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"This is an act of violence," wrote the man who was last week hailed as Prophet, "by a perjured Tsar and his Government of bashi-bazouks. A mere 2,500,000 Finns cannot naturally dream of a successful revolt, but we, all of us Russian citizens, must think of the dishonor that burdens us. We are still such slaves ourselves that we can be employed to reduce other nations to slavery. We still submit to a Government that crushes us with the cruelty of the hangman and that uses Russian soldiers to destroy the liberty of others."
Scandinavia. When the first peace rumors ran from house to house in Stockholm, Swedish families and societies planned festivities. The Swedish Government was delighted to escape from its squeeze between the upper millstone of threatened Allied intervention and the nether—threat of German reprisal for permitting it. Norway and Denmark were likewise relieved. The Copenhagen Politiken, splashing the first news on yellow handbills which were joyfully snatched by gasping passersby, commented: "Happiness will be felt all over the North that the final outcome of suspense was a message of peace."
Then came the terms, and despair. The parties were canceled, the laughter ceased. A horrible realization fell like a blanket of wet snow on the three countries: not only was Finland defeated; her neighbors were threatened within an inch of their lives.
The Swedish Government protested that it had been double-crossed. The terms it had forwarded as intermediary had been changed, dreadfully. Sly Viacheslav Molotov had said nothing about that Kandalaksha-Kemijärvi railway, which would be not only a steel chastity-belt clamped across Finland's waist but also a weapon to jimmy Sweden's door.
Then it was revealed just how far Germany had been prepared to go. Editor Allan Vougt of the Malmö Arbetet, who is generally considered the Swedish Foreign Office mouthpiece, confirmed the report that German troops had been concentrated at Gdynia and Danzig, ready for immediate transshipment to either Finland or Sweden. And troops were apparently ready to move across Denmark.
In their weakness the Scandinavian States began to grope for the strength of unity. In Helsinki Foreign Minister Väinö A. Tanner announced that even while peace negotiations had been going on, Finland had broached to Sweden and Norway the subject of a mutual defense pact. Denmark had been left out because the country was obviously indefensible.
Sweden and Norway were interested. Sweden's Foreign Minister Christian E. Günther spoke of "linked destinies," and the Conservative Speaker of Norway's Storting, Carl J. Hambro, hurried to Stockholm to discuss the pact. But facts were cruel and disruptive: Finland now lies in Russia's sphere, Sweden is geographically Germany's pawn, Norway's bare face is Britain's to slap. A mutual defense pact might therefore anger all three of the major powers. But since combined German-Russian wrath is much the greatest Scandinavian fear, the alliance would probably have to favor those two nations. Germans, taking this as a matter of course, tolerated talk of the pact.