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134 EVIL OMENS IN PETROGRAD [chap. xxii.
Governments against Germany. Violent speeches were
made at the Riksdag, and the Swedish Press—without
excepting even the organs of the moderate Liberals i_
requested the Government to guard the interests of
the country in a more effectual and stronger manner.
This campaign upset our Foreign Office. Whereas
formerly I had pointed out without reticence the dangers
of too great a feeling of security with regard to Swedish
Activist agitation, I now thought it my duty to
discourage a too abrupt " turn about," and to reassure my
Government as to the real import of what was occurring
in Sweden. As ever, the instant anything even rather
unusual happened in Stockholm—often even when
nothing extraordinary was happening—the Ministers
of the Entente in Norway2 uttered loud cries of alarm ;
five or six times during the war our Governments were
much upset by news coming from Christiania
announcing the immediate entry of the Swedes into the war on
the side of Germany; my colleagues and I had to use
all our faculties of persuasion to refute these fantastic
rumours circulated with an assurance which might
really impress our Governments and our General Staffs.
We presumed that our colleagues in Christiania had to
do with informants and agents who were particularly
zealous and imaginative.
It was exactly the same this time; and after having
spent some weeks in corresponding with M. Sazonoff
on the subject of the declarations and concessions that
we ought to make to the Swedes on the Aland question,
I now had to calm the nervousness displayed by our
General Staff and which naturally spread to our Foreign
Office.
While all this fuss was going on my colleagues of the
Entente and I were pressing M. Wallenberg to
communicate to the Riksdag the assurances he had received
repeatedly from us on the subject of the Aland Islands.
I drew up a thoroughly explicit statement on this
1 As to anything touching the Aland question.
2 I ought to except the Russian Minister.
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