Imperial Valley press., 1914-03-28
RUSSIA is PREPARING
TO GRAB SWEDEN

peninsula? This question is being
thoroughly threshed out in the cam
! paign that is now looking to the
/ election of a new Riksdag. A good
many facts have been brought for
ward, which despite semi-official de-
mails from st. Petersburg, tend to
support the belief throughout Swed-
en- and to a certain extent in Norway,
that there is real and imminent dan
ger of Russian aggression, and con-
sequently ample justification for ar
immediate and heavy increase in ex-
penditures for the national defense.
Here are some of the charges made
against Russia by the conservatives
who are supporting King Gustav's
program for a lengthening without
delay the term of compulsory mil
itary service as well as extensive
appropriations for enlarging the
navy and improving the land forti-
fications. Finland, just across the
Gulf of Bothnia, is now being per-
manently garrisoned by the Twenty
Second Russian army Division-25,-
900 men. Two other divisions aro
stationed just over the Finnish bor-
der, near st. Petersburg, from which
locality they could be drawn and
thrown into Sweden within ten days
by means of the new military rail
ways which have recently been COM
pleted in Finland and which extend
right up to the Swedish frontier.
Army strategists assert that within
three weeks Russia could place 150,-
900 men in the field against Sweden.
In the past three years Russia has
been secretly engaged in building
extensive Notifications on the Fin
nish West coast, and is now said to
be violating the treaty of Paris o.
1856 whereby the Aland Islands were
to remain unfortified For several
months past there has been an un-
usual increase in the number of Rus.
sian tramps and peddlers throughout |
Sweden, especially along the eastern
coast in the north. A number of |
these when arrested were found to
be in possession of military maps !
similar to those used by the Swedish |
general staff. 1t was noted that |
others, who professed to be merely
wandering Russian peasants looking
for work, not only bore no signs of
manual labor on their hands bat
could speak Swedish fluently. In this
connection the espionage scandal OF
last Fall is recalled as the result oi |
which the then Russian minister and !
his military attache were compelled |
to leave the country. 1t was also /
openly charged that the former
Princess Maria Pavlovna, wife of |
Prince Wilhelm, second son of King |
Gustav, was a particularly active
Russian spy. She, too, has fled, and |
the Prince is now suing for a di-
vorce.
The Swedish Conservatives are
making good use in their campaign o,
the words of DR.. Fritjof Nansen, the
Arctic explorer, who in addressing an
anti-government mass meeting the
other day in Christiania attacked tn
Radicals for preferring the promotion
of all sorts of social reforms instead
of increasing Norway's defenses, and
said: 81 fear that the day will soon
come when Norway and Sweden will
have to unite against a common enc
my for the defense of their neutral
ity and independence"
In the meantime Russia is doing all
she can to allay the Swedish suspic-
ions. Says the Novoe Vremya, semi
official organ of the st. Petersburg
government: "If the Swedes should
exercise a little more perspicacity
they would readily see that their po-
tential enemy is Germany, and that
it is from the Wilhemstrasse that
their baseless suspicious of Russia's
Interior designs against its Scandi-
navian friend and neighbor have been
fostered. In case of an armed COL
lision between Russia and Germany
the latter power would at once en-
deavor to establish a naval base at
some point on the Swedish coast; con-
sequently it behooves the Swedes to
be prepared for such an eventuality
by rendering their coast defenses as
far as possible impregnable. This Is
the precautionary task of the Swedes,
instead of uselessly lavishing their
treasure on their land frontier de-