---
title: Försvaret främst (Defence first), Swedish election poster by Gunnar Widholm, 1914
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/forsvaret-framst-widholm-1914/
description: A black raptor with bared talons and a blue eye lunges at a billowing blue-and-yellow Swedish flag, while a figure at a forge works beside it.
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Försvaret främst (Defence first), Swedish election poster by Gunnar Widholm, 1914](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/forsvaret-framst-widholm-1914.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/forsvaret-framst-widholm-1914.jpg)

# Försvaret främst (Defence first), Swedish election poster by Gunnar Widholm, 1914

A black raptor with bared talons and a blue eye lunges at a billowing blue-and-yellow Swedish flag, while a figure at a forge works beside it. The tell is the staged attack on the national flag by an unnamed predator, which presents the party's defence policy as the only protection against it.

## Text on the object

Original (Swedish) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
FÖRSVARET · FRÄMST

GUNNAR WIDHOLM
ROKOTRYCK · A.-B. KOPIA · STHLM
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
DEFENCE · FIRST

GUNNAR WIDHOLM
ROKOTRYCK · A.-B. KOPIA · STOCKHOLM
```

Translation is a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader. 'Rokotryck' is a printing-process name left untranslated.

[← Сдал австриец русским Львов (The Austrian Surrendered Lvov to the Russians)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/austrians-surrendered-lvov-1914/) ['Frohe Weihnachten und glückliches Neujahr' Austro-Hungarian Christmas postcard (1914) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/frohe-weihnachten-kriegsjahr-postcard-1914/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (Qing China · 1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (United Kingdom · Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Venezuela · Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)