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In OTL, Sweden remained neutral throughout the First World War. Sweden's friendly stance towards the Central Powers drew the suspicion of the Entente, especially Russia, but nothing came of it.

This is not to say that there were no opportunities for Sweden to enter the war. In the early days of August 1914, a Russian admiral set sail with the bulk of the Russian Baltic Fleet to deliver an ultimatum to his Swedish counterpart at Gotland, "inviting" him to sail with his ships to Karlskrona, where they would remain for the rest of the war. Luckily the Russian commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nikolai, ordered the Russian admiralty to recall this admiral before he could carry out his bullying mission. They did so in the nick of time.

But what if they hadn't reached the admiral in time?


On August 9, 1914, Admiral Nikolai Essen set sail from Kronstadt, bound for Farosund, the Swedish naval base at the northern end of the island of Gotland. News that the Swedish fleet was concentrated here, within short sailing distance of the German Baltic fleet, combined with reports of anti-Russian demonstrations in Stockholm had led Essen to choose a highhanded course of dealing with the Swedish threat. He planned to deliver an ultimatum to his Swedish counterpart at Farosund: the Swedish fleet was invited to proceed with Essen to the naval base at Karlskrona, where they would remain in port for the duration of the war. If they did not accede to the ultimatum, Essen was determined to destroy the Swedish fleet at anchor.

After a brief stop at Helsingfors, Essen arrived at Farosund at around 0600 hours on August 14. With him were four battleships, six cruisers, and eight destroyers. Essen arrayed his ships to "pen in" the Swedes in the harbor before delivering his ultimatum. The cruiser squadron was arrayed outside the south entrance to the Farosund, just outside the range of the old 17 and 12 cm batteries that were perched on the small hills around the harbor; if the Swedes refused his ultimatum and attempted to flee through the south entrance, their destination would most likely (and quite ironically) be Karlskrona, some 300 kilometers away. The cruiser squadron would try to slow them down so that the battleships could catch up by triangulating directly towards Karlskrona from their location at the north entrance. Essen, his flag in the battleship Andrei Pervozvannyi, deployed his four battleships at the north entrance: if the Swedes refused his ultimatum, he did not want them to sail north to Stockholm where they could threaten Finland directly without having to pass through a gauntlet of fire from the much better armored and armed ships at his disposal. The eight destroyers were split evenly between the two squadrons, both to defend against any possible Swedish torpedo attacks, as well as to launch attacks of their own if the Swedish fleet came out to fight.

Out of all of this, one can see that Essen was certain that the Swedish fleet would try to leave Farosund. But why should the Swedish fleet leave the safety of the harbor if they were to refuse the ultimatum? The fact is that the Swedish fleet's anchorage was not well-defended: the guns defending the anchorage were thirty years old, and had poor range. If the Swedish fleet had stayed at anchor after a theoretical ultimatum refusal, it is likely that the far-ranging guns of Essen's battleships would have annihilated Sweden's navy in a manner eerily similar to the destruction of the Russian First Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur less than ten years before.

We can never know for sure if the Swedish admiral would have agreed to the ultimatum when confronted with such a superior force, or whether he would have fought to preserve Sweden's honor. The ultimatum was never delivered, as the panicked men manning the coastal batteries around Farosund fired some shells at extreme range at the flagship of the cruiser squadron Rurik at 0610 hrs. Soon Essen's fleet opened fire at the batteries and on the anchorage of the Swedish fleet, and Sweden entered the Great War unexpectedly.
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