Word: sweden
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sweden, which used to boss the Baltic and lick the Russians pretty regularly until Napoleon persuaded Denmark and Russia to gang up on her in 1808, joined Finland in mining the Gulf of Bothnia to keep the Red Navy out and Finland's supply lines open. Forty thousand more men were mobilized, bringing Sweden's armed forces to 150,000. The fortress of Boden, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, was reinforced with reserves. Here was the greatest Russian threat to Sweden, marked by the steady progress of a Russian column across Finland toward Tornio...
When the League met, up rose Sweden's delegate, Bosten Unden, to express a wish of his Government endorsed, he said, by Britain: even though good offices had so far collapsed like chunks of snow against Soviet steel, one more effort should be made to achieve peace by request. The League agreed. A special committee drafted a note inviting Russia to cease hostilities and let the League mediate. Richard Austen Butler, head of the British delegation, suggested that some limit must be set; accordingly a reply was requested within 24 hours...
...predicament of the Scandinavian States last week was far worse than that of Western Europe's Great Powers. Well might Germany tremble at the thought of Russia's controlling the rich iron mines of Sweden. Well might Great Britain fear the establishment of a Red Fleet in Norway's impregnable fiords. Italy might well look forward to Balkan aggression by a Russia secure in the north. Throughout the world, people whose faith in democracy remained might well blanch at the prospect of a totalitarian attack on the nations where democracy has been most liberally applied...
...chance that with enough unofficial help Finland might hold Russia indefinitely. So, officially, the Scandinavian States did the only thing they felt they could do: nothing. Denmark, which is most vulnerable to a German attack, plumped hard for neutrality. Foreign Ministers Halvdan Koht of Norway and Rickard Sandier of Sweden, meeting with Denmark's Peter Munch in Oslo, agreed to pass the buck to the League of Nations. But unofficially both Norway and Sweden did all they could for Finland...
...wish was an ever so tiny war. They believed until the last minute that Comrade Stalin was merely trying a "war of nerves" on the Finns. So sure was U.S. Ambassador to Russia Laurence A. Steinhardt that there would not be war that he was caught off-base in Sweden, rushed back by special plane to Moscow where he had plenty to do expressing the U. S. Government's ideas...