“Scandinavian Transit” in Russian-English Relations (1914—1918)

Abstract

This article is dedicated to one of the insufficiently studied issues of the First World War as a role of the Allied transit trade through Scandinavia. It deals with the organization of the Based on the materials of the archives — the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AVPRI), the Russian State Archive of the Navy (RGA VMF), as well as the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA), the article examines such issues as the organization of transit supplies through neutral Sweden, the activities of the Russian-English joint stock company “Transito”, identifies factors that hindered the development of Allied transit trade in Northern Europe. The author comes to the conclusion that neutral Sweden received the greatest dividends from the transit trade of the Entente countries through Scandinavia, while for Russia the supplies of allied goods through Sweden did not justify themselves, as well as the Russian government’s orientation on foreign military orders did not justify itself in general.