Driftless
Donor
The Allies knowing/estimating what they thought they knew at the end of May, Norway appeared to be a wasted sinkhole for resources, when they were in deep tapioca already in France. So, they let the Norwegians know that they were pulling out. The Norwegians saw little prospect for evicting the Germans on their own, especially in the more populated southern part of the country, so they capitulated locally.
One of the many failures in this "ramshackle campaign", was the impact of the distrust between the politicos in Britain, France, and Norway, to the point where the British commanders were ordered to severely limit the sharing of operational plans and intelligence with their Norwegian counterparts. Many of the on site British commanders from Auchinlek on down disagreed with the orders, but were bound by them.
Having laid out some of the negatives for continuing the campaign, there certainly was some potential value in fighting to retain the north.
* The French and Norwegians had already pushed Dietl's forces out of Narvik and up towards the Swedish border by May 28. Dietl was faced with retreating into Sweden and being interned. Basically, the Allies possessed the port and it's access to the sea. Churchill (as First Lord of the Admiralty at this point) saw Narvik as a key strategic point.
* Zheng He notes above that Narvik was functionally an island bounded by Sweden to the East, the Norwegian Sea to the West and North, and some mostly trackless and very rugged mountains to the South for a couple of hundred kilometers.
* The Kriegsmarine surface fleet was in dire shape at the end of the campaign, and any repaired ships would have been reserved for a theoretical invasion of Britain. The RN, while suffering damage as well, still controlled the seas in the area.
* The Luftwaffe offensive capability in the North would have been very limited if the Allies retained Narvik. In May 1940, I believe the nearest military capable airfield was at Trondheim, far to the South of Narvik. It's 1940 facilities were pretty limited - the Germans built three concrete runways during occupation to make it more serviceable.
* In short, it probably could have been usefully held with less commitment of force than what the Germans would have needed to evict the Allies.
One of the many failures in this "ramshackle campaign", was the impact of the distrust between the politicos in Britain, France, and Norway, to the point where the British commanders were ordered to severely limit the sharing of operational plans and intelligence with their Norwegian counterparts. Many of the on site British commanders from Auchinlek on down disagreed with the orders, but were bound by them.
Having laid out some of the negatives for continuing the campaign, there certainly was some potential value in fighting to retain the north.
* The French and Norwegians had already pushed Dietl's forces out of Narvik and up towards the Swedish border by May 28. Dietl was faced with retreating into Sweden and being interned. Basically, the Allies possessed the port and it's access to the sea. Churchill (as First Lord of the Admiralty at this point) saw Narvik as a key strategic point.
* Zheng He notes above that Narvik was functionally an island bounded by Sweden to the East, the Norwegian Sea to the West and North, and some mostly trackless and very rugged mountains to the South for a couple of hundred kilometers.
* The Kriegsmarine surface fleet was in dire shape at the end of the campaign, and any repaired ships would have been reserved for a theoretical invasion of Britain. The RN, while suffering damage as well, still controlled the seas in the area.
* The Luftwaffe offensive capability in the North would have been very limited if the Allies retained Narvik. In May 1940, I believe the nearest military capable airfield was at Trondheim, far to the South of Narvik. It's 1940 facilities were pretty limited - the Germans built three concrete runways during occupation to make it more serviceable.
* In short, it probably could have been usefully held with less commitment of force than what the Germans would have needed to evict the Allies.