Soviet Union is Balkanized and carved up by Germany, Central Asia, and China
Free French are forced to flee to Quebec
I can tell you that neither of these are happening in any way shape or form, if the Soviet Union balkanizes at all (which is not guaranteed at this point), it will be between the Central Asian states and Russia; not China or Germany.
Your argument makes more sense than mine. They're probably wouldn't be enough Frenchmen in Algeria to overpopulate Guyana once they're inevitably kicked out of North Africa.
There's a good three million or so Frenchmen in Algeria at this point, and another million or so in the rest of the colonies, but I imagine that many will be staying in Algeria; especially when what I have planned happens.
Greetings, I'm a lurker here but I'd just like to pop my head in to say that I'm finding this timeline very enjoyable. A quick question though, have you got any plans for Ireland, and in particular Northern Ireland? Could be interesting having a fascist rather than socialist paramilitary operating in the six counties with the support of Berlin.
First of all, thanks for reading; and I appreciate the compliments.
As for your question, I do indeed have plans for Ireland, and Northern Ireland for particular, but I can not tell them; as they would be spoilerific!
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Anyway, I do apologize that the update has taken so long, the surprise I had planned for Update Thirty is taking longer then expected, and I have been connection issues the last few days, so I do apologize once again, and now present you with what I had intended to be Chapter Thirty One; but is now going to be Chapter Thirty in this saga.
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PART 30
Stuck in the Nest of the Eagle
"Finland's place in the world is a dangerously complicated one, one where she and her people must work diligently to ensure the security of her territory and her people by maintaining warm relations with the Reich, while at the same time ensuring that the Reich does not completely dominate her and consume her as it has done to the rest of the continent, it is a careful balance that must be maintained; but one we must not talk about"
- Finnish President Risto Ryti on Finland's policy of "Noudattaminen" (English: Compliance) towards Germany; circa 1949
While it is most often the actions of the major powers of the world that have the biggest and most influential impacts upon the course that world or local events can and will take (a fact true for pretty much the entirety of history, rather then just the Cold War specifically), one cannot at the same time disregard the vast impacts and long-term consequences that can often result from the actions taken by the various less influential powers of the world; which can frequently just be as important to the overall course of history as an action taken by larger and more influential countries.
To that end, we will dedicate today's essay to studying some of the lesser powers in continental Europe, and look and see what impacts their actions ultimately would and did cause to the course of events in the Cold War, starting with the most curious case in all of Europe; that being of course Finland.
Figure 1: Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Armed Forces during the Winter War and the Continuation War; circa 1943
Finland
- a region which had for most of it's history been under the direct control of either the Swedish or Russian realms, formally gained it's independence near the end of the First World War in late 1917; taking advantage of the situation that had developed from the collapse of the Tsarist Russian government and the brewing Civil War in Russia to seize it's own political freedom. This initial period after independence was however marked by widespread political and social instability in the country, stemming largely from two main issues, the first of these was the prominent socio-economic gap that existed between the urban and rural workers and the Finnish noble and conservative elite (which were only further exacerbated by the Economic Collapse of 1917), the second was the escalating political power struggle between the left-wing Social Democratic Party and the broader Finnish Labor Movement on one side, and the right-wing conservative government in Helsinki on the other, both of these issues worked in combination to help cause a deep and widening division to develop within Finnish society as a whole, and would also later help contribute to the outbreak of Civil War between the Conservative government and the Finnish Social Democrats in early 1918; a conflict which would ultimately be won by the government.
The end of the Civil War would see stability finally return to Finland for the first time since the collapse of the Russian Empire, with a free, independent and democratic Finnish Republic subsequently being established in the aftermath of the internal conflict, in spite of all of that however, the years between the World Wars would turn out to be just as tough for the Finns as the years before had been, as not only did the government in Helsinki have to deal with the ever looming threat of the Soviets coming back around to reclaim what they believed to belong to them (that is, the entirety of, or at least parts of Finland itself), but they would also have to deal with a increasingly struggling economy in addition, the outbreak of the worldwide Great Depression in 1929 would only further worsen the already shaky Finnish economic situation, causing widespread economic instability and unemployment among the Finnish people; and subsequently reopening and deepening many of the old socio-economic divisions that had wounded Finland in the past.
This re-opening and worsening of old socio-economic tensions during the early years of the Depression would also happen to coincide with a meteoric rise in popular support within the Finnish voter base for various extremist political parties on all sides of the broader political spectrum that occurred during the same time period, through this also coincided with the general rise in support for extremist ideologies that occurred all across Europe, so it is ultimately not surprising that such a thing occurred when considering events in the rest of the world, even then however; support for extremist parties in Finland would never reach the zenith that it had reached in countries such as Germany and Italy.
Figure 2: Map detailing Finnish territorial gains from the Second World War, light red indicates territories that had belonged to Finland before the Winter War; while dark red indicates territories that had not been apart of Finland prior to the Winter War
Upon the start of the Second World War in 1939, Finland
- while friendly towards the Allies, would initially pursue a policy of armed neutrality in regards to the conflict, focusing the majority of it's attention towards staying out of the conflict if possible; while at the same time preparing itself to fend off a theoretical Soviet invasion. These preparations would prove themselves to be fruitful when the day that Finns had long feared finally came to fruition, that day being November 30th, 1939, when twenty one Soviet divisions totaling over 450,000 ground soldiers crossed the Finnish-Soviet border, launching a full-scale invasion of the country; and triggering the start of what would become known as the
"Winter War".
Going into the conflict, the Soviets predicted that it would take no more then two or three weeks at the most to defeat the opposing Finnish forces on the battlefield, taking into account the fact that they possessed superior numbers in terms of manpower and equipment to the Finns, as well as the battlefield success the Red Army had just achieved in their invasion of Eastern Poland just two months prior; all contributed towards the Soviet leadership figuring that a quick victory could be achieved. However, Stalin's many purges had in fact done a number on the Red Army's officer corp, and in combination with the coinciding politicalization of the Soviet armed forces, had extensively crippled the efficiency of the Red Army's leadership command; which heading into the war mostly consisted of inexperienced younger officers who had been hastily promoted to higher positions in the wake of the purge of older officers, the Finns on the other hand did not suffer from these issues, and in addition had, with the urging and support of Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, prepared extensively for a theoretical Soviet invasion in the years leading up to the outbreak of hostilities, helping lead to much of the early success the Finnish forces achieved in the war, while the Soviets would eventually go on to the win the war, however, their victory would come at a great cost in terms of manpower and materials; and helped proved the tenacious fighting ability of the Finnish Army to the entire world as a whole.
The peace established by the Moscow Treaty that ended the Winter War was however widely regarded within Finland as a temporary necessity, especially as the Soviet Union continued to put political pressure on Helsinki even after formal peace had been established, this persisted a continued (and somewhat justified) fear among the Finnish populace that the Moscow Treaty was just a lull before the Soviets came back to finish the job they had started, in response to both the continued fears and the actual facts on the ground, the Finnish government would firstly maintain the official state of war, and then would secondly begin a rearmament campaign directed towards the country's defense and security, and even possibly in the right circumstances a renewed offensive aimed at reclaiming the territories ceded to the Soviets in the Moscow Treaty (and possibly even more), but the Finns knew that if they wanted any success at all, they had to find a foreign power to support them, their initial choices in this regard were Sweden and Britain, but when both shot the Finnish government's proposals down; Helsinki would find itself forced to turn back to an old friend of the Finnish nation. That of course being Germany.
The move to align itself politically and militarily with the Greater German Reich would prove to be a beneficial one for the Finns when the breakout of hostilities came about on the Eastern Front, as their alliance with Germany meant that Helsinki possessed a powerful ally to help distract the main bulk of the Soviet forces and eliminate the numbers game from the table, this plan would work perfectly come the war's beginning, as the increasing need on Moscow's part to transfer every available unit to help contain the German advance along the front lines meant that fewer and fewer units were available to guard the border with Finland, a glaring weakness in the Soviet's position in the north which Helsinki would eagerly take advantage of to launch it's own military operations, which would succeed in pushing Soviet forces out of not only the the territory that they had been forced to cede to Moscow at the end of Winter War, but additional territory that comprised of the rest of (or at least parts of, when taking into account the actual position of the frontlines at the end of the war) the irrendentist nationalist concept of
Greater Finland as well, all territory which the Finnish government
- along with the area around and including Archangel'sk; would be allowed to annex at the war's conclusion.
Figure 3: Finnish soldiers conduct a training exercise at an abandoned village in Eastern Karelia; circa 1956
In the aftermath of the war, Finland had successfully expanded her borders and subsequently gained new and ample resources from this expansion, but she also had found herself stuck in a new and possibly even more precarious position then she had been before, that was of course that Finland was a lone democratic state (outside of Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey that is) in a sea of fascism; and more specifically was surrounded by the Reich itself on it's northern and southern borders. Considering these facts, as well as the threat that the Germans posed to Finland and it's democratic institutions, the Finnish government would begin pursuing a policy during the early years of the Cold War, referred to among Finnish circles as the "Nouddataminen Oppi"(English: Compliance Doctrine)
- through others may better known these policies by the English phrase
"Finlandization"; a term which was coined by writer from the New York Times in 1954 to describe the complicated stance and position of the Finnish government.
The core of the Nouddataminen
- formulated by Finnish President Risto Ryti and Marshal Mannerheim, emphasized a so called "tactic balance" that needed to be held in Finland's overall foreign policy to ensure the continued preservation of the country's national sovereignty, this was done in two ways, firstly, by maintaining friendly and cordial relations with the Greater German Reich, and not challenging their stance in foreign politics, and secondly by not allowing the influence of the Germans to penetrate too far into Finnish society, allowing the country to both retain and strengthen the healthy diplomatic relationship that it possessed with it's larger neighbor; while at the same time securing Finland's own political independence from Berlin. While the German government would find themselves mildly annoyed by both the incredibly independent nature of the Finns, and the continuing existing of their democratic system
- especially as tensions between the two states slowly began to increase in the early 1950s over the issue of Helsinki doing little to stop Russian, Baltic and Jewish refugees from crossing the German-Finnish border, the country itself posed little threat to the Germans overall agenda
- especially with the Germans knowing full well that the Finns were not dumb enough to give them a reason to bring the hammer down on them, and thus, Berlin would ultimately decide that they could leave Helsinki be as it was for the most part (as long as they never got a reason to bring the hammer down of course), ultimately ensuring the relative long-term success of the Nouddataminen; even if tensions continued to exist between Berlin and Helsinki over the refugee matter.
Figure 4: Russian civilians stand in a bread line in the city of Äänislinna, located in Eastern Karelia; photo taken by a Finnish cameraman sometime during 1958
Finland's problems were however not just limited to it's standing internationally, as the country (in spite of the post-war economic boom that would occur), would ultimately suffer from the effects of various internal problems in the early years of the Cold War, the main one of these was however the developing ethnic issues between the majority Finnic and minority Slavic populations of the country, a matter which directly stemmed from the annexation of Soviet territory in the aftermath of the Second World War, territory which was populated by a majority Russian and Ukrainian population (which formed a substantial minority in the entirety of Finland); in addition the minority ethnic Finnic populations of these regions.
The fact that Finland would suffer from ethnic issues may be surprising for some, as the reality of it being a free democratic republic
- and thus in theory possessing basic civil and human rights for it's citizens; would lead one to think that this would not be the case.
However, the country's minority Slavic population - the majority of whom did not qualify as legal citizens under Finnish citizenship laws at the time, were not afforded the same basic rights that ethnic Finns and other closely related Finnic ethnic groups possessed under Finnish federal law. In actuality, they often suffered from widespread abuse and discrimination against them by the Finnish majority population
- who possessed fairly significant feelings of Russophobia; feelings which caused an overall steady rise in ethnic tensions between the Slavs and the Finns. The actions of the Finnish government often encouraged this feeling of ethnic animosity, especially with the expansion of the existing policy of Finnification of the annexed territories. Finnification was a series of accords and laws aimed at destroying the presence of "non-Finnic" culture and language within the territories Finland had annexed from the Soviet Union. It ultimately sought the complete assimilation or expulsion of the territories Slavic population, which would coincide with a campaign of colonization by ethnically Finnic settlers brought in from other parts of the country and the Reich's Eastern Territories; in order to complete the full-scale Finnification process of the annexed territories.
Figure 5: Finnish President Eemil Luukka, elected in 1957, was the leader of Finland heading into the 1960's; and would serve as Finnish President until his death in 1969
Even with all of that in consideration, the standard of life for the average Slavic, Jewish, or otherwise supposed "undesirable" persons (that is, those individuals from the many groups persecuted by the governments of Fascist countries; such as Germany or Italy) that resided within the borders of Finland was still considerably better then in the majority of Europe, making Finland one of the few places where individuals from these groups
- at least those that had the resources to do so of course, could flee in refuge from the persecution that they faced elsewhere, and move on to live a relatively normalesque life free from most of the horrors they have faced otherwise; even in spite of the discrimination that many still faced from some circles within Finland.
According to the estimations of modern historians, it can be summarized that the majority of the refugees that managed to make the trip
- the majority of whom came from the former western half of the Soviet Union, Norway and Romania, would ultimately end up taking permanent residence within Finland upon their successful arrival, nonetheless, a significant amount of them would also use Finland as a temporary safe haven, before moving on to other "free" European countries such as Sweden or Turkey, or the in some cases the West; for those individuals that were lucky enough to possess the resources needed to make the trip all the way to Britain or the United States.
In the grand scheme of things however, the actions undertaken by the Finnish government both internally and internationally were some of the lesser ones undertaken by the various minor European powers in terms of the impact and influence that they had on the world stage, and at least one of Helsinki's European allies was already in the process of undertaking actions that would have a grand impact on the course that history was about to take, when a plane took off from a airfield in Lyon, France and headed for Tripoli International Airport; it's four occupants heading to a clandestine meeting in Algiers.
