The Long, Cold Winter
-Kliment Voroshilov shortly before his death in Mexico City, Mexico“It was not my fault; I want to make that very clear. Moscow made every effort to undermine the military action in Finland and completely ignored the reality of the situation. They rob the army of the officer corps, split the command system, ignore the terrain, and tell me that I am to annex the country within a month? Impossible! If they had given us the tools we needed, we could have finished the war before the British acted and saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”
-General Kirill Meretskov“In a way [the Allied intervention] was a relief. The worst-case scenario had occurred, and we no longer felt the need to avoid it.”
December, for the Soviets, was an embarrassing bloodbath. January was a month of transition. On February 1st, a new, concentrated offensive began, attempting to break through the Mannerheim line. The Soviet tactics had been improved, but still relied on the ability to absorb casualties better than their opponents. The Finnish Army had concerns over their ammunition supplies, but the trickling supplies from Britain had kept the cannons firing. In spite of the heavy casualties, the Red Army managed to break through the line and forced the Finns to withdraw one stronghold at a time. The Soviets failed to perform a complete breakthrough, but it was clear that without Allied troops arriving that a complete loss was only a matter of time. The Finnish government quietly sought a way to negotiate a ceasefire, but could get no reply from Moscow.
-Iranian Proverb“Be a lion at home, and a fox abroad.”
-Turkish Proverb“They call you generous and make you lose your property, they call you brave and make you lose your life.”
In retaliation for the Turkish and British bombing of the Baku oil fields, the USSR invaded Iran and Turkey. The Turkish army was respectfully prepared for retaliation and was well trained for fighting in the mountainous region. The Red Army advanced slowly and struggled to keep a supply line open over the mountains. In Iran the going was easier. The Iranian Army was woefully inadequate and the Soviets were only truly slowed by the poor infrastructure. Bandar-e Anzali on the Caspian Sea was seized through an amphibious assault on February 3rd. Reza Shah, terrified of conquest by Iran’s old enemy, immediately requested international aid from the United States and the Allied powers. British and French forces from Arabia and India entered the country and began moving north to meet the other invading army.
-Franklin Roosevelt fireside chat“The world has been dragged into war by the aggression of totalitarian warlords. Democracy and peace have been ignored, and peaceful and neutral nations have found themselves ignited by the flame of war which threatens to spread to our shores… There is absolutely no doubt in the mind of a very overwhelming number of Americans that the best immediate defense of the United States is the success of the Allied nations in defending themselves, and that it is important, not only from our historic and current interest in the survival of democracy in the world, but also from a selfish point of view of American defense, that we should do everything to help the Allied peoples defend themselves...”