Chapter 29: The Winter War:
The Winter War (Finnish:
talvisota, Swedish:
vinterkriget, Russian: Зи́мняя война́/ Zimnyaya voyna) was a military conflict between the Soviet Union (USSR) and Finnland starting in 1939. The war began with the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, as a result of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary's plan to form a Anti-Comintern alliance against the Soviet Union in the region. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the League. Stalin knew that the guarantee of the Finnish independence was not worth much since none of the Axis Central Powers could reach Finland for a easy support after the russian assault as long as he blockaded the Finnish coast. Stalin attacked because of this in hopes of a easy victory and to show the Anti-Comintern that their pact and agreement was not worth the paper it was written on. The Soviet Union ostensibly sought to claim parts of Finnish territory, demanding—amongst other concessions—that Finland cede substantial border territories in exchange for land elsewhere, claiming security reasons, primarily the protection of Leningrad, 32 km (20 mi) from the Finnish border. Finland feeling secure because of the Axis Central Powers guarantee refused and the USSR invaded the country. Many sources conclude that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland, and use the establishment of a puppet Finnish Communist government, while other sources argue against the idea of a full Soviet conquest. The Soviet Union had similar plans for the smaller Baltic states that should allow Soviet bases and be later annexed by the Soviet Union if the Finnish Adventure would be a success.
The Soviets possessed more than three times the amount of soldiers as Finland, thirty times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks. The Red Army, however, had been crippled by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of 1936-38. With over 36,000 of its officers executed or imprisoned, the Red Army had many inexperienced senior and mid-level officers. Because of these factors, and high morale in the defending forces, Finland repelled Soviet attacks for three months, much longer than the Soviets expected. However, after reorganization and adoption of different tactics, the renewed Soviet offensive overcame Finnish defenses at the borders.
Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Finland ceded territory representing 11 percent of its land area and 13 percent of its economy to the Soviet Union. Soviet losses were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered. Soviet gains exceeded their pre-war demands and the USSR received substantial territory along Lake Ladoga and in Northern Finland. Finland retained its sovereignty and enhanced its international reputation. The poor performance of the Red Army encouraged the Axis Central Powers, that an attack on the Soviet Union would be successful and reconfirmed negative Western opinions of the Soviet military.
Until the beginning of the 19th century, Finland constituted the eastern part of the Kingdom of Sweden. In 1809, to protect their imperial capital, Saint Petersburg, the Russian Empire conquered Finland and converted it into an autonomous buffer state. The resulting Grand Duchy of Finland enjoyed wide autonomy within the Empire until the end of the 19th century, when Russia began attempts to assassinate Finland as part of a general policy to strengthen the central government and unify the Empire through russification. While aborted because of Russia's internal strife, these attempts ruined Russia's relations with the Finns and increased support for Finnish self-determination movements. The outbreak of the Great War in 1914 led to the collapse of the Russian Empire during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War of 1917–1920, giving Finland a window of opportunity; on 6 December 1917, the Senate of Finland declared the nation's independence. The new Bolshevik Russian government was fragile, and civil war had broken out in Russia in November 1917; the Bolsheviks determined they could not hold onto peripheral parts of the old empire. Thus, the Soviet Union (USSR) recognized the new Finnish government just three weeks after the declaration .
Finland achieved full sovereignty in May 1918 after a 4-month civil war and the expulsion of Bolshevik troops. Finland joined the League of Nations in 1920, from which it sought security guarantees, but Finland's primary goal was cooperation with the Scandinavian countries. The Finnish and Swedish militaries engaged in wide-ranging cooperation, but focused on the exchange of information and on defence planning for the Aland islands rather than on military exercises or on stockpiling and deployment of materiel. Nevertheless, the government of Sweden carefully avoided committing itself to Finnish foreign policy. Finland's military policy included clandestine defense cooperation with Estonia. The 1920s and early 1930s proved a politically unstable time in Finland. The Communist Party of Finland was declared illegal in 1931, and the nationalist Lapua Movement organized anti-communist violence, which culminated in a failed coup attempt in 1932. The successor of the the Lapua Movement, the Patriotic People's Movement, only had a minor presence in national politics with at most 14 seats out of 200 in the Finnish parliament. However, by the late 1930s, the export-oriented Finnish economy was growing and the nation's extreme political movements had diminished.
After Soviet involvement in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, no formal peace treaty was signed. In 1918 and 1919, Finnish volunteer forces conducted two unsuccessful military incursions across the Soviet border, the Viena and Aunus expeditions. In 1920, Finnish communists based in the USSR attempted to assassinate the former Finnish White Guard Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. On 14 October 1920, Finland and Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Tartu, confirming the new Finnish–Soviet border as the old border between the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and Imperial Russia proper. In addition, Finland received Petsamo, with its ice-free harbor on the Arctis Ocean. Despite the signing of the treaty, relations between the two countries remained strained. The Finnish government allowed volunteers to cross the border to support the East Karelian uprising in Russia in 1921, and Finnish communists in the Soviet Union continued to prepare for a revanche and staged a cross-border raid into Finland, called the Pork mutiny, in 1922. In 1932, the USSR and Finland signed a non-aggression pact, which was reaffirmed for a ten-year period in 1934. While foreign trade in Finland was booming, less than one percent of Finnish trade was with the Soviet Union. In 1934, the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations.
During Joseph Stalin's rule, Soviet propaganda painted Finland's leadership as a "vicious and reactionary fascist clique". Field Marshal Mannerheim and Vaino Tanner, the leader of the Finnish Spcial Democratic Party, were targeted for particular scorn. With Stalin gaining absolute power through the Great Purge of 1938, the USSR changed its foreign policy toward Finland in the late 1930s and began pursuing the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia lost during the chaos of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War almost two decades earlier. Soviet leadership believed that the old empire possessed ideal the amount of territorial security, and wanted the newly-christened city of Leningrad to enjoy a similar level of security; in essence, the border between Finland and Russia was never supposed to become international.
In April 1938, NKVD agent Boris Yartsev contacted the Finnish Foreign Minister Rudolf Holsti and Prime Minister Aimo Cajander, stating that the Soviet Union did not trust Germany and that war was considered possible between the two countries. The Red Army would not wait passively behind the border but would rather "advance to meet the enemy". Finnish representatives assured Yartsev that Finland was committed to a policy of neutrality and that the country would resist any armed incursion. Yartsev suggested that Finland cede or lease some islands in the Gulf of Finland along the seaward approaches to Leningrad; Finland refused. Negotiations continued throughout 1938 without results. Finnish reception of Soviet entreaties was decidedly cool, as the violent collectivization and purges in Stalin's Soviet Union resulted in a poor opinion of the country. In addition, most of the Finnish communist elite in the Soviet Union had been executed during the Great Purge, further tarnishing the USSR's image in Finland. At the same time, Finland was attempting to negotiate a military cooperation plan with Sweden, hoping to jointly defend the Aland Islands.
The Soviet Union tried to force the Baltic states were soon forced to accept treaties allowing the USSR to establish military bases and to station troops on their soil. The government of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania declined the ultimatum, feeling secure by the guarantees by the German Empire and Austria-Hungary. Finland even started a gradual mobilize under the guise of "additional refresher training." The Soviets had already started intensive mobilisation near the Finnish border in 1938–39. However, assault troops thought necessary for the invasion did not begin deployment until October 1939. Operational plans made in September called for the invasion to start in November. On 5 October 1939, the Soviet Union invited a Finnish delegation to Moscow for negotiations. J.K. Paasikivi, the Finnish envoy to Sweden, was sent to Moscow to represent the Finnish government. The Soviet delegation demanded that the border between the USSR and Finland on the Karelian Isthmus be moved more westward to a point only 30 km (19 mi) east of Vyborg (Finnish:
Viipuri) and that Finland destroy all existing fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus. Likewise, the delegation demanded the cession of islands in the Gulf of Finland as well as the Kalastajasaarento Peninsula. Furthermore, the Finns would have to lease the Hanko Peninsula for thirty years and permit the Soviets to establish a military base there. In exchange, the Soviet Union would cede Repola and Porajärvi municipalities from Eastern Karelia, an area twice the size of the territory demanded from Finland. Accepting Soviet demands would have forced the Finns to dismantle their defenses in Finnish Karelia.
The Soviet offer divided the Finnish government, but was eventually rejected. On 31 October, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov announced Soviet demands in public in the Supreme Soviet. The Finns made two counteroffers whereby Finland would cede the Terijoki area to the Soviet Union, which would double the distance between Leningrad and the Finnish border, far less than the Soviets had demanded, as well as the islands in the Gulf of Finland. On 26 November 1939, an incident was reported near the Soviet village of Mainila close to the border with Finland: A Soviet border guard post had been shelled by an unknown party resulting, according to Soviet reports, in the deaths of four and injuries of nine border guards. Research conducted by several Finnish and Russian historians later concluded that the shelling was a false flag operation carried out from the Soviet side of the border by an NKVD unit with the purpose of providing the Soviet Union with a casus belli and a pretext to withdraw from the non-aggression pact.
Molotov claimed that the incident was a Finnish artillery attack and demanded that Finland apologize for the incident and move its forces beyond a line 20–25 km (12–16 mi) away from the border. Finland denied responsibility for the attack, rejected the demands and called for a joint Finnish–Soviet commission to examine the incident. In turn, the Soviet Union claimed that the Finnish response was hostile, renounced the non-aggression pact and severed diplomatic relations with Finland on 28 November. In the following years, Soviet historiography described the incident as Finnish provocation. Doubt on the official Soviet version was cast only in the late 1980s, during the policy of glasnost.
Before the war, Soviet leadership expected total victory over Finland within a few weeks. Stalin's expectations of a quick Soviet triumph were backed up by politician Andrei Zhdanov and military strategist Kliment Voroshilov, but other generals had their doubts. The Chief of Staff of the Red Army Boris Shaposhnikov advocated a serious buildup, extensive fire support and logistical preparations, and a rational order of battle, deploying the army's best units. Zhdanov's military commander Kirill Meretskov reported at the start of the hostilities: "The terrain of coming operations is split by lakes, rivers, swamps, and is almost entirely covered by forests [...] The proper use of our forces will be difficult." However, these doubts were not reflected in his troop deployments. Meretskov announced publicly that the Finnish campaign would take two weeks at the most. Soviet soldiers had even been warned not to cross the border into Sweden by mistake. However, Stalin's purges in the 1930s had devastated the officer corps of the Red Army; those purged included three of its five marshals, 220 of its 264 division-level commanders or higher, and 36,761 officers of all ranks. Fewer than half of all the officers remained. They were commonly replaced by soldiers who were less competent but more loyal to their superiors. Furthermore, unit commanders were overseen by political commissars, whose approval was needed to ratify military decisions and who evaluated those decisions based on their political merits. The dual system further complicated Soviet chain of command and annulled the independence of commanding officers.
After the Soviet loss in the Battles of Khalkhin Gol against Japan and it's vassals on the USSR's eastern border, Soviet high command had divided into two factions: One side was represented by Spanish Civil War veterans General Pavel Rychagov from the Soviet Air Force, tank expert General Dmitry Pavlov, and Stalin's favorite general, Marshal Grigory Kulik, chief of artillery. The other side was led by Khalkhin Gol veterans General Grigoriy Shtern of the Red Army and General Grigory Kravchenko of the Soviet Air Force. Under this divided command structure, the lessons of the Soviet Union's "first real war on a massive scale using tanks, artillery, and aircraft" at Nomonhan went unheeded. As a result, during the Winter War, Russian BT tanks were less successful and it took the Soviet Union three months and over a million men to accomplish what little success they had against Finland.
Finnish Army centres, by contrast, were deep inside the country. There were no paved roads, and even gravel or dirt roads were scarce; most of the terrain consisted of trackless forests and swamps. War correspondent John Langdon-Davies observed the landscape as follows: "Every acre of its surface was created to be the despair of an attacking military force.” Waging
Blitzkrieg in Finland was a highly difficult proposition, and according to historian William R. Trotter, the Red Army failed to meet the level of tactical coordination and local initiative required to execute
Blitzkrieg tactics in the Finnish theatre.
The Soviet forces were organized as follows:
- The 7th Army, comprising nine divisions, a tank corps and three tank brigades, was located on the Karelian Isthmus. Its objective was the city of Vyborg. The force was later divided into the 7th and 13th Army.
- The 8th Army, comprising six divisions and a tank brigade, was located north of Lake Ladoga. Its mission was to execute a flanking manoeuvre around the northern shore of Lake Ladoga to strike at the rear of the Mannerheim Line.
- The 9th Army was positioned to strike into Central Finland through the Keinuu region. It was composed of three divisions with one additional division on its way. Its mission was to thrust westward to cut Finland in half.
- The 14th Army, comprising three divisions, was based in Murmansk. Its objective was to capture the Arctic port of Petsamo and then advance to the town of Rovaniemi.
Finnish order of battle:
The Finnish strategy was dictated by geography. The 1,340 km (830 mi) long frontier with the Soviet Union was mostly impassable except along a handful of unpaved roads. In pre-war calculations, the Finnish Defence Command, which had established its wartime headquarters at Mikkeli, estimated seven Soviet divisions on the Karelian Isthmus and no more than five along the whole border north of Lake Ladoga. In the estimation, the manpower ratio would have favoured the attacker by three to one. The true ratio was much higher; for example, 12 Soviet divisions were deployed to the north of Lake Ladoga.
An even greater problem than lack of soldiers was the lack of material; foreign shipments of anti-tank weapons and aircraft were arriving in small quantities. The ammunition situation was alarming, as stockpiles had cartridges, shells, and fuel only to last 19–60 days. The ammunition shortage meant the Finns could seldom afford counterbattery or saturation fire. Finnish tank forces were operationally non-existent. The ammunition situation was alleviated somewhat since many Finns were armed with Mosin-Nagant rifles dating from the Finnish Civil War capable of cambering the 7.62x54mmR cartridge used by Soviet forces. Some Finnish soldiers maintained their ammunition supply by looting the bodies of dead Soviet soldiers.
The Finnish forces were positioned as follows:
- The Army of the Isthmus was composed of six divisions under the command of Hugo Österman. The II Army Corps was positioned on its right flank and the III Army Corps on its left flank.
- The IV Army Corps was located north of Lake Ladoga. It was composed of two divisions under Juho Heiskanen, who was soon replaced by Waldemar Hägglund.
- The North Finland Group was a collection of Civic Guards, border guards, and drafted reservist units under Wiljo Tuompo.
On 30 November 1939, Soviet forces invaded Finland with 21 divisions, totaling some 450,000 men, and bombarded Helsinki inflicting substantial damage and casualties. In response to international criticism, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov tated that the Soviet Air Force was not bombing Finnish cities, but rather dropping humanitarian aid to the starving Finnish population, sarcastically dubbed Molotov bread baskets by Finns. The Finnish statesman J. K. Paasikivi commented that the Soviet attack without a declaration of war violated three separate non-aggression pacts: the Treaty of Tartu signed in 1920, the non-aggression pact between Finland and the Soviet Union signed in 1932 and again in 1934, and also the Covenant of the League of Nations, which the Soviet Union signed in 1934. Field Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defense Forces after the Soviet attack. In further reshuffling, the Finnish government named Risto Ryti as prime minister and Väinö Tanner as foreign minister. Finland brought up the matter of the Soviet invasion before the League of Nations. The League expelled the USSR on 14 December 1939 and exhorted its members to aid Finland.
On 1 December 1939, the Soviet Union formed a puppet government, called the Finnish Democratic Republic and headed by Otto Wille Kuusinen, in the parts of Finnish Karelia occupied by the Soviets. Kuusinen's government was also referred to as the "Terijoki Government," after the village of Terijoki, the first settlement captured by the advancing Red Army. After the war, the puppet government was disbanded. From the very outset of the war, working-class Finns stood behind the legitimate government in Helsinki. Finnish national unity against the Soviet invasion was later called the spirit of the Winter War.
The Mannerheim Line, an array of Finnish defense structures, was located on the Karelian Isthmus approximately 30 to 75 km (19 to 47 mi) from the Soviet border. The Red Army soldiers on the Isthmus numbered 250,000, facing 130,000 Finns. The Finnish command deployed a defence in depth of about 21,000 men in the area in front of the Mannerheim Line to delay and damage the Red Army before it reached the line. In combat, the most severe cause of confusion among Finnish soldiers was Soviet tanks. The Finns had few anti-tank weapons and insufficient training in modern anti-tank tactics. However, according to Trotter, the favoured Soviet armoured tactic was a simple frontal charge, the weaknesses of which could be exploited. The Finns learned that at close range, tanks could be dealt with in many ways; for example, logs and crowbars jammed into the bogie wheels would often immobilise a tank. Soon, Finns fielded a better ad hoc weapon, the Molotov cocktail, a glass bottle filled with flammable liquids and with a simple hand-lit fuse. Molotov cocktails were eventually mass-produced by the Finnish Alko alcoholic beverage corporation and bundled with matches with which to light them. 80 Soviet tanks were destroyed in the border zone engagements.
By 6 December, all of the Finnish covering forces had withdrawn to the Mannerheim Line. The Red Army began its first major attack against the Line in Taipale—the area between the shore of Lake Ladoga, the Taipale river and the Suvanto waterway. Along the Suvanto sector, the Finns had a slight advantage of elevation and dry ground to dig into. The Finnish artillery had scouted the area and made fire plans in advance, anticipating a Soviet assault. The Battle of Taipale began with a forty-hour Soviet artillery preparation. After the barrage, Soviet infantry attacked across open ground but was repulsed with heavy casualties. From 6 December to 12 December, the Red Army continued trying to engage using only one division. Next, the Red Army strengthened its artillery and deployed tanks and the 150th Rifle Division forward to the Taipale front. On 14 December, the bolstered Soviet forces launched a new attack but were pushed back again. A third Soviet division entered the fight but performed poorly and panicked under shell fire. The assaults continued without success, and the Red Army suffered heavy losses. One typical Soviet attack during the battle lasted just an hour but left 1,000 dead and 27 tanks strewn on the ice.
North of Lake Ladoga on the Ladoga Karelia front, the defending Finnish units relied on the terrain. Ladoga Karelia, a large forest wilderness, did not have road networks for the modern Red Army. However, the Soviet 8th Army had extended a new railroad line to the border, which could double the supply capability on the front. On 12 December, the advancing Soviet 139th Rifle Division, supported by the 56th Rifle Division, was defeated by a much smaller Finnish force under Poova Talvela in Tolvajärva, the first Finnish victory of the war. In Central and Northern Finland, roads were few and the terrain hostile. The Finns did not expect large-scale Soviet attacks, but the Soviets sent eight divisions, heavily supported by armour and artillery. The 155th Rifle Division attacked at Lieksa, and further north the 44th attacked at Kuhmo. The 163rd Rifle Division was deployed at Suomussalmi and charged with cutting Finland in half by advancing on the Raate road. In Finnish Lapland, the Soviet 88th and 122nd Rifle Divisions attacked at Salla. The Arctic port of Petsamo was attacked by the 104th Mountain Rifle Division by sea and land, supported by naval gunfire.
World opinion largely supported the Finnish cause, and the Soviet aggression was generally deemed unjustified. World War II had not yet directly affected France, the United Kingdom or the United States; the Winter War was the only real conflict in Europe at that time and thus held major world interest. Several foreign organisations sent material aid, and many countries granted credit and military material to Finland. The German Empire allowed arms to pass through Sweden to Finland, but after a Swedish newspaper made this fact public, Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Emperor Wilhelm II prepared the Axis Central Powers for “Operation: Kaiserwetter” (an operation preparing for securing the Scandinavian states, their resources and strategic locations for the Axis Central Powers against the Soviet Union). Volunteers arrived from various countries. By far the largest foreign contingent outside of the Axis Central Powers came from neighboring Sweden, which provided nearly 8,760 volunteers during the war. The Swedish Volunteer Corps (Svenska Frivilligkaren), formed from Swedes, Norwegians (727 men) and Danes (1,010 men), fought on the northern front at Salla during the last weeks of the war. A Swedish unit of Gloster Gladiator fighters, named "the Flight Regiment 19" also participated. Swedish anti air batteries with Bofors 40mm guns were responsible for air defense in Northern Finland and the city of Turku. Volunteers arrived from Hungary, Italy and Estonia. 350 American nationals of Finnish background volunteered, and 210 volunteers of other nationalities made it to Finland before the war ended. Max Manus, a Norwegian, fought in the Winter War before returning to Norway and later achieving fame as a resistance fighter during the German occupation of Norway and Sweden. In total, Finland received 12,000 volunteers, 50 of whom died during the war.