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322 SWEDISH NEUTRALITY [chap, xviii.
devoted to the German cause carefully avoided in my
presence the slightest allusion, the least word which
might have hurt my patriotic feelings, I said to myself
that the sentiments of the Swedish nobility, of the
officers of the Guard and of the ecclesiastical and lay
members of the University were really not aggressive.
Their sentiments were based on deep conviction; the
Swedes expressed their convictions openly; they did
so ingenuously, but also without any ulterior motive,
without malice and without displaying any
impoliteness.
But if this Germanophile disposition of Swedish
public opinion did not irritate me inordinately, yet it
inspired me with a certain amount of anxiety. Such
constant propaganda of affection for Germany might
gradually accustom the Swedish public to the idea of
an active alliance ; in our country mistakes might be
made and measures taken which might revive old
suspicions and former grudges in Sweden; and finally
Germany, emboldened by the proofs of sympathy she
was constantly receiving from the northern side of the
Baltic, might have rushed Swedish decisions and had
recourse to coercive measures, even to sending troops,
as she felt certain that the Swedish Army would never
use its arms against the German brothers. In short,
Swedish activism and German actions and intrigues in
Sweden appeared to me to present a certain amount of
danger which I was careful not to exaggerate, but which
it would not do to lose sight of.
Almost as soon as we had heard of the result of the
battle of the Marne, the great Russian action in Galicia
began; and this advance of our finest army corps ended
in complete success in the course of a month. The
Austro-Hungarians, who at the beginning of the war
had begun the offensive and who having before them
nothing but a weak screen of Russian troops, acclaimed
their victories and their advance into Poland loudly,
were first stopped and thrown back out of Russian
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