On November 30th, Finland marks the 84th anniversary of the beginning of the Winter War. For the first time in its history, it does not stand alone. It can look back at that traumatic event as a full-fledged member of NATO.
If Finland had belonged to such an alliance in 1939, the Soviet Union would not have dared to invade. Stalin did not want a war with the West any more than Putin does.
The comparisons with the current war in Ukraine are inescapable. Today, Russia does not see Ukraine as a real country, but as part of greater Russia. In 1939, the Soviet Union saw Finland as a lost part of the Russian Empire that had to be recaptured.
In 1939, Moscow’s demands for territorial concessions from Finland and the Baltic states were the first steps in the plan to return these countries to the Soviet empire, as per the secret protocol to the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and Russia.
On the morning of November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland by land, sea, and air, with no declaration of war.
Stalin set up a puppet regime in the border town of Terijoki and declared it to be the only valid Finnish government. The leader of the Leningrad Military District, Andrei Zhdanov, commissioned a celebratory piece from Dmitri Shostakovich entitled “Suite on Finnish Dreams” to be played by Red Army marching bands during the victory parade in Helsinki.
Despite being badly outnumbered and short of everything from shells to anti-tank guns, the Finnish army held on for 105 days. The Finns sought help from their Scandinavian neighbours and from Britain, France, and America. Help did arrive in the form of volunteers, medical personnel, and offers to take in Finnish children, but not the military aid the Finns desperately needed.
Finnish defenses tenaciously held out for over three months while inflicting stiff losses on the Soviets, but in February 1940 the final act of the war began. A new and massive Russian offensive was launched on the Karelian Isthmus. “Twelve Soviet divisions along with five Soviet tank brigades—approximately a quarter of a million men—were about to hurl themselves in the Viipuri area against two understrength, ammunition-poor, bone-tired Finnish divisions of less than twenty thousand.” (Gordon F. Sander, The Hundred Day Winter War, University of Kansas Press, 2013, p. 296)
For the first time, the Finns were forced to retreat from their main defense line, the Mannerheim Line.
Meanwhile, France and Britain had an expeditionary force ready to march to Finland, but neutral Sweden refused to grant transit rights. While negotiations continued, the situation of the Finns grew dire. Reluctantly bowing to the reality that Western aid would not arrive in time, the Finnish government signed an armistice with Russia on March 12, 1940. A ceasefire came into effect all along the front the next day, March 13.
The prospect of Western intervention had prodded Stalin into negotiating an armistice, but one which imposed extremely harsh terms on the Finns.
The ceded area included Finland’s second largest city of Viipuri (Vyborg) and much of Finland’s industrialized territory–11% of the territory and 30% of the economic assets of pre-war Finland. Twelve percent of Finland’s population, some 422,000 Karelians, had to be evacuated and re-settled.
The estimated number of Russian dead has changed over the years. The generally accepted figure is 230 000-270 000. ]Finnish dead numbered approximately 25 000.
The Finns had lost so much and paid such a great price that at first the peace felt more unbearable than the war. That was before they knew how desperate the military situation on the Isthmus had been, how close they had come to catastrophe. Gradually, they understood. The peace was cruel, but there had been no other choice; and they still had their country and their freedom. –from Lost Ground
The last word goes to the man who led Finland’s army through the war, Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim, in his Order of the Day, dated March 14, 1940:
“Soldiers: I have fought on many battlefields, but never have I seen your like as warriors. I am as proud of you as though you were my own children; I am as proud of the sacrifice tendered by the child of a lowly cottage as of those of the wealthy.
We are proudly conscious of the historic duty which we shall continue to fulfill; the defence of that Western civilization which has been our heritage for centuries, but we know also that we have paid to the very last penny any debt we may have owed the West.”
The Winter War in photos (courtesy of SAKuva (Finnish Military Archives) unless otherwise noted).
Ulla Jordan 