By the
beginning of the March 1940 the Finnish leadership knew that the end was near. Both
frontline troops and logistics were on the brink of a collapse. Standing alone
against the Soviet giant was impossible without reinforcements and supplies from
abroad. The massed assaults by tanks and infantry were preceded by artillery
barrages on the scale of the WW1 western front that simply turned all defensive
positions into gravel.
 |
| A memorial service that was held on May 1940 for the 26 000 fallen Finns |
The western
allies kept promising help through Norway and Sweden, but both nations refused to
allow troops to transit. While Finland used the Western support as a bargaining
chip, the Finnish government never fully relied on the sincerity of the help
offerings. The Finnish reservations turned out to be correct as it has been later
revealed that the allied plan would have actually concentrated on taking over
the iron ore mines in Norway and Sweden and very small elements, if any, of the
expeditionary force would have reached Finland.
 |
| Bombed out city of Viipuri |
For Finland
the stakes were the highest they could have been. The Soviet occupation would be
the end of the Finnish nation and the Finnish leaders were aware of the risks.
The Soviets had conducted extensive purges, that would today be classified as a
genocide, of the Finnish, Ingrian and Karelian people in the late 1930’s. 30 000
Finns and 50 000 Ingrians were murdered by the Soviet regime as potential
threats. These victims include thousands of Finnish communists that moved from
the USA to the USSR in search of a worker’s paradise.
The Finnish
head negotiator in the ceasefire talks in Moscow, Paasikivi, stated that the
threat to the Finnish people was existential. The members of the academia, army
and Suojeluskunta-militia would be executed, just as their Polish counterparts
were slaughtered in the Katyn forest by the Soviet NKVD. Rest of the people
would be either deported into Siberia or bolshevized in Finland. As the Finnish
resistance had been humiliating to the Soviets the retribution after an
occupation was expected to be far more brutal than the heinous crimes committed
in the Baltics and Poland.
The Finnish
peace negotiators balanced on a razor wire. They managed to retain an
independent state by playing the Soviet fears of Allied intervention and
looming war with Germany to reach an outcome that allowed an independent Finland
to resettle its internally displaced population, rebuild the damaged infrastructure,
rearm the defense forces and prepare to retake the lost lands, should an
opportunity present itself.
 |
| Finnish patrol after a fight in the Arctic wilderness |
- The
combination of mobility, successful intelligence and local knowledge lay the
foundation for any successful operation
- -The
technological advantage and numbers will not guarantee victory if the training of
the troops is poor and the leadership is rigid and unable to improvise.
- The
rewriting of history by the states like Russia show that they are willing to use
force to capitalize on any failures of deterrence.
Winter War
was a tragedy, that built legends of courage and in the end the struggle
allowed a small nation to survive and thrive instead of fading into the
footnotes of history.
-Petri Mäkelä
-------
Sources:
Teemu Keskisarjan kolumni: Talvisodan lopussa Suomi pelastautui kansanmurhalta
https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandarmoh
Artillery barrages comparable to those on the Western Front during World War I had preceded the massed assaults by tanks and infantry, turning all defensive positions into gravel. Many thanks, and please continue the fun work.
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