AHC ,Sweden in WWI as central power ,WWII as Ally .

Your mission should you chose to except it is to find a way to make Sweden one of the central powers in the first world war .And then fight as a member of the Allies in the second .
Note that they can join any point in either war ,same goes for when they left them .
Bonus points if they annex anything from another power .(Russia after October Revolution comes to mind )
 
What would Sweden get in the event that it joined the CPs in WW1 and the CPs won?

While Sweden would definitely receive the Åland Islands, what else would it get?

Finland annexed by Sweden? Finland placed into personal union with Sweden? Finland under a Swedish monarch?

Any other possible gains?
 
WW2 might be quiet different if there even is WW2. But in WW1 is possible.

Nikolai von Essen is able confirm Russian leaders that Sweden is threat and get licence send Swedish navy to bottom of sea. Sweden declares war to Russia, when Russia not apologise such act.

If Central Powers win WW1, Sweden gets Åland, but whole Finland is totally ASB and hardly any Swede even wanted that. And Finland becomes kingdom under house Bernadotte.
 
Second series of questions--


Could Swedish participation in WW1 lead British leaders such as Churchill to rationalize occupying Norway in the interests of striking at Sweden, closing off the blockade of Germany, and improving the delivery of materiel to the beleaguered Russians?

Presumably, such an operation would have to take the place of or occur concurrently to the Gallipolli landings.
 
Second series of questions--


Could Swedish participation in WW1 lead British leaders such as Churchill to rationalize occupying Norway in the interests of striking at Sweden, closing off the blockade of Germany, and improving the delivery of materiel to the beleaguered Russians?

Presumably, such an operation would have to take the place of or occur concurrently to the Gallipolli landings.

I am not sure even how other Entente powers would react for Russian attack against Swedish navy. Might be that they even don't declare war to Sweden. They might even try mediate peace between the countries. Of course this can happen only if Sweden decide that it is war only against Russia, not other Entente powers.

But even then Entente would declare war against Sweden, I am bit unsure that UK and France would invade neutral Norway. It wouldn't look very good for Entente if they invade neutral nations. Yeah, Germany did same but still. This might even prevent USA joining to the war.
 
A landing operation in Norway to attack sweden would be a meatgrinder for the Brits.

The task of supplying an army might be near impossible. Harrassment from subs add to environmental problems. THe norwegian South is also in easy striking range from Germany (which could base its troops from allied Sweden)

In addition attacking Norway would be an attack to an neutral country - diplomatic blunder.

It might klead to Denmark and teh Dutch allying to Germany out of fear the Brits would do the same to them...
 
If my memory serves, if von Essen's attack is not called back, he will attack on time when Swedish navy is out conducting exercises. So, he will attack empty harbor, dealing with whatever coastal artillery there may be. If the Swedes are quick, they may be able to mop up any ships that are not part of the main force since they know where the main force is. I don't know if they have enough ships to properly ambush the main force when they leave, though.

It's an excellent POD, though, since the diplomatic effects of Entente power making a surprise attack on a neutral should be widespread, and given that Finns are not very pro-Russian at this time, securing Finland against Swedish invasion should tie up rather large amount of troops. Plus, extra hostile navy on the Baltic. Not sure if it would make sense to make landfall in Norway to attack Sweden, because mountains.
 
So Norway is a no-go for the Entente because

1) Will be an invasion (by the British no less) of a neutral country
2) Norway is a logistics nightmare


How might Sweden go about invading Finland? Obviously, the poor infrastructure in northern Finland + climate conditions will mean that both sides can only field limited armies in northern Finland; but could CP armies (presumably Swedish) in Finland be supplied from the sea, allowing for larger armies to be fielded in Finland?
 
So Norway is a no-go for the Entente because

1) Will be an invasion (by the British no less) of a neutral country
2) Norway is a logistics nightmare


How might Sweden go about invading Finland? Obviously, the poor infrastructure in northern Finland + climate conditions will mean that both sides can only field limited armies in northern Finland; but could CP armies (presumably Swedish) in Finland be supplied from the sea, allowing for larger armies to be fielded in Finland?

In south Swedes can be supply their troops if just Russians or Brits won't cut that. But probably Swedes too get much help from Finns, or leastly some help. On this point Russians were pretty hated in Finland. Finns can't rise to armed uprise due lack of weapons and military training but they can bit sabotage Russians.
 
Might the Estonian islands of Dago and Osel be taken earlier? Geographically they seem an obvious place for Germans and Swedes to co-operate.
 
Well, Sweden in the war will close the Sound tight. Baltic should be very much central powers lake then, if it wasn't already. Swedes should be able to collect ALL the intelligence in Finland, so maybe they could figure out coastal minefield positions and such, and then shell the everloving crap out of any coastal Russian military target. Or use sealift to go and stomp some smaller target and then leave. There should also be a plenty of Finnish volunteers if they can be trained and armed.

One thing is unrestricted submarine warfare, it may be that the announcement was more of an attempt to scare away neutral shipping than to improve submarine efficiency. If Sweden can help put some pressure on Norway, which had enormous merchant marine, maybe there is less of a reason to try announcing USW. Which would butterfly away the Zimmerman telegraph. Combined with the fact that central powers would not be the only side doing surprise attacks on neutrals, this may delay US entry in the war.
 
If Central Powers win WW1, Sweden gets Åland, but whole Finland is totally ASB and hardly any Swede even wanted that. And Finland becomes kingdom under house Bernadotte.
Any expansionist-minded Swede would like Sweden to have the lost territories back, i.e. Finland, Estonia, Ingria and Latvia, so from a general Swedish point of view it is not ASB. Now, expansionists were not in the Swedish government, and perhaps actually having them in government may be next to impossible, but here we can assume that they are there.

Looking at the map, eastern Karelia and Kola seem attractive as well. Petrograd might stay Russian/Soviet, but if that city along with some additional Russian territory come under Swedish sway, the balance of power is no longer that disadvantageous for the Swedes. (The Russians are now only ten times as many, instead of twenty ... ) Perhaps all of the Russian northwest coast should become Swedish, along the lines of WW2 Suur-Suomi ideas to the Urals or something.

You might say that the population would not want to be ruled from Stockholm. Given the politics of OTL Sweden, that seems understandable from a national perspective, but we do not have OTL monolingual isolationist Sweden to deal with here, but some kind of "greater Sweden" incorporating these other nationalities on an equal basis. Given that Estonians and Latvians, and even Finns, made proposals for joining with Sweden during the following decades, the problem seems mostly to lie with the Swedes, and the Swedes are already dealt with as a PoD.

Going to a major war just for Åland, now that seems ridiculous. That Sweden did have some claims on those islands and that the conflict was taken to the league of nations is very odd in hindsight.
 
Well that explains the first world war .They go after a Russian naval attack ,fight hard claim parts of the Russian empire and possibly make it collapse a few years sooner than OTL .Get our early after managing to stay out of a war with other Entente powers like France and Britain .
But what about WWII assuming it still happens as OTL with no major changes to the TL aside from Sweden claiming land that the USSR would govern .Maybe the winter war is fought against Sweden rather than Finland .Or an Finland supported by Sweden .Hitler rises to power and Sweden winds up fighting alongside the Allies in the war .What would make this come about ?
 
Well that explains the first world war .They go after a Russian naval attack ,fight hard claim parts of the Russian empire and possibly make it collapse a few years sooner than OTL .Get our early after managing to stay out of a war with other Entente powers like France and Britain .
But what about WWII assuming it still happens as OTL with no major changes to the TL aside from Sweden claiming land that the USSR would govern .Maybe the winter war is fought against Sweden rather than Finland .Or an Finland supported by Sweden .Hitler rises to power and Sweden winds up fighting alongside the Allies in the war .What would make this come about ?

If Central Powers win WW1, Russia/USSR probably try reconquer Finland during WW2 if it still occurs. On this case Sweden might participate. But what happens, depend who UK sides and what is going with Norway.

But if Central Powers still lose WW1, is bit more difficult question. I think that it might be possible that if Central Powers still win in East, Sweden might retreat from the war, depending what is happing with other Entente powers. If Sweden is still on war on some reason, it is bit hard to say. Sweden probably doesn't lose territories, but there might be some war preparations and military restriction. But it is somehow possible that monarchy survives.

In both cases Sweden might be neutral, neutral but leaning towards Axis or fully Axis nation, but there is too many factors that can give good answer.
 
If Sweden enters WW1 and the CPs still lose, then you will have the next four generations of Swedish politicians championing the cause of neutrality even more so than OTL.

Sweden will not enter WW2 under any circumstances, and when NATO comes around Sweden probably won't even enter into the Partnership for Peace (PfP) under the pretense that it will only be a stepping stone for eventual accession into NATO and the resulting end of Swedish neutrality.

Yes, Sweden will likely not lose much, but isolationist politicians will astutely point out that the only reason that Sweden lost nothing of note was because Sweden had precisely nothing to lose, but in the new era (WW2-Cold War) where ideology plays a much bigger role than it did in the ideologically homogenous Europe of 1914, the thing that Sweden will be risking by breaking neutrality is the possibility of having either a Nazi/fascist or authoritarian communist government imposed upon Sweden against the will of its people.

A Sweden which becomes part of the victorious CPs, however, may be more inclined to stray from isolation. If something resembling NATO ever comes into existence, Sweden might even be a founding member, especially if this NATO-equivalent can trace its roots to the Central Powers/Triple Alliance.
 
Essen performs epic fail. Sweden enters the war and grabs Åland islands and the parts of Finland that they can get without actually fighting, probably by advancing south along the Gulf of Bothnia coast. They recruit and arm all the Finnish volunteers they can, and occassionally do a pinprick attack and generally speaking look scary and force as many Russian troops to twiddle their thumbs in Finland as they can. Eastern front collapses slightly earlier, US entry to the war is delayed, Sweden gets out of war before US declaration of war, or at least before US gets around to declaring war on German allies. Sweden gets the Åland islands and a sphere of influence in Finland and Baltic states, minor gains, but they got them without spending enormous amounts of blood or treasure. Russia collapses into revolution, Finland makes landgrab towards White Sea, they have much better and larger army than OTL. Western front will still have something like the spring offensive before US enters the war and it will still fail. Moving towards WW2, Stalin does not necessarily go after Baltic states or Finland if a fight and western intervention is a real possibility. If something like WW2 still goes on, maybe the Swedish block could be enticed to join the de-nazification of Europe when US joins the war again?

Sweden is a stable constitutional monarchy without enough power to really oppress anyone, so strong Swedish influence on newly independent states is probably all for the good. If Stalin leaves well enough alone, maybe the Nazis manage to annoy the Baltic states enough that when their fortunes turn, they'll want their pound of flesh and drag Sweden in with them. Especially if USA promises some sugar.

WW1 military tech favors defender, a lot. So, have local Finns to scout out Russian troop positions and fortifications. Gulf of Finland is probably about equal mixture of mines and water, but grab one or more of the lightly defended port towns on Gulf of Bothnia. Fortify and supply via sea. Build an armored train or something, and if there is a lightly defended rail link, attack and grab and fortify next railhead. Supply by rail. Finland is pretty big place, actually, so any enemy counterattacks almost have to come along the rail network. Push towards St. Petersburg, Russians have to defend. Sit pretty, and try and tie up as much of Russian army you can, while Germans fight on eastern front.
 
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