James Holland

Yeah.

No, they don't.

No.

It's an absurd, absurd notion.

Narvik is ours.

Narvik is ours for the taking until we decide to do so, but we still haven't decided on it yet in the primers to understand it.

Dismissed.

Because the whole idea is to not just do the leads.

It's also to do a series of operations.

And one of the big ones that they're very keen on is to, the British have been very keen on, is to mine the River Rhine, this great funfair of German commerce.

But the French have been very nervous about this because they don't want to prompt a reaction against the French.

Because they're still struggling with this belief.

Well, yes, I know, but you're forgetting General Werleman, you know, the commander of the Army of the Air.

Yes.

And his trip to see Erhard Milk.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

So it's all agreed that Operation Wilfrid is set for the 5th of April with concurrently some mining operations on the River Rhine.

But Deladier, the former prime minister, is now the minister of, or still the minister of national defence, and he and the French comité de guerre refused to authorise the mining of the Rhine.

There's an impasse.

And so Churchill flies over to Paris, even though he's not Prime Minister, he's just in the Admiralty, with Edward Spears, General Edward Spears, who's a great French speaker, been a liaison officer with the French in the First World War, and a diplomat, and was born and brought up in France, even though he's British.