finland and world war ii
August, 1939. Tensions between the great powers of Europe was at an all time high following Germany's violation of the Munich agreement signed the previous year with the Western forces of France and Britain. Then, to many observers' surprise, a new treaty was made between the Soviet Union and Germany, and it became known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
While official and public information mostly portrayed the new Nazi-Soviet agreement as an non-aggression pact between the two countries, secret protocols was negotiated that gave the Soviet government freedom to directly interfere in the affairs of the Baltic States and Finland.
Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet foreign minister
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Rough diagram of the original secret protocols; note that Lithuania was actually taken by the Soviets after the war began (modern borders are shown)
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breakdown of negotiations
The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were quickly coerced into signing a "defense agreement" with the Soviet Union, allowing Soviet troops and equipment to be stationed in their respective territories. The Soviets also summoned a Finnish delegation to Moscow to discuss a similar treaty with Finland. Knowing the stakes at hand, Finland weighed its options carefully. After a month of unsuccessful negotiations, borders incidents began to increase tension.
The winter war
After the Soviet government accused Finland of attacking its forces with artillery, it then installed a puppet regime composed of Finnish communists in Soviet controlled Karelia. On November 30, 1939, the Soviet army and air force launched an invasion on Finland. Nearly half a million Soviet soldiers entered Finnish territory, which was defended by a Finnish force of only half that size and with little air support.
The Mannerheim Line shown in the Isthmus
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Prior to the war, Finnish military forces constructed fortifications and entrenchments along much of the Karelian Isthmus, which served as the shortest route from the Soviet city of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) to the heart of Finland. This series of defensive fortifications became known as the Mannerheim Line.
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Holding the mannerheim line
Although the Finns were significantly outnumbered, the Soviet offensive as a whole has been characterized by many as poorly coordinated and inefficiently planned due to lack of experienced officers from Stalin's purges. Additionally, better winter combat clothing and equipment also boosted the Finns' resolve. As a result, the Finnish army was able to retain control over much of their positions on the Karelian Isthmus and in the north after months of frontal assaults lead by Soviet tanks and infantry.
150,000 |
26,000 |
The number of Soviet personnel killed during the Winter War
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The number of Finnish personnel killed in action
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negotiations of peace
In late December of 1939, the Soviet army launched an all-out attack on the Karelian Isthmus with even more equipment and personnel than more. Following a month long struggle, the Soviets managed to make key breakthroughs on the Western side of the Isthmus. However, other key Finnish positions remained intact, and the Soviet offensive failed to breach the Finnish defensive structure within the region in a systemic manner. Fearing more losses, the Soviet government negotiated a peace treaty with Finland which resulted in severe territorial ramifications for the Finns.
Map of Finland immediately following the Winter War
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Official attitude towards the Soviet Union during and immediately following the Winter War was, of course, diametrically negative. Government posters encouraged young men to join the army in fighting for the country's sovereignty and independence, and the home front was mobilized to help support the war effort. Despite the humiliation inflicted on the Finns by the peace treaty of 1940, the Finnish government and populace continued to strengthen Finland's defenses and increase its military capacities.
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operation barbarossa
As a consequence to Finland's losses during the Winter War, the Finnish government was responsive to the Germans when intentions to attack the Soviets were revealed to them. Hitler, enthusiastic as he was about the prospect of the operation's success, even remarked that he would cede all Soviet territories up to the White Sea to Finland. When the invasion began in June 1941, German divisions stationed in northern Norway even moved into Finland to fight the Russians.
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the continuation war rages on
Finland's second war with the Soviets, which lasted from 1941 to 1944, became known as the Continuation War, for many Finns saw it as nothing more than a continuing struggle against the Soviets that began initially in 1939. During this period, Finland managed to capture large portions of Soviet Karelia and even encircled the strategic Soviet city of Leningrad from the north.
Mannerheim, commander of the Finnish forces, observes Leningrad and Fort Kronstadt near the front lines
Operation Barbarossa appeared to be a massive success in its initial stages, and countless Soviet divisions were either destroyed or cut off by the Germans in rapid succession. Despite the success of German forces, the Finns refused to aid them in launching direct attacks on Leningrad or attempting to invade Russia itself. Finnish resources and manpower were very limited and further aggressive action against the Soviets may provoke Britain, which already declared war on Finland after the invasion began.
the tide turns in the east
For much of 1941-1942, Finnish maneuvers against the Soviets were limited to regional operations, including the ultimately unsuccessful joint operation with the Germans to capture Murmansk, a strategic port on the Arctic. After the German offensive in the Eastern Front was systematically halted at battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk, Finland retorted to tactics of fortifying territories under its control in a defensive posture as it had done prior to the Winter War.
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Territories occupied by Finland at the height of the Continuation War
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Soviet dive bombers during the war
As 1944 approached, German forces on the Eastern front were gradually pushed back towards the west, and Finnish front lines were attacked and broken by new Soviet reinforcements. Eventually, much of the territories that Finland gained during the initial stages of the Continuation War were reclaimed by the Soviets, and Finnish divisions were forced to refortify themselves behind the Mannerheim line on the Karelian Isthmus.
second NEGOTIATIONS of peace
In the summer of 1944, Soviet armies launched comprehensive offensives on nearly all fronts in the Eastern theaters of war, encircling entire German divisions in the Baltic and to the south. Simultaneously, Soviet forces in the north penetrated almost the entirety of the Mannerheim line on the Isthmus (albeit with heavy casualties), and its forces began closing in on the second largest city of Finland, Vyborg, which was less than 160 miles from Helsinki.
Despite facing total annexation by the Soviet Union, Finland nevertheless managed to incur heavy losses on the advancing Soviet forces in the summer and fall of 1944. This slowed the Soviets down enough to create an obstacle for the Soviet's military master plan in its rush to occupy Germany that Mannerheim, newly made president of Finland after Risto Ryti's resignation (he had to placate the German ambassador while large German armies remained in Finland), was able to sign a treaty with the Soviets that would end Finland's involvement in the war on the Eastern Front. The Moscow Armistice, as it came to be called, forced Finland to 'return' all Soviet territories under Finnish control back to the Soviet Union, including large sections of Finnish territories (the city of Vyborg was in the package) that were ceded after the end of the Winter War in the peace of 1940.
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Finnish soldiers waving a white flag after the Armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union was signed
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finland in a new world
As a consequence of Finland's involvement in World War II on the sides of the Axis, the Soviets forced many of Finland's leaders to be 'tried' and jailed. Because Finland maintained its independence, however, these leaders only served symbolic sentences and were quickly released. Finnish official attitudes towards the war it had just fought, though, was shaped primarily in consideration of the nation's security and its relationship to the victorious Soviet Union. As a consequence, official statements by Finnish politicians such as prime minister Urho Kekkonen, and information from newspapers and other media intentionally censored out negative portrayals of the Soviet Union, which sent a Control Commission to Finland to oversee its interests in the country.
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Juho Paasikivi, Finnish president who succeded Mannerheim during the immediate Post-War period
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