Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Definitions
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1 Scandinavia and the Baltic 1939
- Map 2 The Gulf of Finland
- Map 3 Entrances to the Baltic
- Introduction
- 1 The end of isolation: Scandinavia and the modern world
- 2 Scandinavia in European diplomacy 1890–1914
- 3 The war of the future: Scandinavia in the strategic plans of the great powers
- 4 Neutrality preserved: Scandinavia and the First World War
- 5 The Nordic countries between the wars
- 6 Confrontation and co-existence: Scandinavia and the great powers after the First World War
- 7 Britain, Germany and the Nordic economies 1916–1936
- 8 Power, ideology and markets: Great Britain, Germany and Scandinavia 1933–1939
- 9 Scandinavia and the coming of the Second World War 1933–1940
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Confrontation and co-existence: Scandinavia and the great powers after the First World War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Definitions
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1 Scandinavia and the Baltic 1939
- Map 2 The Gulf of Finland
- Map 3 Entrances to the Baltic
- Introduction
- 1 The end of isolation: Scandinavia and the modern world
- 2 Scandinavia in European diplomacy 1890–1914
- 3 The war of the future: Scandinavia in the strategic plans of the great powers
- 4 Neutrality preserved: Scandinavia and the First World War
- 5 The Nordic countries between the wars
- 6 Confrontation and co-existence: Scandinavia and the great powers after the First World War
- 7 Britain, Germany and the Nordic economies 1916–1936
- 8 Power, ideology and markets: Great Britain, Germany and Scandinavia 1933–1939
- 9 Scandinavia and the coming of the Second World War 1933–1940
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Before 1914 Scandinavia had felt the repercussions of confrontation between the great powers without being the principal focus of their attention. The Nordic states were affected in a similarly indirect way by the changing international climate of the post-war period: first the transition from war to peace under the auspices of the treaty of Versailles; then, in the Locarno era after 1925, the emergence of a more equitable international order; finally, the onset of the great depression. But although the European powers rarely took a direct interest in Scandinavian affairs, their attention was drawn to northern Europe, especially in the early 1920s, by the persistent instability of the eastern Baltic.
After a period of active involvement with the newly independent states of Finland, Estonia and Latvia, Great Britain withdrew its naval presence from the eastern Baltic in 1921 but retained an interest in reducing friction among the states of the region – for example, between Poland and Lithuania over the disputed Vilnius territory – in the interests of European peace in general and as a bulwark against Bolshevik Russia. France was concerned much more overtly with the construction of a cordon sanitaire against Bolshevism centred on Poland and the countries of the ‘Little Entente’, which also had Baltic ramifications. Russia and Germany, at whose expense the new order in eastern Europe had been constructed, had a shared interest in the demise of Poland, the largest of the new states, but were able to find a basis for co-existence with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Nevertheless, the long-term existence of these three small states was precarious and it was widely assumed that they must ultimately be reabsorbed by Russia.
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- Scandinavia and the Great Powers 1890–1940 , pp. 206 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997