Word: northern
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Italy (though Italian armies drew back from the frontiers). French Morocco and Algeria, granaries as well as a source of French manpower (total population of France's African Empire: 41,000,000), were valuable to France in proportion as the Mediterranean remained free to transport. Along the Mediterranean's northern shore the line-up was still more confused. French naval bases at Toulon and Villefranche, guarding French communications with Africa, threatening Italian coastal cities; Italy, with her 105 submarines, Europe's biggest fleet; the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia, long wanted by Germany, source of friction in the Axis when...
...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...
...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...
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...