Episodes
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The war is over but the ramifications are only just beginning. With the peace signing of March 13 1940, the Finns had ceded much of their territory including the entire Karelian Isthmus to the Russians, along with chunks of their Arctic land and eastern border.
They were also supposed to build a railway line linking Murmansk and Leningrad to the Finnish western port town of Tornio on the Swedish Border.
In all, the territorial loss to Finland was 10 percent of its total pre-war surface area. Close to 12 percent of its population had to be resettled from the ceded lands. And yet the vast majority of Fins preferred that option to losing their independence to the Soviets.
Viipuri was gone, its name would change to Vyborg, the Finns lost all the outlying islands. They lost the north western shoreline of lake Ladoga, including the towns of Kakisalmi and Sortavala. They were forced to hand over the village of Suojarvi where Paavo Talvela had managed to defeat the Russians numerous times.
Salla and Kuusamo areas were also handed over, along with the very important other isthmus of Kalastajasaarento near Petsamo. Finland handed over its southernmost point, Hankoniemi to the Soviets so they could turn it into a Naval base.
Stalin wanted to secure the Gulf of Finland, and all islands including the large island of Suursaari were handed over to Russia.
The Finns had paid for their independence with an ocean of blood. Twenty Five thousand civilians and soldiers had died, 44 000 were wounded, 9 500 were permanently disabled.
On the Soviet side, Stalin made sure the true number of dead was buried under a flood of propaganda, but it’s known that about 200 000 Russian soldiers died, with the wounded believed to be in the region of 400 000.
Later, Soviet president Nikita Khrushchev claimed in his memoirs that the number of Russian dead was over 1 million. But it’s thought that was creative accounting by a man who was forced to explain why he’d presided over the re-telling of Stalin’s abuses.
Khrushchev said more than 1 000 Russian planes had been shot down or destroyed on the ground, and 2 300 tanks were wiped out. Whatever the total, these numbers are not unbelievable.
Flags flew at half mast across Finland after the truce was announced. Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner summed up the mixture of relief and resentment by saying
“Peace has been restored, but what kind of peace? Henceforth our country will continue to live as a mutilated nation…”
The vast majority of Finns living in the ceded territory left. They did not want to live under the Bolsheviks. The Soviets gave these people ten days to pack and make their way from their ancestral land. 420 000 refugees streamed west, causing a big headache for the Helsinki government. These refugees were treated with great compassion and 30 percent of all privately owned forests and 63 percent of arable land was redistributed to them.
There was generally enough food to go around despite the horrors of the war, despite the damage to fruit trees and berry bushes caused by an extremely cold winter. Wartime rationining continued after the peace, so did censorship and a limit on travel.
The war in Europe was on the go, so by the Spring of 1940, the use of the southern sea around the Gulf of Finland was also limited. Petsamo in the north was the Finns only safe harbour as World War II gained momentum.
The global war was going to lap on Finland’s shores once more, particularly when the German’s invaded Russia in 1941. Helsinki tried in vain to remain neutral, and linked their fortunes to the Swedish government in the hope that this would quell any future threats.
But in 2024, the Finns won’t make the same mistake. They’ve calculated that neutrality in the face of a massive Eastern bully is not an option. Sometimes you must fight the bully, and as we all know, bullies tend to be cowards, you can crush them fairly swiftly if you show spine. Desmond Latham blog -
This is episode 13 and it’s an unlucky number for the Finns. Wednesday the 13th March 1940 to be specific.
The had held off the might of the Soviet army for more than three months, but on that day, they signed the Cease Fire Treaty, and were forced to surrender a swathe of their territory.
So before we get there, let’s wrap up the Winter War.
Red Army commander Timoshenko had decided to deploy 40% of the Russian Army in the next major assault that began on the 11th February as you heard previously.
When they failed to achieve all their goals, the Russians re-organised, reinforced and re-turned on 28th February. The meat grinding had pushed the Finns back from the Mannerheim line with the Russians bursting through at both Poppius and Million Dollar bunker, forcing the Finns to retreat to the Intermediate Line.
On the 26th February as the intermediate line bent and buckled, the Finnish Army launched its one and only armoured attack on the Russians at Honkaniemi Station.
15 Vickers tanks from the 4th Tank Company rolled out armed with the rather small 37mm guns - their mission was to support the infantry to try regain lost sections of the interim line near Viipuri. Only eight tanks actually made it to the staging area, seven had stopped because there was water in their fuel lines. Then two others broke down with engine trouble. That left six tanks but another promptly got stuck in a ditch.
The Russians were so shocked the infantry scattered — never having been attacked by Finnish tanks. The five remaining tanks engaged 20 Soviet T-28s, and despite the fact that these were armed with much more powerful 76mm guns, the Vickers took out eight, but lost four of their five.
The remaining tank withdrew. The Finnish tank battalion never managed to recover from this incident before the end of the Winter War.
Stalin’s quick and dirty sideshow in Finland had turned into a global embarrassment for the Kremlin - a military debacle that had shown the fault lines inside the Red Army. Hitler, who was obsessed with destroying the Slav nation, took notice of the Russian weaknesses. The Finns were desperate for peace talks. By late February the Soviet demands were spelled out in detail. The cession of Hanko Island as a Russian base for 30 years, the cession of the entire Karelian Isthmus back approximately to the frontier of Peter the Great, and the signing of a mutual assistance pact between Helsinki and Moscow.
The Finns hesitated. Desmond Latham blog -
Missing episodes?
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This is episode 12 - it’s the third week of February 1940 and the Russians have eventually succeeded in punching a hole through the Mannerheim Line.
As you heard last episode, the second major offensive began on the 11th February when Russian commander Timoshenko ordered a massive bombardment followed by focused thrusts at Poppius and Million Dollar bunkers.
That section of the line was pierced but only after a few more thousand Russians had been listed as casualties.
The Russians had also attacked in force near Taipale, charging across open ice in suicidal rushes, marching across Lake Ladoga like it was a parade ground exercise. The fighting here was intense, and on the 14th February, 2 500 Red Army troops died in the space of a few hours trying to overcome the Finnish positions.
Soviet aircraft were also bombing this sector daily, at least 100 planes a day flew over strafing and bombing the Finns.
In the sector further west near the Muolaa Church, it was carnage. The most exposed Finnish position was alongside this church, on the banks of Lake Kirkkojarvi. There was a large Finnish bunker here, but troops had to crawl out across a wasteland, and across at least one coffin that had been unearthed in the bombardments. The devil is in the details when there’s a war.
Back in Moscow, Joseph Stalin received the news that Summa had fallen. He’d been misinformed before and didn’t believe the report, demanding that eyewitnesses contact him to confirm the sight of the flag of the USSR flying over the Summa pillboxes then phone him. They did and he accepted their word.
Things were growing more and more grim for the Finns. They had no more reserves of men, and by now, into the third week of February, 16 year-old boys were being armed along with geriatrics and even convicts were being issued uniforms.
Only the less serious criminals, but still, you get the idea.
Meanwhile, back in Russia, subterfuge and intelligence were confounding Stalin — which is always the best technique to deal with a maniacal despot.
Always paranoid, Stalin had been kept aware of Allied initial plans to seize the Finnish nickel mines at Petsamo in the north, then invade Murmansk — or even more outrageous plan to invade Arkangel. The British had managed to get their hands on a bullet-riddled Finnish code book and had heard that Mannerheim believed his men could hold out until at least May. That piece of unfiltered information was a fillup for the British. Desmond Latham blog -
This is episode 11 and it’s February 1940.
The Russians are having another go at invading Finland, and now they’ve learned a few lessons. As you heard last episode, there had been a build up through late January.
While Finland’s political leaders had been desperately trying to start up peace talks with the Soviet Union, Stalin had been fretting about reports that Britain and France were planning to send troops and material to help the Finns.
The Stavka had rearranged the Russian forces in preparation for the new assault on the Mannerheim Line along the Karelian Isthmus planned to begin in the second week of February.
A preliminary Soviet bombardment began on morning of Sunday the 11th February. Then the Red Army troops each received a ration of 100ml of Vodka per man to fortify before they began their advance at noon. The initial attacks by the Russian 19th Rifle Corps in the east of the Isthmus were repelled by the Finns, Gorelenko’s 50th Corps managed to gain some ground.
However the major achievement for the Russians on the 11th was the successful attack by the 123rd Rifle Division under Brigade Commander Philip Aljabushev who pierced Colonel Paavo Paalu’s 3rd Division lines east of Lake Summa.
That was along the Lahde Road, a point of repeated attacks through this war.
By 13h00 hours the Soviets had captured a major strategic point known as the Poppius bunker as well as all strongpoints east of it as you’ll hear shortly.
Timoshenko’s plan here was working. He’d softened up the Finns since late January, escalating the bombardment and bombing runs from February 1st, so after ten days of round the clock pounding, the cumulative effect had drained the Finns.
Finnish General Ohquist had been vocal about one of the weak points in his line before the war began, and this was the very spot where the Russians focused their assaults. Ohquist had built two large and imposing defensive positions which dominated this portion of the line, one was called the Million Dollar bunker, the other, the Poppius bunker. There were three other concrete pillboxes spread along between these two points but they were twenty years old and shattered by the Russian artillery barrages.
The Million Dollar bunker had been built at a kink or a dog’s leg in the line, where it turned sharply south, then twisted east.
There was some geographical advantage, to the north west lay a swamp which meant the Russians would be funnelled into any attack from the south east. But the landscape here was gentle, and lightly wooded, ideal for their armour. It’s mine-fields had been churned up by the bombardments and the wire entanglements had been snapped, there were large avenues opened up between them on the eve of this engagement.
When the JR-9 battalion arrived early on the morning of the 11th February it was dark, they had no time to acclimatise because the Russian bombardment was going to begin before dawn.
Timoshenko linked up his forces opposite this stretch of the Mannerheim line in the foggy dark, it was extremely cold minus 22 degrees Celcius. The Russian had moved 18 Divisions and five tank brigades into place along the entire Karelian Isthmus in preparation for this final big push. Desmond Latham blog -
This is episode 10 and the Russians are about to launch their second attempt at invading Finland and this time, they’re going to significantly alter their strategy and their tactics.
The Stavka back in Moscow had inserted new commanders, demoted failures, and were now determined to recover lost initiative — the Red Army had lost numerous battles and lost face in the full view of the Germans.
This winter War lasted 105 days from November 1939 until March 1940, but its ramifications for world history cannot be overstressed. Hitler saw how the handful of Finns bludgeoned one of the world’s superpowers, crushed them in the early round of attacks, repulsed them repeatedly and in many ways, Finland’s treatment of the Russians reinforced the German Fascists mistaken belief that if they kicked in the USSR front door, the entire edifice of communism would collapse.
Thus the Reich’s own invasion of Russia which took place in 1941, operation Barbarossa.
While the Russian invasion of the far north of Finland had literally frozen to a halt, in the south around Lake Ladoga and further south, in the Karelian Isthmus, the Red Army had retrained and by early February 1940, was ready for the big push.
Lieutenant General Hugo Osterman directed the Finnish Army of the Isthmus. A quick revisit here - his army was split into two groups, in the West around Viipuri was Second Army Corps under lieutenant general Harald Ohquist, while the eastern half was held by Three Army Corps under Major General Heinrichs. The Taipale sector was inside Heinrichs zone of command, it had been fought over ferociously since the start of the Winter War. Factoring into Timoshenko’s thinking was somethign bloodthirsty. That the Finns could not afford to lose as many men as the Russians, he was going to try to bleed them white to quote a First world War logic — the battle of Verdun as case in point.
It was late in January 1940 when the Finns began to have an inkling of what was in store for them. They had a relatively weak Air force in terms of pure power, and the Russian Air Force bombed and strafed their positions almost at will. The Finnish Air Force tried to send recon flights over the Russian build up, but this was almost suicidal the anti-aircraft and other defences were so thick on the ground.
On the morning of February 1st a single Finn air reconnaissance aircraft managed to thread its way through these awaiting guns and zig zagged past Russian planes to make a hasty photo run over the forward Russian Positions in front Summa, which is now part of Russia and called Soldatskoye - roughly translated as Soldiers place. Summajarvi, the lake, is nearby and added a layer of complexity to the Russian advance — and shoehorned coming attacks into a specific area to the north of the lake.
The village of Summa was a gateway to the city of Viipuri. Meanwhile, Finlands political leadership was desperately trying to start peace talks behind the scenes. Foreign Minister Vaino Tanner had virtually setup camp in Stockholm where he held a series of meetings with Russia’s Swedish ambassador Alexandra Kollontai.
An unusual figure in this war, Alexandra as a woman was trying chiefly to stop Sweden from formally entering the war on Finlands’ behalf. But she was able to pass on messages to Stalin from Tanner. Desmond Latham blog -
This is episode 9 and we’re swinging back to the Karelian Isthmus to focus on what was going on through the third week of January 1940.
Earlier in the month the disgraced Soviet Leningrad Military district was reformed and renamed the Northwestern Front and Stalin installed Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko as the commander. He was a hard man, flinty eyes, shaven head, powerful voice — a tough man for a tough job.
Timoshenko was an idealogue but no fool and agreed to lead the Northwestern Front assaults but only if Stalin agreed that he would not be held personally liable for the coming butcher’s bill. Cracking the Mannerheim Line along the Isthmus was going to be challenging after more than a month of battles had shown the Finns to be more than a match for the Red Army.
Timoshenko’s chief of staff was the architect of the Russian victory over the Japanese in Mongolia, Georgi Zhukov. The Leningrad commander Zhdanov was demoted to political commissar of the campaign, without any operational power at all. He had been roundly defeated by the Finns since the start of the Winter War in November 1939 and now his message to the troops on the frontline changed.
Previously Russian propaganda had centred around the narrative that the Finnish working class needed saving, now Zhdanov was going to focus on Russian patriotism and pride instead of the drum-beat of party slogans.
The country had been shamed in the eyes of the world and needed to redeem itself and the Northwestern Front fighters were going to be at the forefront of this reformed war. When the Red Army returned to the Mannerheim line in early February the men were going to be shouting “For the glory of the Fatherland” not “For Stalin”.
While things were looking ominous, there was much for the Finns to savour. One of these was the extraordinary Simo Hayha, the White Death as he became known.
He was a sniper, some say the most lethal sniper to have ever lived. He served with the 6th Company 34th infantry regiment and was based on the Kollaa Front.
Hayha’s confirmed kills of 542 Russians in the space of 100 days has never been eclipsed. He passed the rest of his life hunting and farming, and the White Death died in April 2002 at the age of 97. Desmond Latham blog -
This is episode 8 and we’re into the second week of January 1940.
The Russian invasion of Finland has hit a roadblock. It is a corner of Europe insulated through much of the year by ice. Historically, as Eric Dancy noted in a fantastic analysis published in 1946, she was a great prize and a battlefield initially for Sweden and Russia — until the Germans replaced the Swedes as the principal enemies of the Russians, when she became a flank for the new battlefield. Up until then, the Finns were presumed to have let’s say, an underdeveloped political instinct, preferring to seek brave or astute individual leaders to defend them in their unfortunate geographical position.
What we need to remember is that the Finns actually migrated into Finland from the north Caspian countryside, late in the first millenium and drove the Lapps north across the Arctic Circle.
The area had been repeatedly assailed - Sweden, then Napoleon, then the Russians.The blizzards that had lashed Lapland were some of the most potent ever recorded and the Russian invasion here had ground to a halt, it was averaging minus 35 centigrade and the Red Army had been stopped at a little village called Nautsi which was close to the Norwegian border in the West.
There were now over ten thousand Russian troops stuck along this road, all the way to Petsamo in the east, held up by the weather and around 2000 Finnish troops.
However, Russian General Gusevski further south who commanded the 54th Division understood the dangers and the territory. He had summed up the situation around Suomussalmi and decided to alter tactics. For one thing he had trained his men to use skis and how to survive in the frozen wilderness, their morale was a notch above all other Red Army soldiers. When we last heard about Gusevski, he was driving westwards on along routes south of Suomussalmi and had reached Kuhmo village.
At the start of the Russian invasion in November 1939, the Finnish Air Force had a grand total of 18 Bristol Blenheim bombers and 46 fighters, 32 modern Fokker D.XXIs and 14 obsolete Bristol Bulldogs. There were also 58 liaison aircraft, but 20 of these were only used for messengers.
The Soviet Union on the other hand had an estimated 5,000 aircraft and of these at least 700 fighters and 800 medium bombers came to the Finnish front to support the Red Army's operations.
The Russians were determined to smash Finnish infrastructure but their bombing campaigns were a failure. The Red Air Force took aim in particular at the railway lines, but these would be fixed within a few hours of their being hit by the bombing raids. The Russians also bombed small village depots, splintering them to bits but as historian William Trotter notes in his book A Frozen Hell, it was like using a shotgun to kill a gnat. Desmond Latham blog -
This is episode 7 and I’m covering the first week of January 1940. The Russian invasion of Finland has stalled as their mechanised units find the defenders extremely motivated, and the use of various innovations such as the Molotov cocktail and the Motti attack system have stymied Moscow’s grand Red Army.
Instead of flooding over the border and seizing Finland, the Russians have already lost thousands of men and they’ve been stopped dead in their tracks both in the crucial Karelian Isthmus battlefront, and further north of Lake Ladoga around Suomussalmi.
They’ve also come to a frozen halt in the far north, near the Arctic Sea as -40C temperatures stun Russian troops.
So it is with Suoussalmi we start, where the Soviet 44th Division was to face imminent destruction. Colonel Hjalmar Siilalsvuo who commanded the Finnish 9th Division Regiment with the code name JR-27 was facing the Russian 44th Division led by Alexei Ivanovich Vinogradov.
Siilasvuo was a veteran of the World War One Jaeger Battalion, the son of a newspaper editor, he was also going to become known as one of the Finns master tacticians. Vinogradov on the other hand was not a master tactician as you’ll hear.
Siilasvuo’s intention was to ambush the 44th, as it approached Suomussalmi along the main road from Raate, then to break it into pockets, isolate each and destroy them one-by-one.
This was the Motte system, the chopping up of bundles of firewood.
Two task forces were ready by New years eve and moved into position along the ice road the Finns cut in secret to the south of the main Raate to Suomussalmi route. One of these task forces was led by Major Kari, the other by Colonel Fagernas.
Kari took up his position near a town called Makala, and FAgernas near Heikkila. A third raiding detachment was also on the move, traversing a tiny wagon track near Raate, stopping at the village of Vanka.
The Finns had already destroyed the Russian 163rd Division on the Juntusranta road as the Red Army tried to flee back to their homeland — leaving 5 000 bodies littering the snow covered road. That was a sign of things to come as you’re going to hear. Desmond Latham blog -
This is episode six and we’re covering events at the end of December and into the first week of January.
First a quick situation report.
The Finns were fighting to maintain control over parts of the road to Raate from Suomussalmi, with the Russians having now decided to send an entire new Division to support the Ninth Army which had experienced some difficulty in the drive to cut Finland in half through what was known as the waist, planning if you remember to reach Oulu the eastern harbour port on the Baltic.
Captain Makinen had fought a rear-guard near the lakes of Kuivasjarvi and Kuomajarvi but the going was tough as his 350 men faced 14 000 Red Army troops. The Ninth Army receiving new orders for the 163rd and 44 Rifle Divisions to attack simultaneously on the 22nd December, but this was postponed to the 24th.
That was to allow the 9th Army commander Duhanov to be replaced by the highly successful Vasily Chuikov. For this phase of the attack, the Soviets wanted to send in reinforcements to Suomussalmi which they continued to hold despite Finnish attempts to drive them from this town based in the central eastern side of the waist, on the main road to Oulu.
The Soviet Stavka had taken over direct control of the war, it was going so badly, and they wanted to send mobile forces down the road to bolster the two infantry regiments, divisional artillery and the HQ in Suomussalmi. This was going to be a challenge, the Finns managed the cut the road along a five kilometer section.
So the Stavka used a new tactic, to bypass this cut off portion, to outflank the Finns in other words.
If you stand in the town of Suomussalmi and stare out direct north, you’re looking out across one of these quite vast lakes, out towards the Hulkonniemi peninsular opposite, more than a kilometer away across the Niskanselka portion of the lake.
o the Soviet battalion that detached from the 44th Rifle Division was forced to circle Finnish positions along a 200 kilometre route through the Lonkka-Palovaara territory, and this was a safe route, albeit a long march.
Intelligence reports indicated that the Russians were arriving in force and the Finns attack on Suomussalmi was delayed to the 26th December when sections of the Sixth bicycle battalion struck Russian logistics columns near kylanmaki. Despite desperate attempts, the bicycle battalion failed to overrun the Russian positions.
Things went better for the rest of the battalion hit a Red Army motorised column at the village of Kakimaki, causing chaos. The Russian troops abandoned their trucks and escaped across the frozen landscape back into to Soviet Union.
Let’s take a look at what was happening near the Arctic sea, far to the north. There the Soviet Fourteenth Army led by Commander Valerian Frolov was trying to seize Finland’s only Arctic port, Petsamo. The Finnish high command had split their forces here — one was under Major General Marrti Wallenius, and called the Lapland Group. Wallenius faced a grim situation, and Mannerheim had not expected his forces in the north to survive long.
He was going to be surprised, because the Lapland Group had managed to hold off the Fourteenth Army mainly because Frolov had decided to use only one third of his forces in the initial attack, the 52nd Rifle Division. Desmond Latham blog -
Last we heard how the Russian Stavka had taken control of the war directly after a number of mishaps, the Finns had managed to stymie the mighty Red Army which launched its invasion without warning on November 30th.
120 000 Russian soldiers backed up by 1500 artillery pieces, 1400 tanks and about 1000 planes had initially launched part of the invasion along the Karelian Isthmus - this was the Soviet Seventh Army. The Finnish forces facing them were tiny by comparison, almost ten percent of the size, 26 000 infantry, 71 artillery pieces and no tanks.
Helsinki couldn’t call on an air force, they had virtually no planes.
The Russian Seventh Army led by Vladimir Grendahl was tasked with seizing the Karelian isthmus, targeting both the east up against Lake Ladoga and the west, via Viipuri along the Baltic Coast.
As you heard previously, the Eastern sector had been a nightmare, with the Russians held up at Taipale — the Finnish artillery in particular had scored many hits on the Red Army moving across open land, and as they tried to cross the Taipale River.
AFter the setbacks, the Stavka increased the size of the infantry to 250 000, added another 300 artillery pieces and tanks and air support was bolstered.
The Russians shifted their attention on the Isthmus back to the western edge, towards Viipuri. The Finnish Army Second Corps comprised of the 1st, 4th, 5th and 11th Divisions were here, fighting stoically against the invasion, but were short of reinforcements. At Summa, Colonel Selim Isakson’s 5th Division awaited the Russians, to their left was the 1st Division led by Laaitikainen, and on their left, Colonel Koskimies 11th Division.
Orders were sent by Carl Gustaf Mannerheim on 5th December to hold the ground at all costs. The Finnish high command also issued a statement on how to defeat the dreaded Russian tanks.
“… if the enemy tanks at times manage to break through our lines, our troops must hold their ground and calmly destroy the infantry following in the wake of their armour…”
One of the main Soviet objectives was to hit the 12 kilometer area between Summa village and a large lake called Muolaanjarvi. The Russians were going to strike this area repeatedly, and were repeatedly repulsed until the end of December.
But its time to cast our gaze further north, to the Battle for Suomussalmi which was going to become the symbol of Finnish resistance in the coming weeks.
This town of roughly 4000 people lies in the central region of Finland, in the east of what was called the waist of the country, the narrowest part, on the eastern side close to the Russian border.
Suomussalmi was a provincial centre, the town was made up mostly of loggers and hunters although seasonal fishing was also part of its economy. The Russian plan was to take the town, then drive directly west, thus splitting the country in two as they focused on the Baltic harbour town of Oulu.
Suomussalmi region characterised by long twisty lakes that radiate outwards from the road junction.
At 8am on the 30th November the Soviet 163rd Rifle Division led by Brigade Commander Andrew Zelentsov launched an attack the village of Lonkka just over the border. Zelentsov’s strategy was to attempt to take Suomussalmi from two directions - a two pronged attack and at first his forces managed to advance 15 kilometers.
It’s safe the say that the Finns were startled that their enemy had bothered to attack this area at all, even more so that they’d arrived in force. The individual motti's received many names used during the battles - mainly in an attempt at deceiving Soviet intelligence - but in time, they all received an "official" name, usually according to the nearest town or village.
Tactically, it went like this. A combat team was sent to an assembly area just out of reach of the Red Army reconnaissance patrols while Finnish scouts reccied the best concealed routes to the road from these assembly areas. Desmond Latham blog -
The Russians have invaded on a broad front, stretching from the Karelia Isthmus all the war to the Arctic Sea, ten major incursions in all. When the Soviets attacked on November 30th, they did so without declaring war — they just rolled in.
As you heard last episode, by day two of the Soviet invasion, December 2nd 1939 the Finns were facing the might of the Red Army and the prognosis was not good. But they had a chance to carry out Finnish General Gustaf Mannerheim’s master plan, allowing the Russians to invade, then striking them behind their lines.
There wasn’t much else the Finnish Army could do, it was hopelessly outgunned and outmanned.
However, within 48 hours of the invasion, however, the Russian mechanised columns had bunched up, their lines of supply jammed bumper to bumper. Heavy snowstorms were also lashing the advancing columns adding to the chaos.
The token Finnish resistance also caused some of the Russian commanders pause, stopping when a single sniper opened fire, or a defensive position was spotted in the distance. Mannerheim wanted to throw his covering groups of 21 000 troops along the Isthmus forward of the defensive line, but his chief of staff General Hugo Ostermann thought this was a mistake. They were covering a string of villages here like, Uusikirkko, Kivinapa, Lipola, Kiviniemi and each day the remained behind these fortifications, was a day spent improving the defences, digging deeper, laying mines, blowing up bridges.
The Soviet military leaders believed that a decisive strike across the Karelian Isthmus would be the key to victory. The Soviet Seventh Army was based south of this Isthmus, 120 000 infantry, 1 400 tanks and 1500 artillery pieces, all backed up by over 1000 planes of various sorts.
The Finns along the Isthmus were led by lieutenant General Hugo Osterman who had 26 000 infantry, and 71 artillery pieces. The army was split with Two Army corps led by lieutenant General Harald Ohquist on the west side of the Isthmus and Three Army Corps on the east, led by Major General Erik Heinrichs.
Another division of Finns was behind the covering groups, being held back in reserve near the lakes Suulajarvi and Valkjarvi.
On the eastern side of the Isthmus, III Army Corps was made up of Task Force Rautu and the 11th Division Task Force Lipola — named after the villages there.
A change began to take place in the Finnish consciousness, and this was going to be very bad news for the Russian soldiers. The first few days of fighting had actually given the Finns a good idea about some of the Russians weaknesses — their slow witted officer class, fearful of their political commissars, unimaginative and ponderous.
The Finnish fox was outthinking the Russian bear. Stories began to circulate amongst the troops about how abysmally the Russians were fighting, despite their vast army, and this stiffened resolve. Sometimes morale is more important than ammunition. Desmond Latham blog -
This is episode 3 and the Russians have just bombed Helsinki on the morning of 30th November 1939 — missing most of the vital infrastructure but hitting the residential area and a square in front of the main railway station, as well as a hangar at Malmi Airfield.
Two hundred people died in the first few hours of the invasion, most were civilians.
The Finns were caught totally off guard - their anti-aircraft gunners managed to fire off a few shots but by then Russian bombers had turned and were miles away.
As the planes disappeared to the east, air raid sirens began to wail, a belated warning which by then was a waste of time.
However, after lunch, the planes were back. Fifteen Red Air Force bombers swept in for another raid soon after the all-clear had sounded in Helsinki, the streets were choked with people clearing up after the morning attack — fifty more civilians died and at least 150 were wounded in this second bombing run.
The Russians also targeted other towns, including Viipuri, the harbour in Turku, and they took aim at the hydroelectric plant at Imatra and then bombed a small gas mask factory in Lahti.
The hydroelectric plant at Imatra was not the only target, the Russians bombed an important road between the northern shores of Lake Ladoga and Helsinki, north of the Mannerheim Line.
While this was going on, the Red Army landed specialist commandos on the uninhabited islands of Sieksari, Lavansaari, Suursaari and Tytarsaari —without firing a shot.
Back in Helsinki, the shock of the attack was visible on everyone’s faces. Parts of the city were on fire and it was through this maze of blackened buildings, corpses and craters in the roads that Field Marshal Gustav Mannerheim wound his way in his chauffered car.
There was no time to waste. Finland’s geography suited their initial plans. The Karelia Isthmus was the lynchpin, so Mannerheim was concentrating his defences there. The only other area that offered an immediate threat, was the 65 mile stretch just north of Lake Ladoga’s shores.
There were two good roads here, one started from inside Russia at Petrozavodsk, and the other from Murmansk along the rocky coast of Lake Ladoga. Both roads converged near the small town of Kitela, and a few miles from there was Finlands crucial rail network. It also was a point where good roads led north and south.
Mannerheim knew that the Russians were going to aim at these two areas and he was right. This central zone near Kitela was the backdoor to the Isthmus and could support a large army on the move.
The Finns were ready for this backdoor trick, they’d been practicing during war games in the preceding years for precisely this route.
The strategy was even more interesting. They would let the large Soviet Army move along these roads until they reached a line of defences that linked Lake Ladoga to Kitela and another Lake called Syskyjarvi.
Then they’d pin down the Russians, and hit their logistic route now strung out back eastwards, their left flank now up against Lake Ladoga, and the right exposed to Finnish soldiers on skis. The would cut off the head of the Russian salient and then methodically destroy the Russian army north of Ladoga. Desmond Latham blog -
In the early winter of 1939 the Red Army was an unknown quantity to just about everyone, particularly the Germans who were going to miscalculate and invade the USSR within two years.
The Red Army was an untried theoretical instrument in 1939, after Stalin’s purges of their commanding officers. There had been that stunning one-sided victory when Marshal Zhukov defeated the Japanese at Khalkin Gol in August 1939 but that was seen as hardly a fair contest.
The Japanese had been riding roughshod over the Chinese up until then, and the Chinese army often couldn’t even supply its own men with shoes, let alone boots.
There was no air support, no armour, this wasn’t a fair fight at least that was the general perception of this time. The Japanese tanks of this time were even more rickety than the Italian tanks, and that was saying something. Zhukov had called down a comparatively vast air force and cut up the Japanese with his mechanised force. The fighting was on the treeless plains of Khalkin Gal, the open landscape of Mongolia, ideal for the Soviet’s style of full-frontal guns blazing tally-hoe assaults.
Finland was another story.
As Stalin put the finishing touches to his invasion of this Baltic nation, it would be the soviet’s first foray against a European foe and one which had been trained by both the Germans and the Russians.
The terrain as you heard last episode was like another planet — the Russians were going to find the fighting in the trees and bogs of Finland extremely hard going. Of course, Stalin was going to utterly ignore one of his generals who was aware of this threat posed by landscape, General Shaposhnikov, the Red Army Chief of staff. As the Russians built up their logistics prior to the invasion, he was studying the campaign with a rather more jaundiced eye.
In front of the first Russian tanks was forest. And then behind this was more forest. Then some more. The Finnish centre of operations was far away from the border with Russia, deep inside its territory. There were only a handful of roads.So the Russian plan was supposed to emulate the Germans, but turned into a slow moving sludge, moving into a meat grinder that was the Finnish army. Moscows plan was simple — just overawe the Finns by using vast quantities of manpower, at the same time use their airforce to bomb the Finnish towns in a kind of one-two punch. The Finns would be terrified, Stalin was convinced of this.
Soviet planners were also hoping that the communist sympathisers inside Finland would form the a large fifth column to further destabilise their enemy.
The Russians were going to invade with very few proper maps, but lots of brass bands and communist party banners and other paperwork. In the thickest forests of the world they brought in flat trajectory artillery when it called for mortars or howitzers that shot over trees. Even more shocking, the Russians dragged hundreds of anti-tank weapons into Finland, a country that had no tanks.
The key to Finland was the Isthmus, nothing else mattered. Desmond Latham blog -
The Russian invasion of Finland in November 1939 came as a bloody shock to the people of the small Baltic state, not least the government which appeared to have misread Joseph Stalin’s intentions.
The location for this terrible saga lies at the easternmost end of the Baltic Sea, between the Gulf of Finland and the huge Lake Ladoga, this is the rugged and very narrow Karelian Isthmus.
Flying over this territory in a light plane reveals its stark and stern beauty, cut laterally by crisp blue lakes, blanketed in an evergreen forest, stubby grey and reddy grey hills pop up here and there.
There was virtually nothing of value here at least at first, no minerals, very little agriculture as the soils are poor. That was going to change when the Finns discovered large deposits of nickel in the Petsamo region and would hand over mining concessions to the British.
The Russians did not like that one little bit.
But it wasn’t minerals that led to Moscow invading their much smaller neighbour, it was the fear of the Germans. This little bit of land was going to be fought over as it had been so often through history.
The Karelian Isthmus is a land bridge between the seething eastward mass of mother Russia and Asia, and the immensity of the Scandinavian Peninsular that swells downward to the west. It’s like a highway for tribal migration, a route for trade, a channel for cultural movements, and a gateway for conquest.
The armies that have stormed across this isthmus include the Mongols, the Teutons, Swedes, the Russians themselves. And as the drumbeat towards war in the 1930s pounded, Soviet president Joseph Stalin was acutely aware that the German’s could use this same route to attack Leningrad and Russia from the north west.
This Third Reich juggernaut could pass eastwards through the Karelian Isthmus at the point where it widens into the Finnish mainland, and hit Leningrad in a matter of hours. At least that was what Moscow convinced itself on the eve of World War II.
The fact that to get there the Germans would have to ship a vast quantity of material across the Baltic Sea was not really taken into account. It would have been a logistic nightmare which wasn’t really feasible at that stage of the war. Attacking via Sweden overland was even more difficult.
It made sense for Hitler and his generals to attack Leningrad, but using a far more common route via Lithuania. Leningrad is of course, St Petersburg, and St Petersburg is the hometown of Vladimir Putin. Another Russian leader who is paranoid about the Baltic States these days.
When the Russian revolution in November 1917 led to the Tsar’s overthrow, the Finns declared independence and Lenin could do very little — he was fighting his own civil war against the pro-Monarchy forces so Moscow initially recognized the new Finnish government.
Finland now experienced a series of social ructions, class struggles, famine, and a standard of living that plunged. There were 40 000 Russian soldiers stationed in Finland, and these joined the new Finnish communist Red Guard which began to fight the White Guard, the militant arm of the upper classes and the bourgeoisie. A Finnish Civil war had begun.
A right wing uprising in 1932 collapsed and that pretty much ended the effectiveness of the Finnish fascists, the country had survived the depression, coup attempts, fascist uprisings and their economy seemed to be looking up.
Moscow kept the pressure up saying that Finland had to prove their good faith with a tangible, real world gesture.
Finnish Prime Minister Cajander put out feelers, what would this entail? Ah, that’s easy, replied the Russians, the most suitable gesture would be for Finland to cede, or lease, what the communist country called “the valueless islands in the Gulf of Finland” to Russia.
Both Cajander and Holsti rejected this as out of the question. Desmond Latham blog
