The Winter War Pt. 1

Hello. Me, Vavva, will now in my fourth post tell a story I find really fascinating: The Winter War in 1939.

The Soviet Union had won many a battle in 1939, and did its usual routine when invading smaller countries: Massive numeral advantage... They had won many a battle doing this strategy, and everything looked normal when USSR declared war on the neighbour Finland in 1939. The Soviets wanted some more "buffer land" for one of their greatest cities, Leningrad (St. Petersburg today), and firstly asked, or demanded, some land and a demilitarised zone. The Finnish said no, though it was kind of foolhardy. The Finnish had a quite strong defence, but couldn't measure their forces against this human wave the Soviets were sending.

Finland was a poor nation. After a devastating civil war between communists and anti-communists (popularly called red and white) and oppression from Russian rule for a hundred years, the Finnish economy and army was small. They could force out about 300 000 men, and less than 150 airplanes and tanks. The Russian army outnumbered the Finnish one technologically 1:50 and in numbers 1:5. This was an easy match for the Russians, and all their generals thought so too. But the Finnish wouldn't give up so easily...

 The Swedish-Finnish general and field marshal Carl-Gustaf Mannerheim went to work for the last time in 1939. He was old, and wanted a hard-earned retirement when the message shocked him: Finland was at war! Of course, Mannerheim had to command his troops once again and win, or endure, a hopeless war. Much to Mannerheim's dismay, the northern parts of Finland surrenders rapidly. The port bordering the Barents sea, Petsamo, falls the first day, and many surrounding settlements give up soon. Most of the Finnish army was stationed at the Mannerheim line on the land strip between Leningrad and southern Finland, as this was the straightest way to Helsingfors, the capital at the southern coast. But the Russian high general didn't want to go on there. He went for the Finnish endless forests, strangely enough, and declared proudly that "the biggest problem the Russian army will have here is not to go too far and cross the Swedish border". He didn't know he'd get bigger problems than that...

TBC

Please correct me if some dates or numbers are incorrect.

Vavva