Ominously for neutral Sweden, the first shots of the Second World War were fired only 120 miles away on the opposite shore of the Baltic Sea at 4.45 a.m. on 1 September 1939. The Polish military fortification on Westerplatte overlooking the Gdańsk (Danzig) harbour channel was shelled by the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, named after the Danish territory seized by the Prussians in 1863. Gdańsk lay to the south east of Sweden's largest Baltic naval base in Karlskrona, named in honour of Swedish seventeenth-century warrior-king Karl XI. The dockyard and town were about one hour's flying time away from Germany and well within range of the Ju87 bombers which had earlier attacked the Polish city of Wieluń at 4.40 a.m., killing eight per cent of the civilian population. German aggression again overshadowed Scandinavia, this time by air as well as land and sea. What was Sweden's position on the threshold of war and what had happened in the turbulent years leading up to 1939?

The first years of the twentieth century had been characterised by a bitter political debate over the state of the nation's defences triggered by right-wing fears of a resurgent Russia. The ruling Liberal party was reluctant to spend money on warships and military training and preferred to give priority to social reforms for the benefit of the working classes. This policy was challenged by an alliance of right-wingers whose fervour was due, in part, to renewed ‘Russification’ attempts after 1910 by the authorities in the neighbouring Russian Duchy of Finland.