On Monday 8 April 1940 the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet carried a leading article protesting against the Allied decision, announced early that morning, to lay mines in Norwegian territorial waters. It was, the paper declared, one of the most serious blows inflicted on Norwegian interests since the beginning of the war: Norway must protest in the strongest possible terms against this violation of the country's neutrality. The late-afternoon edition of the paper carried new headlines: ‘100 armed German ships in Kattegat today, heading northward’; ‘Two mysterious sinkings off Lillesand’; ‘Koht to speak in Storting open session this evening.’ The Storting, the Norwegian parliament, met shortly after 5 o'clock and, after an opening statement by the foreign minister, Halvdan Koht, went into closed session to discuss the events of the last few days: the diplomatic notes of 5 April in which Britain and France reserved to themselves the right to take action – as yet unspecified – to prevent Germany from obtaining resources and facilities from Norway and Sweden; and the proclamation, issued early on the 8th, that mines were to be laid in three specified areas in order to force German shipping out of Norwegian waters and expose it to interception by the Royal Navy.