Vantage Point North

Every nation has defining moments in its history, but few have such a powerful single event that embodies the people and spirit of the nation as Winter War is for Finland. The war forged a nation divided by a bloody war of independence into one entity that stood with grim determination against hopeless odds and survived to tell the tale. Finnish troops fighting in the Arctic wilderness Before the Russian invasion that begun on the 30 th of November in 1939, most Finns were blissfully unaware of the forces Stalin had assigned for what he expected to be an easy victory. The Red Army had devised a plan to attack Finland along the whole 1300 km long border with 21 divisions that had 450 000 men. Russian DB bomber shot down by the Finnish Air-Force Soviets highlighted the totalitarian nature of their invasion already on the first day of the war as bomber formations unleashed hell upon Finnish cities. It’s still somewhat debated whether the attacks on civilian popu...

On October 5 th  1939 the USSR invited Finnish representatives to negotiations in Moscow. The Finnish government draw the correct conclusion that USSR was going to demand territory and bases from Finland. But the Finnish government wasn’t ready to roll over in the negotiations. The signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany and the following invasion of Poland by the two, had made the Finnish leadership somewhat alarmed. During the October 1939 the USSR had demanded bases from the Baltic states. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania saw that they had no choice but to comply with the demands as they were trapped between the co-operating dictatorships. Some leverage had to be created for the Finnish government. So it was decided that the best way to counter the Soviet pressure was to mobilize the Finnish army . But instead of announcing a general mobilization, Finland begun an “extra refresher training for the reservists”.  Finnish Cavalry de...

It has been 75 years since 1944 and memorial events for the various decisive battles are held across the world. One of the largest and most grueling battles was the Soviet summer offensive against Finland. Here is a short article about this less known campaign with lots of pictures to and a tiny bit of analysis.  Finnish anti-tank team at Tali-Ihantala Karelian Isthmus in 8th of June 1944 T he World War two had raged on for four years and the most pivotal moments of it had gone. German army was falling back on all fronts, Allied forces had landed to the shores of Normandy and the Soviet forces had dealt decisive blows to the German war machine. While all this information was available at the headquarters of the Finnish army in Mikkeli, the Finnish army had grown complacent after spending the past two years in a stagnated trench warfare in the southern part of the frontline. The northern part of the front-lines had remained active, but the guerrilla warfare fough...