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i9I6] THE ALAND ISLANDS 415
The very next day the delegates pursued their
journey.
Meantime the question of the Aland Islands was
examined more fully between M. Wallenberg and me,
and I asked M. Sazonofif to authorise me to address a
note to the Foreign Secretary of Sweden, in which the
assurances given by me to the King from His Majesty
the Emperor would be recorded. I had an impression
that we ought to take into consideration the fears which
were being manifested in Sweden and which were kept
up by Swedish Activists and German instigation. If we
refused to explain ourselves explicitly on this question
and to give formal promises to Sweden they would
consider it a proof that we were only intent on gaining
time and contemplating using the Aland Archipelago
eventually as a naval or aviation base, which, as it was
about thirty nautical miles from Stockholm, would
effectually constitute a permanent menace to our
neighbour. Whereas if on the contrary we accepted the
negotiations proposed by the Swedish Government we
should prove by that the absence on our side of all
ulterior motives and of any scheme prejudicial to the
safety of Sweden.
M. Sazonoff, without committing himself as yet on
the question of the parleys demanded by M. Wallenberg,
authorised me, however, to record in a note addressed
to the Swedish Government at a fitting moment the
assurances concerning the fortifications which we had
erected on the Archipelago since the beginning of the
war. Hence I awaited with more confidence the
agitation which the reopening of the Riksdag was to
bring with it.
As the Swedish Government had clearly foreseen,
the Activists and the whole Conservative party, from
the first sittings, began to raise the question of the
Aland Islands vehemently, as well as that of the harm
done to commerce and to the economic existence of
Sweden by the strict blockade maintained by the Entente
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