Determined Band

NORTHERN NEUTRALS

When real war finally came last week, it found, stretched across the northern fringe of Europe from Antwerp to Helsingfors, a tight-knit little band of neutrals, determined to keep their neutrality and to defend it, if need be, with force. Between Germany and France lay The Netherlands, Belgium, tiny Luxembourg, and, south of the Westwall and Maginot Lines, Switzerland. All of them were ruled by Napoleon, liberated by Wellington. Along the North and Baltic Seas, where the British and German Navies may meet, were Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Together these eight countries might turn the balance of power in Europe. None of them wanted to do so.

Economically they are almost as dependent on Germany as they are on Britain and France. Next to Britain, Germany is the largest buyer of Danish butter, eggs and cattle. From Norway, Sweden and Finland, Germany buys ores, whale oil and timber, supplying them with machinery, chemical goods and ships. In the last war the northern neutrals got rich, all except violated Belgium. And Germany would have been strangled economically if it had not been for shipments from Scandinavia.

In that war the British fleet never ventured into the Baltic, but blockaded Germany from the North Sea. This time, with a North Sea fleet twice as big as Germany's, Britain might attempt to seize the dangerous Baltic. In such a case, Norway, Sweden and Finland would all lose rich trade with Germany. Norway, fourth largest shipper among the countries of the World, would find its shipping interfered with by even a North Sea blockade.

To the neutrals between Germany and France the chief danger was that these two foes would try to get at each other through one of them.

Faced with these dangers, the northern neutrals last week hastened to do two things: 1) declare their neutrality: 2) prepare for the worst. Full mobilization was ordered in The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Denmark, partial mobilization in Norway and Sweden. Luxembourg, which has no army, increased its gendarmerie and customs guards. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland, which drafted a neutrality convention last year, proclaimed their rules of neutrality. Belligerent warships were prohibited from staying more than 24 hours in their ports, or provisioning there, and the ports were closed to war prizes.

One by one the neutrals received German assurances that their neutrality would be respected. Denmark, mindful of possible German claims on northern Schleswig-Holstein, was not too reassured by a German reference to "problems that may arise between us." In Copenhagen gas masks were issued and blood donors ordered to register at hospitals.

Emotionally most of the northern neutrals sympathized with the Allies. In Stockholm sentiment was frankly pro-British. The Netherlands, fearful of Germany, prayed, guarded its frontiers, laid in food supplies, was ready to flood the lowlands if the worst came. (Germany, also fearful, had electrified the barbed wire on its side of the frontier to catch would-be deserters.) In Brussels motion picture audiences cheered pictures of French and British soldiers. Antwerp held air-raid drills and prepared for evacuation if necessary. Switzerland manned her passes. Nerves were on edge and "accidents" happened. Four bombs plumped into the Danish seaport of Esbjerg, 40 miles from the German border, injuring twelve and killing one (a woman). Danish fishing boats blundered into German mine fields and sank. Off the Swedish coast a Greek steamer struck a German mine, sank.

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