Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Could Sweden have withstood a German Blitzkrieg in WW2?" video.

Swedish Naval ships escorted German merchant ships in the Baltic. The Swedes only stopped trading with Germany in last few months of the war.
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@07HAGE France imported most of its coal from the UK. The UK was the Saudi Arabia of coal. The UKs coal supply to the continent was cut off, inc', France, Holland Scandinavia, etc. Germany had to supply Sweden to ensure iron ore deliveries. In doing so the Germans starved France of coal, to the point the power stations were not operating a lot of the time. French, Belgium, etc, industry then was vastly under-performing.
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Churchill came to power as France was collapsing in 1940. Now a what if. If Churchill had been in power from Sept 1939, he would have clearly have moved into Norway immediately and taken at least northern Sweden and the iron mines - that is not a what if. That was his suggestion when British & French forces entered Norway in 1940. He would have encouraged the French to attack the Germans directly with their large army as the Germans were engaged in Poland, instead of doing nothing. The Germans would not have overcome Poland so quickly as troops would have been sent west to engage the French. This gives the British time to secure Scandinavia, or at least Norway and Sweden, hopefully securing an agreement with both for their protection, and they remain self governing with Britain proving coal and natural resources. Then, it is highly doubtful the Finnish winter war would have happened. Stalin never saw the British as a threat as he did Hitler.
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@07HAGE If the British got their hands on the iron ore mines? Which was even the intention in 1940.
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