Bitter Lessons – What Can We Learn from the Allies’ Disastrous Norway Campaign of 1940?

"At the next level down, the operational level – the link between strategy and tactics – the contrast between the German and British structures and performance was even more stark. For while Hitler appointed a lieutenant general and his corps headquarters to design and plan the campaign and then command and control it, there was no equivalent on the British side. Indeed, there was a complete vacuum. Thus, higher planning was the responsibility of each service ministry – the War Office, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry – with some very broad-brush coordination from a small and inadequate joint planning staff. For the army, this meant that, in practice, planning was carried out by the various branches in the War Office who dealt direct with the tactical commander, a major general with a small divisional staff based 200 miles away in York. Inevitably, there were large gaps in planning and preparation, which led to a dangerous reliance placed on improvisation. Although the Chief of the Imperial General Staff was directly responsible for the training standards of the formations to be deployed, and knew the testing conditions that awaited them inside the Arctic Circle, he did not find the time to provide the necessary supervision of their training."