Norway had been able to avoid the massive bloodletting of World War I entirely and fervently hoped to steer clear of World War II as well through a policy of strict neutrality. Having seen the fate of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, by 1940 many of Europe’s smaller and traditionally neutral nations were struggling to strengthen and modernize their military defenses. Norway had waited until almost the last minute before beginning a rearmament program and was ill prepared militarily to even enforce its own neutrality in Norwegian waters.
Tonnage wise, in 1940 the Royal Norwegian Navy was roughly only one quarter of the size it had been in 1914. It had only two capital ships, the armored coastal defense ships Norge and Eidsvold, whose keels had been laid before the turn of the century. The handful of new vessels available were mostly small patrol boats better suited to fisheries protection and enforcement than naval warfare, and there had been no money in the defense budget for the fleet to actually put to sea and conduct maneuvers since 1918.
In theory, with a full-scale mobilization and call up of the reserves, Norway could field an army of six divisions, but in peacetime each division had only a single active-duty battalion. The country did have a long tradition of universal conscription; young men coming of age had to serve a stint in the military. The basic training period, however, was the shortest of any nation in Europe, only 72 days. Some older reservists who had met their military obligation during the 1920s had received only 48 days of training. Even if there were time available to mobilize all the reserves, weapons and equipment were often both old and in short supply. The Royal Norwegian Army of 1940 did not have a single tank, antitank gun, or even hand grenades; there were not even enough steel helmets or rifle bayonets to go around in the case of full mobilization.
