"Sweden Failed"

When Austria fell to Hitler, nearby Czecho-Slovakia lay low and did nothing.

When Czecho-Slovakia was dismembered, Poland not only did not raise a finger in protest but insisted on her share of the booty. When Poland's turn next came, she found herself isolated, friendless and helpless in Eastern Europe. The dictators strategy has been to take care of one victim at a time. A real system of collective security might well have put an end to such conquests years ago.

The people of Sweden believe this, even if their new peace-at-any-price Government does not. Last week, with the Red Army at the gates of Viipuri (see p. 30), the biggest question in Scandinavia was no longer who would win the Russo-Finnish war but who was next on Joe Stalin's list. And yet, the Swedish people might not yet know how thoroughly their Government had given collective security in the North the miss-in-balk. Socialist Deputy Flyg, long vociferously antiCommunist, s pilled the beans in his Stockholm newspaper Folkets Dagblad and thereby forced the Government to acknowledge just what had been going on between it and the desperate, beleaguered Finns. The revelations:

-- In the last several weeks dynamic V. A. Tanner, Foreign Minister of Finland, has made several hurried trips to Stockholm, where he has had long talks with Swedish Premier Per Albin Hansson.

-- M. Tanner, whose part in the pre-war Finnish-Russian negotiations at the Kremlin made him the pet hate of Moscow, forthrightly asked Premier Hansson for two divisions of the Swedish Army. Otherwise, he warned, Finland would be forced either to sue for a peace with Russia "in a manner greatly concerning Sweden" (i.e., give up the Aland Islands which would point Russian guns squarely at Sweden's head), or appeal for direct aid from France and Britain.

-- Premier Hansson referred the Foreign Minister to a recent speech before the Swedish Parliament in which the Premier stressed Swedish neutrality, promised only "material, humanitarian" aid to Finland. The Premier could also point out that Sweden had already sent more than $25,000,000 in voluntary cash contributions and $70,000,000 worth of materials to Finland, that thousands of Finnish civilian refugees have been cared for in Sweden. M. Tanner, on his part, could reply that what Finland desperately needs now to reinforce her small, tired Army is not money but soldiers. No soldiers, said the Swedish Premier.

-- Foreign Minister Tanner next appealed to Great Britain and France, and according to most versions, got a promise of one Frances' division of skilled Alpine Chasseurs and two other Allied divisions. But there was a hitch. The only practical way for Allied troops to get to Finland lies through Norway and Sweden. M. Tanner returned to Stockholm and applied for free passage. It was a perfectly legal request: Article XVI of the Covenant of the League of Nations, to which Sweden. Norway and Finland belong, specifically provides for such help for a victim of aggression.

-- Here the German Government was believed to have notified the Swedish Government that the Reich could never permit British and French troops in Northern Europe. Meanwhile, Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch, Chief of all Nazi Armies, pointedly visited Danzig and Gotenhafen, on the southern Baltic, to inspect "military reconstruction work." No passage, said the Swedish Foreign Office.

Early this week King Gustaf V put the royal stamp of approval on the Premier's course in an extraordinary proclamation before a special Crown Council meeting.

"From the first day I told the Finnish Government that it was impossible for Sweden openly to participate in military intervention in behalf of Finland," read His Majesty's address. "I am sure today that we must maintain this policy ... I feel sure that active military intervention for Finland would mean not only war against Russia but immediate involvement in a great war with other powers."

Unless altered by public pressure, of which there is plenty, Premier Hansson's and the King's decision to play the neutral game to its logical and perhaps tragic end seemed to mean taps for independent Finland. Norway was much too agitated about the Nazi-British battle over the Alt-mark last week (see p. 34) to think much about Finland. Denmark has no army to speak of.

On the other hand, the Swedish General Staff was known to favor armed intervention now rather than wait for the Red Army to reach Sweden's frontiers. Although the Swedish press is generally well controlled by the Government, the Handels-och Sjofartstidning of Goteborg spoke up sharply:

"It is Finland that is Europe's advanced guard against Asia, right up Sweden's borders. We have refused her aid. We are content to spend money and to allow a number of volunteers to cross our border.

To a great extent this will be reckoned as an extenuating circumstance when history's judgment is passed. But that judgment can only read: " 'Sweden failed. She failed democracy's case; she failed a brother in the hour of distress. She failed her historic obligations and failed her own future.' " Even more outspoken was a pamphlet written and published by an Army colonel and a Stockholm professor of history: "Fools are those believing a free Sweden may exist as the neighbor of a Finland trampled down by Bolshevism. No doubt exists that Russia is aiming farther than the suppression of Finland. . . ." A Russia with an Atlantic seacoast, and thus a potential sea power, is something for almost everybody to think about--including Germany.

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