its golden cicada shell.” This plan was to attack Iceland, occupy it, and settle there.

By now, about 2,000 British soldiers had already landed on Iceland. The island’s inhabitants had not put up any decent resistance. The German Navy was busy hunting big fish around Britain and had no time to spare to go to a place like Iceland to deal with a small British force. By the time the Germans realized that the British were preparing to establish a base on Iceland, it was already too late.

A full 10,000 British troops were transferred from the British mainland to defend Iceland. The United States even diverted strategic materials that should have been sent to Britain to Iceland. Some British fighter units also fled there, forming a considerable Icelandic air defense force.

To support Britain and keep them from meddling in America’s backyard in Canada, the United States even dispatched 4,000 volunteers, who were transported to Iceland as mercenaries with their weapons and equipment. These troops were ordered to help the British control and consolidate their defensive lines on Iceland. By the time the German Navy discovered the intentions of Britain and the United States, the actual number of British troops on Iceland had exceeded 20,000, with over 300 fighter planes.

It was clear that an attack on Iceland under these circumstances was not realistic. Germany had no choice but to resort to its old tricks, ordering its submarine force to head north and begin a new round of strangling the Icelandic transport routes. However, this strangulation campaign was not very effective. The reason was that Iceland was, in fact, far from Norway and the British mainland. The distance for submarines to travel to operate west of Iceland was very long, naturally making a blockade much more difficult than it had been for Britain.

And Britain seemed to be turning Iceland into their forward base for a counter-attack on the British mainland. They stockpiled supplies, trained troops, and gradually expanded their forces to a scale that gave the Germans a considerable headache. By March 20th, the number of British defenders on Iceland had grown to 23,000, organized into two full infantry divisions, and even equipped with 110 brand new American M3 Lee tanks.

The original population of Iceland was small, so at this moment, the entire island was basically composed of British combat troops. The amount of supplies needed was much smaller. In fact, the total amount of supplies needed to sustain 50,000 British troops for a week of combat was less than the amount of food a single London needed each day.

Therefore, starving out the British defenders on Iceland was clearly not a realistic proposition, especially when the German naval forces had not been completely withdrawn from the British mainland, making it seem even more like a fantasy. And organizing another landing force to retake Iceland was not an easy matter either. The German transport ships were currently working at full capacity to maintain the supply of Army Group A on the British mainland, and there were simply no forces that could be spared to transport troops and supplies to the distant Iceland.

“The navy can guarantee the launch of a landing operation, but we expect to lose 3,000 soldiers, and the navy cannot guarantee the transport mission to maintain the Icelandic garrison.” These were Raeder’s original words to Akado, which naturally served as an indirect death sentence for the plan to land on Iceland.

Another frustrating piece of news was that the army’s calculations were even more pessimistic than the navy’s. Of the three landing simulations, two had failed, and one was a pyrrhic victory. Keitel’s Army Group B would have to pay a price of 10,000 men for this landing, and even after victory, Germany could at most maintain a garrison of 5,000 men on Iceland. At this scale, if the Americans or the British wanted to retake Iceland in the future, it would be a simple matter.

Of course, the plan proposed by the air force was even simpler: bombing Iceland with “Butcher” bombers was possible, but they would have to rely on the naval air arm for escort. As for the effectiveness of the bombing, both Dick and Kesselring, the two air force commanders, were very pessimistic: Iceland had no decent industrial system to speak of. Apart from attacking some airfields, it would be a complete waste of bombs.

In the end, the commanders of the navy, army, and air force were unanimous in their opinion: the problem lay with the German Navy. If the German Navy became strong enough in the future to roam the Atlantic at will, then the British army on Iceland would be no threat. Of course, if the German Navy was unable to blockade Iceland on its own in the future, then even if they captured Iceland now, they would lose it later due to their weak navy.

Therefore, the German military adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards the movements of the British army on Iceland. Akado could not come up with any good way to deal with the British forces on Iceland at the moment. He could not guarantee that his troops could successfully land across hundreds of kilometers of sea, nor could he completely blockade the Icelandic shipping routes and starve out the British on the island.

In reality, the British Royal Family, or rather the legitimate British government-in-exile, was at this very moment in a bitter quarrel with the local authorities in Canada. In fact, Canada, as a British colony, had already begun to exercise most of its independent sovereignty in the preceding years. Now that the British government had come to re-establish the nation in Canada, it was clearly an act that greatly displeased the local authorities.

So the British Royal Family was met with a polite refusal in Canada. Apart from declaring their support for the British government’s fight against Germany, Canada was even unwilling to provide a piece of land for Britain to re-establish itself. Therefore, after arriving in Canada, the British government-in-exile had been slow to announce any news of relocating its capital.

In the end, the representatives of the United States, Canada, and Britain signed a secret agreement in Washington. The United States would ship the supplies intended for the British mainland to Iceland, support the establishment of a forward base for the re-establishment of Britain on Iceland, and continue to fight Germany from there. Canada would also contribute men and resources to this British counter-attack plan, but the British Royal Family had to “get lost.” Britain promised to leave North America and not to do things like relocating its capital to Canada.

This agreement was called the “US-UK-Canada Tripartite Alliance Agreement.” It led to the joint deployment of counter-attack forces by Britain, the United States, and Canada on Iceland. Of course, another result of this treaty was that, having lost his job in Canada, Montgomery was ordered to North Africa to serve as the chief of staff for the British forces there, officially beginning the confrontation with his lifelong nemesis, Rommel.

Published: 2025-08-26T05:08:36.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2025-11-15T07:14:31.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c454-iceland-137361541

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com