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i9i4] M. WALLENBERG’S PREMONITIONS 273
of alliance. Hence the importance that King Gustaf V.
attached to the question of the national defence of
Sweden; hence also his wish to surround himself, in
the great crisis which was forming, with people whom he
considered either as essentially prudent and well-versed
in questions of general politics, or as personal friends.
In the King’s opinion, M. Hammarskiold appeared
especially to fulfil the first condition; and in M.
Wallenberg His Majesty recovered a tried friend of strenuous
days and a counsellor whose good sense would be able
to face the exceptional circumstances which were
imminent. For M. Wallenberg was truly an intimate
friend of the King, who had complete trust in him.
Moreover, as soon as the new Ministers were in
office, Gustaf V. had to acquaint them with the situation
and to confide to them—particularly to M. Wallenberg
—the information he held from the most intimate sources
and which was to remain hidden from all those whom
he could not trust absolutely. Knowing M. Wallenberg
as I know him now, I can imagine the gravity, I will
even say patriotic anguish, with which this intelligent
and circumspect man received the King’s confidences on
the suggestions which came from the side of Berlin, and
threw His Majesty himself into the most cruel perplexity.
It was in order to check this information that the
Swedish Foreign Secretary had applied to me at our
first interview. I avoided this sounding as I did not
know my partner. And also what should I have replied ?
That in St. Petersburg and in our Embassies of Berlin
and Vienna, the general political situation was considered
to be perfectly clear and free from danger; but that I
myself held a very different opinion and had been
dreading the great collision since September, 1913? These
things can only be said to some one of whom one is
absolutely certain. And I repeat that I did not know
M. Knut Wallenberg at all. I knew that he was very
rich, that he was at the head of the most powerful
financial group of the Scandinavian Peninsula, which
willingly furnished funds for the great industrial
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