It is by such devices that the German Government is wont to launch into war. The mentality whence they spring cannot be discarded in a year or a generation, nor will any Peace Treaty, however ingeniously worded, prevent recourse being had to them in the future. For this, among other reasons, more trustworthy guarantees than scraps of paper must be sought and found.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] On 24th July I received this official information. It was published on Monday, 27th.
CHAPTER IX
GERMAN PROPAGANDA IN SCANDINAVIA
The same breadth of vision and efficacy of treatment were similarly rewarded in the Scandinavian countries, where German propaganda, ever resourceful and many-sided, was facilitated by kinship of race, language, folklore and literature. Of the three kingdoms Sweden, the strongest, was also the most impressible owing to the further bond of fellowship supplied by a common object of distrust—the Russian empire. Suspicion and dislike of the Tsardom had been long and successfully inculcated by the German Press, from which Sweden received her supply of daily news, and also, as is usual in such cases, by prominent natives who, in obedience to motives to which history is indifferent, employed their influence to spread suspicion. Sven Hedin rendered invaluable services in this way to the Kaiser and the Fatherland, throwing the glamour of his name over a movement of which the ultimate tendency was national suicide. Under the auspices of a prussophile minority of Swedish politicians, a few of whom were supposed to favour the establishment of an absolute monarchy like that of Prussia, a clever campaign against the Tsardom was inaugurated. Falsehoods were concocted, imaginary dangers conjured up and described as real, and sinister Russian designs against the independence of Sweden and Norway were invoked as motives for energetic action. In vain the Tsar’s Government protested its friendship for Sweden and disproved the poisonous calumnies circulated by the Germans.
In the discovery and arrest of a number of Russian military spies, who were as active in Sweden as in other lands, and whose relations with the Tsar’s Military Attaché in Stockholm were said to be proven, these agitators found the few solid facts that served them as the groundwork of their fabric of suspicion and calumny.
The results of this propaganda answered the expectations of its German and Swedish organizers. Despite the quieting assurances given by the ex-Premier, the late Karl Staaff and M. Branting, Sweden’s two foremost statesmen, the present population was thoroughly alarmed. They spontaneously taxed themselves for new warships, insisted that a non-recurring war-tax identical with that of Germany should be imposed by the State, and many called for the immediate adhesion of Sweden to the Triple Alliance.
One of the fixed points of Russia’s policy, the Swedish agitators told their fellow-countrymen, is the acquisition of an ice-free port which can be utilized in winter. The Baltic ports do not answer this requirement, not only because they freeze in the cold season, but also, and especially, because the narrow Sound can be easily blocked by a hostile Power and Russia’s ships bottled up in the Baltic. Hence the persevering efforts she made at first to get possession of the Dardanelles and obtain free access to the Mediterranean in war-time. More than once she was on the very point of achieving success there, but lack of enterprise on the part of her statesmen or a sudden adverse change in the political conjuncture foiled this scheme, the realization of which was put off indefinitely. The Persian Gulf was the next object of her designs, but there, too, she encountered a diplomatic defeat. The third goal lay in the Far East, where a new Russian empire governed by a Viceroy and possessed of a promising capital, was founded with every prospect of good fortune. But here, again, defective statesmanship was followed by failure, and the campaign against Japan closed the Far Eastern chapter for a long while. Whither, it was asked, can Russia turn now? Recent events, M. Sven Hedin assured his countrymen, have already answered the query. Northwards. The great Slav Empire covets an ice-free harbour in Norway, and until this war broke out was busily engaged in compassing its end. At any future moment it may again start off on this enterprise. It is the duty of patriotic Swedes to thwart this nefarious project.
A Norwegian port, it is freely admitted, would not fulfil all Russia’s requirements. It would, for instance, leave much to be desired from an economic point of view. The resources of the hinterland would be too scanty. The cost of transport would be too heavy. But strategically it would answer the purpose admirably. Now this conquest would not be achieved without invading and annexing a portion of North Sweden as well. For it would be impossible to keep and utilize such an acquisition without a hinterland containing factories, workshops, wharves, docks, stores and a fairly numerous population which, in turn, would require corn, cattle, timber, etc. Is it credible, asked M. Sven Hedin, that the southern boundary of this back-land could be drawn further northwards than to the north of Ångermanland, Jämtland and Drontheim? At bottom, then, it is the annexation of a vast slice of Sweden proper that Russia has in view. Perhaps the first route of the Russian army would lie on the eastern bank of the rivers Torne-älf and Muonio-älf and lead to the Lyngen Fjord. How long would it stop there? Step by step it would move along the coast southwards to Drontheim. Then Norrland would be surrounded on three sides by Russians. “Later on they would tighten the noose and strangle our country. Are we to remain inactive during the course of events?... The Swede in general is aware of the existence of this danger and knows that it may come upon him at any moment as a reality.”