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412 EVIL OMENS IN PETROGRAD [chap. xxii.
a legitimate desire to settle the Aland question in a
definitive manner which would not lend itself to any
ambiguity, and this could only be done by a direct and
formal conversation between the two Governments.
In answer, I told the King that M. Wallenberg had
already given me to understand that the Swedish
Government wished to make the question of the Aland
Islands the object of a new special convention between
Russia and Sweden ; that I had not omitted to transmit
this wish to M. Sazonoff, and that as far as our Foreign
Office was concerned there was no objection to beginning
such a conversation, provided that it only applied to the
peace regime and not to that of the present war.
The King then asked me—but laying great stress on
the fact that it was private and confidential—whether in
Petrograd they did not see any possibility of stopping
the war. I replied that I had received no indication of
anything of the kind ; that on the contrary we at home
were more than ever resolved to continue the struggle
till it led to victory.
" I must tell you quite frankly, M. Nekludoff," said
the King, "that personally I do not see a possibility of
victory for either side ; this awful carnage has now lasted
more than eighteen months; there is no reason why it
should not last another two years, with no result but
death, ruin, misery to innumerable people. And what
would be the state of Europe if the war did last another
two years ? One can hardly picture it! That is why
here we continue to utter the most fervent prayers for
the restoration of peace." Gustaf V. said all this in
short, detached sentences which seemed to be escaping
him in spite of himself. He made no allusion to the
means by which the war might be stopped, still less did
he outline any scheme. It was a cry from the heart,
prompted by the humanitarian feelings of the King and
by the very sincere dread of seeing his country involved,
if not in the sanguinary vortex of the war, at any rate
in the material ruin and the political dangers which
the continuation of the world-wide struggle must
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