At the first hours of the dawn, transport ships entered in Reykjavik harbour; although this kind of event was considered expectable, local population for hours did not know if ships were bringing british or german soldiers.
The commander of the operation was colonel Sturges, with a garrison of 40 ufficials and 775 soldiers fro Royal Navy “Brigade 101”, with the support of artillery and a small group of Intelligence agents. The orders were to occupy and defend the area of Hvalfjourdur (a natural harbour near Reykjavik, considered suiteble to establish a naval base) and the few landing grounds of the island. The decision of the occupation was taken on the base of logistic consideration: according to Secretary of the British Admiralty, Faroer Islands could not support a major naval base in the North Atlantic. Moreover, in case of german invasion, the british would have necessarily to conterattack, tranforming the island in a new battelfield (33).
In the need to establish a military infrastructure in the North, as well as taking possesion of a key point in the region, the british could follow two strategies: a traditional diplomatic channel with icelandic authority to find the best possible collaboration (as it was made in economics, to exclude Germany from icelandic trading), or an unsolicited, unexpected move. Both of the options had fors and againsts: negotiations risked to be slows and inefficients, also for the will of Iceland to stress with the position of strict neutrality. But an invasion could result in a loss of prestige and in a comparison of the british to the german nazis, acting the same way. The decision was taken the 1st of May, when Churchill in person informed the War Cabinet that the invasion option had to be preferred. In fact, Iceland never would have grated permission for a military mission in its territory, so a diplomatic negotiation very likely would have been resolved in a loss of time, and in an advatage for Germany.
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