Åland Islands dispute

The Åland Islands dispute was one of the issues put up for arbitration by the League of Nations on its formation. Åland's population's demand for self-determination was not met and sovereignty over the islands was retained by Finland, but international guarantees were given to allow the population to pursue its own culture, relieving the threat of forced assimilation by Finnish culture as perceived by the islanders. Prior to 1809, Åland was located within the boundaries of the Swedish realm. However, in the Treaty of Fredrikshamn on September 17, 1809, Sweden had to give up control of the islands, along with Finland, to Imperial Russia. The Grand Duchy of Finland became an autonomous entity, including the Åland Islands, within the Russian Empire. After the Åland War, by the Treaty of Paris of April 18, 1856, which ended the Crimean War, Britain required Russia to withhold the construction of any new fortifications on the islands. This stipulation was obeyed, despite unsuccessful attempts to change the status of the demilitarised islands in 1908. However, in 1914, at the start of the First World War, the Russian government turned the islands into a submarine base for the use of British and Russian submarines during the war. Invasion of Åland In December 1917, fearing the effects of the Russian October Revolution, the Finnish parliament proclaimed that Finland was now a sovereign state, calling on the principles of national self-determination. The very same autumn, Ålanders had organized for their own self-determination, fearing what they saw as excessive expressions of pro-Finnishness and anti-Swedishness in Finland. By this time, well above 90% of the islands' inhabitants considered themselves Swedish, stationed military personnel excluded, in contrast to Mainland Finland, where less than 15% were Swedish-speaking. Unlike in Åland, in the previous twenty years social tensions had also worsened considerably in Finland. The Ålanders' answer was a wish for secession from the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Russian Empire, to which they felt little affiliation, and a request for annexation by Sweden.