Word: sweden
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Gusfaf V of Sweden keynoted: "We consider it one of our most vital rights that each of our countries remain wholly independent, and follow the neutrality policies accepted by all the northern states...
...spring of this year Adolf Hitler "invited" all three Scandinavian States to sign bilateral non-aggression pacts with the Reich. Norway and Sweden promptly refused, saying this would infringe their "strictly neutral" status, but Neighbor Denmark felt obliged to sign, and this marked the first minor break in the Neutral Front of the Nordic Bloc. Whether or not the Führer can use it as an opening wedge, Scandinavia was becoming war-jittery, Stockholm citizens were building air-raid shelters, and Norway, Sweden and Denmark were reported on the point of placing orders...
Dynasty by Adoption. The history of Sweden in the 81 years since King Gustaf's birth is just about the best possible argument for constitutional monarchy. The Royal House, as lineage goes in Europe, is extremely young. His Majesty is only the great-grandson of its founder Jean Bernadotte, soldier of fortune, the son of a French petit bourgeois of Pau who played his own hand as a soldier-politician until Napoleon came along and outdid him. Alive to the main chance, Bernadotte was glad for a job as one of Napoleon's generals. His military exploits were...
Bernadotte served for a time as the Governor of captured Hanover in Germany and buttered up influential Swedish officers taken prisoner during Napoleon's campaigns in the North. In 1810 the weakness of Sweden, together with the sudden death of the Swedish Crown Prince, emboldened a Stockholm Court clique to propose that one of Napoleon's marshals be sounded out as to whether he would accept election as heir to the Swedish throne...
...Absurd!", but a few months later the Emperor made the best of it, approved the deal. So the Swedish people elected Bernadotte their Crown Prince, and Swedish King Karl XIII adopted the Frenchman as his son under the name Prince Karl Johan. In the eight years which ensued before Sweden's old King died, the Crown Prince consolidated his position, became one of Sweden's popular figures, and this priceless asset the House of Bernadotte de Ponte Corvo has skilfully conserved for more than 100 years under five bourgeois and uniformly popular kings: Karl XIV, his only...