Finland’s wars 1939 – 1944

The Rescue plan

Here I will not delve into the war itself or into the political developments during it, but with one exception, the controversial plan by Britain and France to assist Finland by sending troops there.
Already in December 1939 those two powers had asked the Finnish government if it was willing to accept direct military aid in the form of troops. These would be transported by ship to Narvik in Norway and then by train though Sweden to Finland. The size of this “rescue expedition” was initially vaguely set to “two or three brigades” (10 000-15 000 men) but later it shrank to a number of reinforced battalions (say 3000 men). The Finnish leadership had grave doubts about the viability of whole plan. Of course all help was in principle welcome but this plan posed great dangers too. By accepting help from Britain one would concede that Stalin’s suspicions about an attack from that country through Finland on Russia were after all well founded. If then the aid was not large enough to decisively affect the outcome of the war Finland’s position at the peace negotiations that anyway had to follow sooner or later would be much degraded. And there was no indication that the allied expeditionary force would be large enough, nor was there any guarantee that they would support it well enough.
The allied powers had early on contacted the governments of Norway and Sweden to get their acceptance of the planned transition of troops through these neutral countries. These countries viewed the plan with horror. Not only did they see the plan as providing too little and too late for Finland but, rightly, suspected that the real intention with the plan was to occupy ports on the Norwegian coastline, Narvik in particular, and of getting control of the mines at Kiruna and so deny Germany access to high-grade Swedish iron-ore. They categorically denied transit. For this the Swedish war-time government has been heavily criticized, in particular of course by people that have never heard about, or chosen to ignore, the true intentions of the allies. In Finland too, one can now and then hear or read opinions like “Sweden betrayed us by not allowing the allies to come to our help”.
But this whole plan was hopelessly faulty from birth and would have caused nothing but trouble for those involved if ever implemented. It was a military plan visualized by politicians with total disregard to military realities. As a military operation the plan was a first class monstrosity without any true chance of success. The initial troops could probably have been successfully transported to Narvik, unloaded there and then taken by train through Sweden to the Finnish border at Haparanda/Tornio and then further south to where the fighting was going on. But did the politicians dreaming up the plan realize the logistic problems involved? The troops needed different ammunition than available in Finland, were used to different food, had different vehicles and different radios, in short needed to get 100% of their supplies and replacements/reinforcements supplied from their own countries.
Not only the initial deployment but all subsequent logistic support had to be done through ONE harbour and then on mostly ONE single railroad through areas with multiple river crossings. On the Swedish/Finnish border everything had to be unloaded and then reloaded onto another train as the Swedish and Finnish railroad systems had different gauge tracks. And all this under potential Russian air superiority! (Make no mistake here, the performance of the Russian Air Force during the Winter War was rather mediocre but there were a lot more and better equipped resources available that would certainly have been thrown into the fight if Britain and France had become involved.)

And then think about how happy Norway and Sweden would have been to have Russian aircraft attacking their trains and bridges on their territories because they were carrying British and French troops. Furthermore there was a high risk that Germany would intervene in order to protect its interests in Scandinavia. And Sweden and Norway were countries that did their best to stay out of the war!
And finally: If the Soviet Union on one hand and Britain and France on the other hand had found themselves at war the big winner would have been Hitler! What better could he wish for than to have his to main enemies start fighting each one other?
So this plan should be stowed away somewhere in a dark corner of the large cupboard containing history’s all misconceived, politician inspired proposals for military actions that had minimal chances of success but instead major potential for catastrophic consequences for those involved.
But as a final ironic twist of history we will see that maybe this witless plan nevertheless had a major and positive influence on Finland’s fate. “There is never anything bad that doesn’t bring something good with it” seems to apply here too!

Final note.
Even after the rejection by Norway and Sweden the plan continued, with a life of its own. At one stage it reached the size of a 150 000 man expeditionary force with aircraft carriers providing air cover and the whole initial transfer of troops planned to take 11 weeks with 36 destroyers providing close cover! At least the French plans included an additional southern arm, attacking Russia through the Black Sea. The plan now clearly had grown to something quite different than an expedition to support Finland and so no longer belongs in this story

Additional Note: How did the Swedish Voluntary Corps manage their logistics? Didn’t they face the same problems?

They had two big advantages over the planned allied force:
-Their logistics home-base was Sweden so they could altogether avoid the Narvik-Kiruna-Boden railroad which was the most vulnerable link in the whole foreseen transportation chain.
-Their logistics chain was much shorter and didn’t involve any sea transportation.
Furthermore they enjoyed the advantage of not facing any large-scale Russian counter-moves, like bombing of the Swedish rail network. A benefit the allied force would hardly have got!
On the Finnish side the Swedes were used in the Salla sector in the north which meant that their main logistics artery was the SW-NE Tornio-Rovaniemi-Kemijärvi railroad which could get air protection from the Swedish Voluntary Air Unit.

International military aid

Leaving the curious “Rescue plan” aside, Finland received help, support and aid from numerous countries. The show of “The little peaceful country pluckily standing up against its big evil neighbour” of course had all the ingredients necessary to inspire all forms of actions of sympathy in most of the western world. Germany alone, with an official policy that at best could be described as hands-off and as at worst as outright hostile was an exception.
Humanitarian aid organizations sprang up in many countries and often with high-powered sponsorship, ex-president Hoover in the US leading “Finnish relief” just to pick an example, quickly started a flow of non-military aid.
But the directly military aid was another matter. Weapons and ammunition could not be raised through popular subscriptions but had to be bought from or through governments. Governments that mostly were far better at producing sympathetic words than in taking supporting action. The shining exception was Sweden where although the government tried to thread the narrow path between active support and non-intervention (note) at least did not actively hinder the voluntary military support organizations and in some case really made exceptional concessions. Foremost here springs to mind the creation of F19, Wing 19 of the Royal Swedish Air Force, which despite its designation and the source of its planes and personnel was sent to be a part of the Finnish armed forces, forming a mini “Second Finnish Air Force”. The fact that it was equipped with obsolescent planes does not detract from the tremendous show of good will it was when one realizes that at that point of time Sweden didn’t have anything better! Furthermore there were some 9 000 Swedish and 1 000 Norwegian volunteers forming an army unit that took over responsibility for part of the northern Russo-Finnish front and so released Finnish troops for deployment in the south, where the outcome of the war was to be decided. These Swedish troops were equipped and supported from Sweden and they were numerous enough to really have a material impact. There were volunteers from many other countries too but in far smaller numbers. Their use was mostly severely hampered by lack of any organization in Finland were they could have been put to effective use. Exceptions were some Danish fighter pilots that, already trained in their home country on the same types of planes that Finland used, could be put directly into the Finnish organization.
Finland tried desperately to by planes, guns and ammunition from abroad but as there was very limited amounts of cash available it usually meant first getting some line of credit guaranteed by the government in the seller’s country. Fighter planes were bought from Italy, France, Britain and the US. The Italians were quick in delivering but the delivery then ran into trouble when Germany denied trans-shipment by rail. The planes had to be taken back to Italy and loaded on ships to be taken around all of Europe to be eventually delivered to Sweden were they were put in flying condition and flown to Finland. The Italian, as well as all the others, with only a few exceptions all arrived too late to see active service during the Winter War. The same happened with most of the other type of equipment that finally could be bought. The by far largest direct aid in guns and ammunition came from a somewhat unexpected, and rather unwilling, source. As the Finnish prime minister rather bitingly remarked to the American ambassador in Helsinki: “During the first months of fighting we took more arms from the Russians as war booty than we received from all friendly powers put together”.

Note:
Sweden was torn between on one hand the wish to help and on the other hand the realization that in the end even Sweden’s full intervention as a co-belligerent side-by-side with Finland would not change the eventual outcome, only prolong the fighting. Combined with this was a realization that Sweden, true to its more than a hundred year long tradition as a neutral best served Finland’s case by staying neutral and offering its services as a mediator. This stance was probably very realistic and wise but it didn’t buy any friends. In Finland there grew a feeling of: “You left us to fight our common enemy alone; don’t you realize that your turn will be next?” This combined with the Swedish “no” to the infamous allied rescue plan created a lot of negative feelings that persists to this day. All the 9 000 volunteers, many of which with their lives paid for their conviction in the wartime slogan “Finland’s case is our case”, having been being most thanklessly forgotten in the process.

The end of the Winter War

During February the Finnish defenders on the Carelian isthmus were slowly pushed further and further west and in early March the Russian troops started to advance over the frozen sea south of Viipuri and threatened the defenders of that town with encirclement while at the same time cutting the main coastal road from Carelia to Helsinki. With the frontline now lengthened by tens of kilometres and with the troops completely worn out by incessant fighting the Finnish army was reaching its breaking point. Already before starting the latest offensive the Russians had let it be known that they were prepared to side-step the puppet government created by them and negotiate with the true Finnish government. As there was no moderation of the terms Finland did not show any interest. Now, at the time of crises, the offer was picked up and after some machinations worthy a cheap thriller novel negotiation contact with the Russians was re-established and on March 13 the weapons fell still. The terms were hard, Finland lost 10% of its area, far in excess of the demands originally made in 1939 and the Hanko peninsula should be leased as a naval base to Russia for 30 years.
The interesting question is however: If the Finnish defence obviously was on the verge of collapsing, why did Stalin then not continue the attack and occupy the whole of Finland?
The theories explaining this are many.
On the far left the official answer is of course that it was because Stalin never intended to occupy Finland and now stopped when he could get the border adjustments he had been demanding all the time. This explanation is negated by i.e. Molotov’s request in Berlin in the fall 1940 to get free hands to “finally solve the problem Finland”.
“The “national romantics” have claimed that after the experience of the Winter War Stalin realized that joining Finland to the Soviet Union was to be an experience equal to putting a hedgehog into one’s pocket. This interpretation in turn is negated by the fact that Stalin neither before nor later showed any unwillingness to take any action he deemed necessary with recalcitrant people.
A third theory is that Stalin just didn’t realize that the Finnish army was about to break. This theory is credible as one can assume that his army most certainly had informed him more than once during the past months that the enemy “was just about to break”. So why should he believe in that estimate now, when it happened to be correct, when it had proven to be false so many times before?
Relating this theory with a statement made by a Russian general captured in 1941 makes for an interesting combination: The general who in 1940 was commanding one of the divisions attacking across the ice south of Viipuri said “On March 10 my division (16000 men) was so worn out that a counterattack by one fresh Finnish battalion (1000 men) would have thrown us into the sea”. (At that moment he was of course unaware that in the whole Finnish army at that moment there was not a single fresh battalion available to make that counterattack.)
The conclusion is that the Russian units were almost as worn out as the Finnish ones. So maybe Stalin took the opportunity to accept peace before it became apparent that the Russian offensive power was spent? The real joker in this context was however found in the Moscow archives after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. After the peace those Russian units at the Finnish front still in fighting condition were immediately refitted and sent south to the Persian border. Stalin’s anglophobia hade made him expect an attack by Britain when Russia was busy fighting Finland. And here the infamous Anglo-French rescue plan earns its place in history: Stalin saw that plan as the northern arm of a pincer attack; under the pretext of helping Finland the British and French troops would attack Russia from the north while simultaneously other troops attacked through Persia and the Black Sea in the south. By quickly terminating the war in Finland the northern pincer was neutralized and then the troops released from there could be moved to Caucasus in order to counter the threat from the south. So maybe the much-criticised rescue plan in the end played quite an important part in saving Finland!

Late addition.
There has for quite some time been a theory floating around here arguing that Finland agreed to the harsh peace terms because Germany had secretly promised that Finland would later regain what it was now loosing. Quite recently (July 2005) an official letter supporting this theory was found. It confirmed that Göring in March 1940 had urged Finland to make peace at any cost as “You will later recover, with interest, all you loose today”. It is quite plausible that Göring had uttered this but from there to go on and assume that the Finnish government agreed to the harsh terms because they had a commitment from Germany to get back what was lost now is ridiculous.
Göring said a lot of things, as a private person, and his utterances were thus far from an official statement of German policy. Everyone knew that the real decisions were made by Hitler. Furthermore it should be noted that we are talking about March 1940, The battle of France was still to be fought and in Germany the Army High Command had not even began seriously to plan the invasion of Russia. No one in his right mind was going to give any promises about the future borders of Finland under those circumstances, and if given, no one would take such a promise seriously.
But on the other hand, anyone could make the qualified guess that when in the future Germany and Russia clashed, as everyone expected, there might be an opportunity for Finland to do some pickings.

Could the Winter War have been avoided?

The question if the Winter War could have been avoider has been a recurring theme in Finnish debate during the past 65 years. It seems everyone from political fanatics to ex-presidents have voiced their opinion in this matter. A real analysis of the question has mostly been notable by its absence. Generally those answering the question with a “Yes” have argued that it was Finland’s recalcitrance that forced the war upon the country and that the fear that Stalin’s real intention was to annex Finland after first making it unable to defend itself was uncalled for. Unfortunately this theory has an uncanny likeness to that which proposes to solve the problem of rape by suggesting that the solution is that the attacked woman acquiesces, then it’s obviously not rape any more. In other words it is a “solution” that doesn’t solve any problem but rather performs some semantic buffoonery.
A possible analysis is the following: The Russians had a legitimate need to safeguard Leningrad. To that effect they saw a need to move the border with Finland at least so much that the inner defence lines of Leningrad were not within artillery range from Finnish soil and further to gain military bases on the northern, as well as on the southern, shore of the Gulf of Finland in order to control the sea approaches to this, their second largest, city. The fact that at least the demand for north-shore bases was strategically based on obsolete doctrines doesn’t change the fact that that was what was deemed necessary by the Russian leadership at that time. Russia had confidence in neither Finland’s political will nor its military capability to take on responsibility for any defence tasks for Leningrad. As Finland didn’t agree to any of their demands Russia used force to get what it thought as being of key importance to itself.
If one disregards the possibility of Finland completely acquiescing to the Russian demands one can see that the only possibility to avoid war would have been for Finland to convince Russia that Finland was quite capable and willing, perhaps with Russian-supplied equipment, to safeguard Leningrad from attacks through Finnish territory. If such an change of attitude at all could have been possible (It’s difficult to envision a major world power entrusting part of its defences to a minor neighbour!) it would have necessitated years of confidence-building and quite another tone in the relationship between the two states. Regretfully one can just note that the politicians of neither state would at that time have been capable of building such a relationship, and nor did they even try. Furthermore one has to note, as already said above, that as to the Finnish military capability neither did the Soviet Union nor any other state, for the matter, believe that Finland could, and would, successfully resist a major power.

Conclusion
The answer on the question if the Winter War was unavoidable has consequently to be “Yes”, there was no practical way in which it could have been avoided, bar complete subservience by Finland.. The irony is that if the outcome of the war had been known beforehand it could perhaps have been avoided. So it seems there had to be a war in order to prove that a war was not necessary. Unfair and tragic, but history is seldom fair and very often tragic.

The Road to the Continuation War

                                                    
Relations with Russia.
The terms of the Moscow peace treaty had been hard, although the independence had been saved, at least for the time being. The Finnish population was in a kind of shock. On top of all the personal tragedies and losses the whole situation was felt deeply unfair and degrading. A big neighbour just grabs a piece of your country because he sees fit to do so and to add insult to injury, the new border was far west of the line held by the troops on the last day of the war. But even worse was the uncertainness of the future. What were really the intentions of the Russians? To make matters worse Russia continually harassed Finland with new petty demands. As an example they demanded that Finland should turn over 10 % of the rolling stock of the railroad system to them, based on the fact that 10 % of the tracks were located in the areas ceded in the treaty. Finland had to comply. Further they suddenly vetoed a Swedish-Finnish plan to form a defence union, a plan they had at first quietly accepted. This and other new re-interpretations of the peace treaty gave the impression of either a sadistic inclination or a whish to provoke a crisis which could then be used as an excuse for occupying the country. In the summer 1940 a Finnish passenger plane on the route from Tallinn in Estonia to Helsinki was shot down soon after take-off. There were no survivors. A Russian submarine was waiting at the splash-down site and quickly recovered the mail-bags. Later the same day Russian troops occupied all of Estonia and Latvia. Lithuania had been occupied four days earlier. Soon after that all three countries “asked” to be incorporated into the Soviet Union, through very questionable popular votes. Was this the same fate Stalin planned for Finland?
In Finland all this created fear. And fear leads to readiness to take desperate actions. What could have been a mutually advantageous start of a new friendlier era in the relationship between Finland and Russia in the middle of tumultuous Europe turned into a festering boil.
Finland was forcibly driven into the arms of Russia’s worst enemy, Hitler’s Germany. If one tries to find an explanation to this behaviour of Russia it is difficult to come up with anything but human weaknesses. Not only had Finland made Russia look weak, an unforgivable sin by a small neighbour against a major power (See note below) but it had completely upset Stalin’s plans. His major goal was to keep the Soviet Union out of he Second World War for as long as possible while he built up the country’s military power. In the meantime Germany and the western powers were expected to fight each one other into exhaustion whereupon Russia could come in and take over. Now Finland’s intransigence created a situation were there was a real risk that Russia would have been drawn into the war years too early and on top of that on the German side! So maybe Stalin (and Molotov) in 1940 succumbed to the very human temptation of paying back for the humiliation and change of plans forced upon them by a minor country, a country that really shouldn’t exist at all but rather be a Russian province!
Although with a fair amount of hind-sight, one can easily say that all through 1940 Russia did its best to shoot itself in the foot in respect of its relations with Finland.

Note:
It has sometimes been suggested that the whole Winter War with its rather mediocre performance by the Russian army was a major deception thought up by Stalin in order to deceive Germany that Russia was weak. There is no denying that it had such an outcome but that far from proves that that was the original intentions. Quite the contrary, it was far more likely that it was in Stalin’s interest to give the impression that Russia was strong. His goal was to buy time, not entice Hitler to an early attack.

Relations with Germany

During the spring and summer 1940 the strategic situation in Europe was radically changed.
Germany first occupied Denmark and Norway and then in a spectacular show of Blitzkrieg conquered Holland, Belgium and France. Then followed a somewhat half-hearted attempt to conquer England but when the RAF was victorious in the “Battle of Britain” Hitler turned his attention eastwards. That meant that Finland gained quite a new position in the eyes of the German planners.
Contacts had already been re-established with Finland, but so far mostly on a commercial plane. Finland was able to export timber; nickel, copper and molybdenum (later) to Germany and so earn currency to buy primarily grain, which was sorely needed.
In the late summer of 1940 the Finnish military leadership was unexpectedly contacted by German colleagues that hinted that the German attitude to Finland was changing and sale of surplus war materials would be possible, especially if Finland was to grant transition rights to German troops to and from Norway. Naturally the Finnish political leadership, which was immediately informed of the proposal, found it most interesting Not only was the possibility to get modern weapons interesting in itself but the possibility of German troops stationed, at least temporarily, in Finland was a revolution that changed the country’s situation radically. Considering the risks to, even by mistake, have a clash between their own troops and the German troops in Finland the Russians most certainly would think twice before any invasion Furthermore, as it could be assumed that the possibility to transition would cease in case of an Russian occupation, it now was in the Germans interest to keep the Russians out of Finland, Finally Finland had got at least a straw to cling to!
After some political wrangling, including acquiescing to a very timely Russian demand for transition rights to their base in Hanko, agreement was reached and German troops started to travel to and from northern Norway through Finland
In this context it is ridiculous to start to speak about the nazi-friendliness of the Finnish government, With your back against the wall you are only too happy to accept help in any form from whomever might offer it; it’s only in legends and hero-worshiping stories where the shining knight involved in mortal combat proudly rejects offers of help from someone lacking the same lily-white morals as he himself purports to possess.
When one judges the decisions by the Finnish leadership during this period one has additionally to remember that the Germans had their own hidden agenda, they wanted Finland to join in with them in the forthcoming attack against Russia, and to that end they were prepared to use whatever tricks deemed necessary. As an example they on one hand temptingly offered food, to a country facing famine, while they on the other hand spread the rumour that the Ribbentrop agreement was probably about to be renewed, in which case Germany would possibly abandon Finland for good. The Finnish leadership was aware of this nature of the game but of course had difficulties in always sorting out the false rumours from the true ones.

The spring 1941
After the initial stage described above we now come to the most unclear, controversial and most argued about period in Finland’s recent history. Who knew what and who made the decisions based on what facts has been debated continuously since 1944.
The relatively “innocent” Finnish-Germany cooperation got quite a new dimension during the first five months of 1941.
To start with cooperation between the Finnish and German leadership continued at a relatively intensity on the political level but on the military side it started to have a life of its own.
In January the German military contacts in Finland started to talk about a “possible” German attack on Russia and sounding out Finland’s stand during such a conflict. There seems to have grown an unspoken understanding that Finland would probably participate and joint planning proceeded based on that assumption. What the political leadership really knew about these plans and how much they approved of them is unclear. An interesting key question is if there was political approval of the hostile operations Finnish armed forces then undertook already the night before the German attack started. E.g. the Finnish submarines were early that night ordered to lay mines outside harbours on the Russian islands in the Gulf of Finland.
When then the Finnish politicians talked about a total surprise, when Hitler in his speech later the same morning mentioned that the Finns stood shoulder to shoulder with the Germans in the attack, that claim has to be taken with a big grain of salt. That ignorant they couldn’t all have been! Who knew what has never been ascertained but the so often proposed “driftwood theory” according to which Finland just was like a piece of wood drifting on the stormy ocean of history is a little too much of a whitewashing job. That theory might be appropriate if limited to generally describe Finland’s history after the Winter War when the overwhelming external political forces rather than the country’s own actions determined the course taken. But not being able to determine the course is no excuse for not knowing one’s position at a given moment…

At war again
Some kind of semi-peace/semi-war condition continued for a couple of days after the 22 of June. Finland didn’t take any military action except sending troops to the Aland Islands, something that it was compelled by treaty to do. (Russia was party to that treaty but of course, treaty or no treaty, control of those Islands was a life or death question for Finland)
The Russians bombed the troop convoys to Aland and likewise attacked civil targets in a number of Finnish cities. For the Finnish government these bombings were a heaven-sent possibility to avoid having to declare war on Russia, instead it got away on the 25th of June by noting that a “State of war seems to exist between Finland and the Soviet Union”.

The real military operations started a couple of weeks later. The Finnish troops had been defensively grouped and had to regroup before offensive operations could start. This at least indicates that the Finnish army was not all intent on attack from the beginning.

jcl

Conquest, Re-conquest or both?

After rather quickly re-conquering the areas ceded after the Winter War the Finnish army then continued eastward north of Lake Ladoga and didn’t stop until it had reached the passes between the major lakes Ladoga, Onega and Segozero. By this operation, the politically most controversial of the Continuation War, Finland occupied most of Eastern Carelia, which had never been part of Finland although it had a Finnish-speaking original population. This considerable advance beyond the original borders of 1939 has sometimes been explained by claiming that the narrows between the lakes constituted the natural strategic defense line for Finland. That claim loses most of its credibility when one notes that early in the summer 1944 the Finnish army withdraw from that “natural” line to a line somewhat west(!) of the old border in order to man a shorter and more easily defended line!
One cannot but discern the ghost of the old dreams of “Greater Finland” hovering in the background when that decision to advance was taken! The fact that Marshal Mannerheim himself in his infamous July 10th order of the day reconfirmed that “…I won’t sheath my sword again until all of Carelia has been liberated…” certainly hasn’t helped to negate that assumption the least!

On the other side one has to remember that the decision was taken at a point of time when almost everyone expected a more or less quick German victory over the Soviet Union. Perhaps the idea was just to ascertain that Finland got its part of the spoils? In any case there was the, somewhat naïve, hope that Eastern Carelia could be used as a bargaining chip in the peace negotiations that eventually would come, regardless of if Germany or Russia won the war.
This advance into (and eventual retreat from) Russian territory wasn’t of any major military importance but for Finland it resulted in political problems and a moral hangover. The UK and Russia were now both fighting on the same side and in the eyes of the western powers Finland now was one of Hitler’s allies. Advancing just up to the old borders might have been excused but going further certainly wasn’t. Finland was sent an ultimatum, stop advancing within two weeks or the UK will declare war. Finland responded very meekly and did not, for military reasons, even hint at that the operations were in any case expected to stop very soon. On the 6th of December UK declared war on Finland and was within days followed by its Dominions. That act never hit the headlines; the next day far greater things happened, the Japanese executed their attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Russians initiated their first large scale counterattack against the Germans around Moscow.
Both events were far more portentous for Finland’s future than the UK declaration of war; with the US now actively involved on the western side an eventual German defeat was significantly more possible and the successful Russian counterattack signaled that the fighting in the east was far from over and the outcome very open to speculation.
The moral hangover that resulted from the advance into Eastern Carelia has continued to this day. With its troops far inside Russia it was difficult to any more claim some “moral superiority”. The war that started as a morally justified operation intended just to recover what Russia had taken by force through the Winter War had suddenly got an ugly taint of a war of conquest. Military expediency or pure greed doesn’t really matter any more, what happened in 1941 is just an unsavoury detail in its history that Finland has to live with, like it or not.


The Siege of Leningrad

In the autumn of 1941 Leningrad became cut off from the rest of Russia, German troops covered the land area to the south, between the Golf of Finland and Lake Ladoga and Finnish troops covered the northern area, again between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. The only route open for supplying the city, its defenders and its civilian population was the sea-route over Lake Ladoga or in wintertime the same route over the ice of the frozen lake.
Clearly this was not a very good route to supply neither any army involved in heavy fighting nor more than a million civilians. Famine and terrible sufferings resulted.
The defenders resisted all attacks by the Germans. Despite a number of suggestions by the Germans that the Finnish troops should take an active part in the attacks Marshal Mannerheim stuck to his, already during the spring of 1941 declared, refusal to let his troops do anything like that. It was, at least with hindsight, a politically very wise decision, but above all it was a militarily a necessary one, the Finnish army had neither the training, nor the equipment, the resources or the manpower necessary for that kind of an operation.
Lately there has popped up a number of authors that have suddenly noticed that during the siege of Leningrad 1941-44 Finnish troops formed part of the encirclement. This fact is then used to accuse Finland to be guilty of the horrors the civilians in that town had to endure. Those authors however seem totally ignorant of two important facts: The first is that Finland’s 1939 borders were such that even without any Finnish participation in the war Leningrad would nevertheless have been cut off from land contact with Russia when the German troops reached the shore of Lake Ladoga in 1941. (Note) The second is that the civilians in Leningrad would certainly anyway have suffered almost as badly even if there had a remained a land connection around Lake Ladoga. To feed a multi-million city in the absolute frontline over any kind of route was hardly within the capabilities of Russia during the period in question.
Theoretically one can imagine a scenario where the Finnish troops would have restricted their advance in 1941 in order to leave a rail connection around Lake Ladoga open to Leningrad from the interior of Russia. But is it realistic to expect Finland to abstain from reclaiming areas it felt had been robbed from it through the Winter War, in order to now safeguard the lifeline of one of the robber’s cities? A lifeline, the need of which wasn’t even apparent when the decision to advance was taken. Some people seem to forget that in fact Finland and Russia were at war!

Note.
One cannot but note that this “siege question” can be used as a defense for the Russian claims 1939 that a border adjustment was necessary in order to safeguard Leningrad. But that defense fails as the Russians never before the Moscow peace talks 1940 demanded a movement of the border so extensive that it would have made any difference in 1941!

jcl

Peace feelers

Already in December 1941 there started to arise grave doubts in leading Finnish political and military circles about Germany’s chances of winning the war with Russia. Contact was taken with Russia, through US channels, to sound out the possibility of a separate Finnish-Russian peace settlement. The Russian attitude was very uncompromising, back to the borders of the 1940 Moscow peace or no deal… Obviously the Russian thinking was along the lines that either they are going to win the war and then be able to dictate the settlement conditions or if they loose the war any separate agreement with Finland now is anyway worthless. And just now mastering the German onslaught was the only thing that mattered, and in that context Finland or the Finnish army didn’t really matter one way or another. Finland was of course taken aback by the negative Russian attitude and the subject was dropped for the time being.
When in January 1943 it started to become obvious which way the war would go contact was re-established. There was no change in the Russian attitude. News of the negotiations was leaked and quickly used by as well Russians as Germans. Stalin utilized the rumour of a separate settlement with Finland, that could be followed by others, maybe even with Germany, as a way to put pressure on the western allies to become more active in the war against Germany and Hitler utilized it to warn Finland that Germany too might consider a separate settlement with Russia, in which case Finland could be left to fight on all alone… After the Teheran conference in December 1943 Finland was informed by the US that no help, diplomatic or otherwise, was to be expected from the Western powers, Finland had allied it with Hitler’s Germany and would now have to bear the consequences and handle its relationship with Stalin’s Russia all by itself. In February 1944 Russia tried to put pressure on Finland by three very heavy bombing attacks on Helsinki, performed by altogether 2100 bombers. The results achieved were minimal in relation to the resources allocated but the message was clear. The situation started to look rather desperate and Finland decided to send its emissary to Moscow to see if something reasonable could be negotiated, even if it was to be based on the 1940 borders. There were two big stumbling blocks, a war indemnification payment of 600 million dollars (defined as 1938 gold dollars, equals approx. 8.2 billion at 2005 values) and a complete break with Germany and disarmament within two weeks of all German forces in Finland. In particular the last condition seemed to be designed to be impossible to fulfil. It was however possible to get it modified to read that the German forces should either be disarmed within the time given or failing that, Finland should expel the Germans using military means. The Finnish government again decided, against the wish of Marshal Mannerheim, to refuse the offered terms, mainly because of the clause concerning the Germans. These negotiations and the eventual refusal managed to enrage as well the Russians as the Germans. The Russians blasted Finland for having become a spineless follower of Hitler and Hitler in his anger forbade all deliveries of food and weapons to Finland until written guarantees of no separate settlements with Russia had been delivered by the Finns. Marshal Mannerheim in a personal letter to Hitler asked for the embargo to be rescinded, to no avail. Hitler’s polite reply the 4th of June said that Germany was hard pressed for weapons itself and could not abstain from any if it couldn’t be certain the weapons were to be used against the Russians. On the 9th of June the Russians started their big offensive and quickly broke through the Finnish defence lines. The future of Finland started to look not only very bleak; the big question was: is there a future.

The big battle

With Finland facing total disaster on the battlefield Mannerheim contacted Hitler again and now the German dictator relented and on the 12th made the decision that Finland would be provided with arms as long as the country continued to fight and six days later more than 10 000 sorely needed anti-tank weapons had been delivered. Even more important was the arrival of the powerful and very professional “Kuhlmey”-unit of Luftwaffe. Its Stukas, FW190 Fighter-bombers and fighters at one stroke more than doubled the air power available to the defenders. In addition a German assault-gun battalion and an infantry division were deployed to southern Finland. The Russian advance however just rolled on. After penetrating the first defence line on the 10th, the second line (the VT-line) was broken on the17th and on the 20th Vyborg fell after a more or less token defence. The Finnish army seemed quite unable even to delay the Russian advance. But then things started to change. Further advance westwards from Vyborg was thwarted at Tienhaara around midsummer and then an initially successful new Russian breakthrough at Tali, north of Vyborg, resulted in a pitched battle, the largest ever fought in any of the Nordic countries, lasting for days after which the front was re-established just a bit further to the northwest, level with the Ihantala village. All further Russian attempts to advance in that direction were thwarted. Having now failed for the second time the Russians moved their attempts to Suvanto (Äyräpää) for a third, and as later became apparent, final, attempt when they tried to cross the Vuoksi River in order to roll up the flank of the defenders at Ihantala. The intensity of the ensuing battle of the bridgehead are best described by a couple of utterances by the commander on the Finnish side, lieutenant colonel, (later General of the Infantry) Adolf Ehrnrooth, one of the truly great leaders of the war, “In the evening we were eight regimental commanders on the north shore of the river, I and seven Russian. Next morning I was the only one still alive” and “I had a full time job in finding new company commanders. Their average lifespan was two hours.” After a week of fighting like that the Russians gave up. They had their bridgehead but couldn’t get out of it. In the Winter War the defenders had been worn out first, this time it was the attacker that gave up. The Finnish army had lost the war but saved the country. Again.

jcl

Why was the Finnish army able to achieve this remarkable result?

There are many reasons for the surprising result, some military and some political. The Russian army was given a limited time in which to achieve its goals, the Russian leadership was very aware of the fact that the Second World War was to be decided in Berlin, not in Helsinki. After the allied landing in Normandy the race for Germany was on and under no circumstances would Stalin accept that Berlin was not occupied by Russian troops. This meant that when the troops attacking the Finns were worn-out they were given only quite limited reinforcements, quite contrary, already after the conquest of Vyborg there started a gradual transfer of Russian troops away from the Finnish front down to the front against the Germans. This was probably a premature decision made in the erroneous belief that the Finnish army was already beaten and only mop-up operations and the occupation of Helsinki remained.
But even with the withdrawal started there was still a tremendous Russian advantage in numbers, roughly 6 to 1 in infantry and 40 to 1 in armour. At the initial breakthrough point the Russians had more guns per kilometre of front line than Montgomery had at El Alamein and most of that artillery was still available at Tali-Ihantala and at Suvanto. But the Finnish side had some advantages too: The terrain was mostly not ideal for armour and the new anti-tank weapons were deadly in that environment. Then there was the Finnish artillery that after some initial hiccups became superb. With its new fire-control system finally in place it could quickly get tremendous fire-power placed on any spot within range. Much has been written about the role of this artillery, often it has been described as the deciding factor. Important it certainly was but there were other factors too, easily forgotten. Memoirs and “I was there” stories always tell about on one hand the power of the own artillery, the stubbornness of the Finnish soldier and the absence of the own air force. This is of necessity a very skewed view of the whole picture. The man in the line could see for himself the results of the artillery fire, he saw the enemy tanks attacking him and he suffered under the repeated attacks by “Schturmoviks”, the Russian “Agricultural machine” of Finnish soldier vocabulary. What he didn’t see was the tanks that never reached him because they, their fuel supply or ammunition trains had been sent to kingdom come by the Stukas of detachment Kuhlmey, neither did he see those Schturmoviks that never reached him because they had been shot down by the fighters of the Finnish air force before ever reaching the frontline. Fact is that the combination of Finnish fighter units, that managed more or less to achieve air superiority, and Kuhlmeys Stukas and ground-attack FW190s was a force that wreaked tremendous losses on the Russian attackers, mostly well beyond the immediate frontline. Their impact on the final outcome has consistently been downplayed, partly because of the above mentioned visibility issues but probably partly because it has not been politically popular to say that a Luftwaffe unit played a key role in the eventual success of the Finnish defenders. Attitudes are however changing and Finnish TV has during the last year’s repeatedly aired interviews of detachment Kuhlmey pilots, including Kuhlmey himself. Finally it is possible to give honour were honour is due!
But regardless of all supporting forces, in the end it was, as always, the unglamorous foot soldier in his pothole, “the Grunt”, “der Landser” or the “Bushjonesy” (Finnish: “Puskajussi”) that was the deciding factor. He was the one that stood between the attacker and the civilians behind, without him every support activity would have been meaningless. The Finnish soldier had experienced three years of more or less static warfare and had some trouble in getting his wits together after the very rude awakening the Russian attack of the 9th of June. There started the “Rush through the Isthmus”, something usually viewed with some shame in Finland. Truth is, however, that it was a remarkably orderly retreat, as retreats go. There is no denying that it was quick, the loss of the VT-line almost before it had been manned was nothing to brag about and it all ended with the shameful loss of Vyborg, without any proper fight. But nevertheless it was an orderly retreat where most units retained all their heavy weapons and never lost their fighting value. The spirited, even if unsuccessful, counterattack by the Jaeger-brigade at Kuuterselkä and the stand by lieutenant colonel Ehrnrooths units at Siirainmäki, where they withstood all Russian attacks, clearly indicated that the Finnish army was far from beaten.
After two weeks of retreat events changed nature radically. In no small measure due to realization of the meaning of words by leaders like Colonel Savonjousi, who when reforming the remnants of his worn-out regiment told his men: “From here we won’t retreat. We simply cannot. The next line will be manned by our mothers, sisters, children and parents, the whole heart of our wide open country. This is where we will die. I have come here to die. The running is now finished, brothers.” The soldiers realized what they were fighting for and the traditional Finnish stubbornness took over; “Here I stand and, by God, no one is going to get me moved elsewhere until I say so!”
A further deciding factor was the abundant availability of modern short-range anti-tank weapons from very late June onwards. For the first time since the “Molotov-cocktails” of the Winter War the common foot soldier had available a weapon with which to take on any tank that dared to come close enough. And close in those days really meant close, 20m or less was the right distance for a “Panzerfaust”, not a very comfortable distance to be from a “Josef Stalin” assault gun hurling 6” shells in your direction. Those were the days for stout hearts! Seeing time and again such armoured monsters brought to a stop by daring fellow fighters had a tremendous impact on the fighting spirit of the average soldier.
Furthermore the arrival of fresh troops brought in from the Eastern Carelia area had a great impact. The worn out original defending units could be rested and refitted and suddenly the front line commanders even had reserves available!
To sum up: The Finnish army might have been unprepared mentally and materially, rusty and half asleep at the beginning of June but by early July it again was a well oiled fighting machine ready to take on all comers. The “Window of Opportunity” for the Russians had been slammed shut at the last possible moment.

(An interesting speculation here is: What would have happened if the Russians had started their attack on Eastern Carelia two weeks before the main attack on the Carelian Isthmus instead of the two weeks after they actually did?)

jcl

End of Hostilities

After the midsummer crisis the Finnish army had regained its power. Modern anti-armour weapons had been introduced and the artillery had gained tremendously in power due to finally implementing a new and revolutionary fire control system (Note). Enough ammunition was available and everyone realized that there was no meaning in being stingy with it, either the Russians were stopped now or there would be no use for any left-over ammunition. The German reinforcements increased the fighting power even more. The Russians had made repeated attempts to break through on three different points but had been repulsed every time. In late July the attempts stopped and most of the Russian troops were sent south to the central front for deployment against the Germans.
With the Russian and the German troops fully occupied with fighting each other there now was the right time for Finland to disengage from the war.

President Ryti resigned and was replaced as president by Marshal Mannerheim on August 4.
Finland was no longer bound by any agreement with Germany and negotiations were quickly started with the Russians.

After the events during the past summer the Finnish population was ready to once again accept the hard terms of the Moscow peace treaty.

Before the negotiations had finished the last major battle of the war was fought. North of Lake Ladoga two divisions of Russian troops tried to advance towards the Finnish city Joensuu and had some initial success. The fairly worn out Finnish defenders were then reinforced by troops released from the Carelian Isthmus and under leadership by one of the grand masters of “Motti”-warfare, Major General Erkki Raappana, proceeded to isolate, cut up and destroy the invaders. Finally the Russian survivors had to try to reach their own lines in the east the best they could on foot through the woods, leaving all their equipment, guns, tanks and logistics train behind. This battle, which was very costly for both sides, has a unique position in the history of the Continuation war. Not only was it the only major battle fought on land that still remains Finnish but for some unclear reason it has mostly been neglected by the historians. Furthermore the historians don’t even seem able to agree on the significance of the battle! Some say it was an embarrassment for the Finnish leadership which thought it would upset Stalin and make him either terminate the ongoing cease-fire negations or on the very least demand even more concessions from Finland. Others, more recent, tell the absolute opposite; Stalin explicitly referred to this battle when he said that he had decided to relent on some of the conditions previously demanded, as “the Finns were so stubborn”. The latter view seems the more plausible, Stalin always understood determination and two divisions lost was neither here or there for him at that stage of the war but the additional 20 or so needed to fully conquer Finland would be. The negotiation table provided a far cheaper way to achieve satisfactory results.

Early in September the negotiations resulted in a ceasefire agreement. The Finnish leaders were very aware that only a week earlier the Russians had reneged on a similar agreement with Rumania and interned the Rumanian army. Thus the Finnish front line troops got orders to keep their positions and retain full battle readiness. The ceasefire was called for the morning of the 4th but quite a number of Russian units didn’t comply until a day later. Almost a hundred Finnish soldiers were killed during those 24 hours.
But on the 5th of September all weapons finally fell quiet.
Finland had for the second time in four years lost a war but won the peace.

The peace terms were even harsher than those of 1940. Not only was the Petsamo area with its nickel mines and Finland’s only ice-free harbour lost but a sky high war-retribution should be paid to Russia and the Hanko area lease was replaced by the Porkkala Peninsula, within artillery distance of Helsinki.
Furthermore all German forces should be out of Finland within two weeks and finally those “responsible for the war” should be punished, if necessary through the use of retroactive laws.
All this just had to be accepted, otherwise…. . “Vae Victis, Losers beware”

Eventually the Finnish army had to turn against it’s erstwhile allied and eject the German army from Finland by force, a most unwelcome, costly and distasteful task.

In 1946 ex-president Ryti was sentenced to ten years of penal servitude by a Finnish court, closely overseen by the Russians.


Note.
The Finnish artillery had developed a revolutionary fire-control concept. Through it any front-line observer could quickly call down fire from any number of guns, as long as they were within range of the target. This together with the realization that 80 % of the damage to the target was done in the first two minutes resulted in the Finnish artillery easily delivering highly efficient 3-minute barrages by multiple gun batteries within minutes of recognizing a target.
The same basic system was in developed form implemented in quite a number of armies, including the US, after the war.

jcl

Was the Continuation War Unavoidable?

If the analysis about the unavoidability or not of the Winter War was fairly straightforward the questions around the Continuation War are far more complicated. The simple answer after a shallow analysis would be “No”, it was not unavoidable, it could easily have been avoided if Finland had abstained from cooperation with the Germans and kept a strictly neutral political course.
But then one is completely ignoring the environment prevailing in 1940-41 and demanding that Finland’s decision makers had had the foresight to then make decisions based on the world of 1943-44. Furthermore one ignores the external pressures on Finland and the probable outcome of an alternate policy. E.g. it is to be assumed that if Finland had resisted all approaches by Germany during the summer of 1940 Hitler would hardly in December of the same year have given a negative response to Molotov’s demands that Russia gets a free hand to finally solve the “Problem Finland”. What that solution had been, and what impact it would have had on Finland during the ensuing war between Germany and Russia is open to speculation. The fate of the Baltic States is not encouraging. And finally the Russians handled their relationship with Finland after the Winter War in a way that almost seemed designed to foster a wish for revenge and drive Finland into the arms of Germany.
Of course there is also the “War-monger theory” much favoured by certain political circles. It bundles together the decisions and events during 1940 and early 41 which eventually led to war with the decision to continue the advance into Eastern Carelia and purports that that is clear evidence that the whole war was intentionally started in order to to grab the whole of Carelia and so further the old ultra nationalistic vision of Greater Finland. Such a vision might politically be very expedient but there is no evidence to confirm that the advance into Eastern Carelia was anything but an idea borne out of premature enthusiasm at the chance of regaining what was lost in the winter War.
If one accepts the historical events up to the winter 1940-41 as more or less inevitable but still not necessarily leaving Finland without any leeway in deciding its future course one can however discern a clear breakpoint during the spring of 1941. Finland then had the final chance of clearly expressing to the Germans if Finland was interested or not in participating in the upcoming German war against the Soviet Union. This was the point in time where it would have been possible to say “This far but no further”. The risk for German retaliation in case of a negative answer was small as a friendly, although non-cobelligerent Finland was still much more of an asset to Germany than an antagonistic Finland. But no clear statement was ever made. Much indicates that the Finnish political leadership (but not necessarily the military leadership?) thought they still had this peace-option available even on the 22nd of June. But that probably was wishful thinking. The time for declarations of neutrality had then passed long ago. The Russians gave no indication of ever recognizing such a possibility, quite the contrary; they saw themselves at war with Finland already a couple of days before official Finland had made up its mind.

Public opinion in Finland during the spring 1941 was such that it would have been extremely difficult for any government to explain why the Finnish army stood inactive while the Germans conquered Russia and hopefully eventually gave Finland back the areas lost in 1940. And in 1941 most people, not only in Finland, expected a German victory. Obviously now was the right moment to “take back what was robbed from us when we had to fight alone” and at the same time “get even for the unfairness of the whole Winter War”.
There was not much room left for maneuvering by any government in such a situation!
The military leadership probably quite early saw which way the wind was blowing and laid their own plans and took their own decisions, not always in full cooperation with the political leadership. By doing so they unwittingly joined the forces pushing Finland into war

Looking back at that time one can see the Finnish leadership time and again making decisions that at the moment they were made looked innocent enough and were clearly made to promote peace but which in the end led Finland into a situation where it no longer had control of its own destiny, With other decisions earlier in the chain the end result might have been quite different, later on the options available were very limited..

In fact the infamous driftwood-theory might after all describe the situation fairly well when not taken to the extreme: Finland was like a boat which is suddenly is caught by a current and pulled into the rushing waters of a rapid. Only by earlier keeping well away from the dangerous current disaster could have been fully averted. When caught by the current there still was a small chance to reach safety by prompt and decisive action but when already in the rapids it was far too late. Then the only thing to do was to hang for dear life on and try to avoid at least the worst danger spots.

Conclusion about the Continuation War.
To sum up: The Continuation War was not unavoidable but the Finnish leadership lacked the extraordinary skills needed to keep Finland out of war in the turbulent events and pressures of 1940-41. Most of the external pressures were pro-war and when furthermore the Finnish population felt a great bitterness over the unfairness of the Winter War and were not totally aversive to war there was an environment where few governments would have been capable of acting differently than the leaders of Finland did.
To Note.

For Amateur Historians and All Those Blaming Past Generations to Note:
“When you criticize decisions by past politicians try to remember that they had to base their decisions on what they knew at that time, not on what you know today.”
“No historical event is as simple as it seems, but neither is it as complicated as you fear.”
“With all facts in front of you it is easy to understand history. The problem is to recognize when you have all the facts.”
“History written by politicians often is not a story about what was planned and what happened and why, it is a fable adapting or twisting facts to force history to conform to or support a political dogma”
“History is mostly written by the victor and always by a survivor.”

For Politicians to Note:
“When elephants fight lesser creatures do best in keeping well clear” (African proverb)
“Forced into a corner even a mouse will fight”
“The Right is worthless when the Might is not behind it”
“Relations between Major and Minor Powers are always handled on the Major’s terms.
“History is events that are results of decisions. Ideologies make no decisions, people do.”

For My Readers to Note:
This story is one perception of historical events that took place more than half a century ago.
It is not necessarily any more accurate or correct than other perceptions and nor are the conclusions drawn necessarily any more correct than those made by others.
But it is mine.

Jan-Christian Lupander
Mojacar, Spain,
November 2005