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.

Date: 1914
Period: First World War
Made by: Högerpartiet (Swedish Conservative party) per the source cited on Commons; artist Gunnar Widholm
Region: Western and Central Europe
Country: Sweden
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: Party
Regime: Hammarskjold Government
Leader: Hjalmar Hammarskjold
Audience: Domestic public
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Themes: Elections and party politics, War and the military
Techniques: Fear appeal Transfer
Source: Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source: Wikimedia Commons, retrieved October 2, 2026
Rights: Public domain (published 1914; Commons PD-old-70 / PD-Art, faithful reproduction)
Gunnar Widholm, 'Försvaret främst', 1914, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

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.

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

Text on the object

Using the same techniques