BULWARK OF THE NORTH

By A. A. K.

Tlte J:]u,opean phasc of the p-resen' loorld t~'(lr began exaclly four year8 090.It might "etm 81ran96 that Ire shoulet commemorate thi" day with aIL article all therole of Finlcmd $n the present Imr. For Finlul/a 'U'as not ineoll'ed ulltil tltr c monlhslate, and Jor 80me 1ncmths conducted a war which at 'ltat l'ime did 'lOt seem to beJ'irectly cOllcerned 1I:ith tlte world war O<i a whole. Tod<lY, however, we know tlta' 'ltePillnish·Soviet t/'ar of the winler of 1939/"0 already 'rcpreslmtcd a part of tlte u-orldwar, and that little Finland, a champion of new £ur011C. tcas then, as now, carnJingon agains' a (Jigatuio enemy a struggle which was an epic of heroism and palriotiam.

The following article, repretJellJ,ing the F'i,mish point of vie 11'. wa.s writtenfor "The XXth Cetltury" by a F'inn'ish ojJicer now in Bast Asia lclio wishe-s to re III a ill

allonynWU8.-K.-'I1 .

Up to about 1500, a state of warbetween the Finns and the Rus­sians was more the rule than the

exception; and since that time there havehecn seventy-nine years of war againstthe Hussians. In other words, since] .-00 almost a fift·h of all tbe years haveiJ en ycars of war between the Finnishand the H.us ian peoples. This astonish­ing fact can only be lmderstood by ~

glance at the pages of history.

The original Finno-Ugrian tribes in­hapited the heart of Asial from theb autiful Altai range westward to the1. raIl; and" were neighbors of the ancient'l'ungusic and Turlic tribes, to whomthey were related by their language.

I 'orne of these original tribes stillinhabit these regions, as, for instance,tho Vogllls and Ostyaks (to whose lan­guoge that of the Hungarians is moreclosely related than any other). OtherslIIjgrated, generally toward the west.The \yuJ:like ancient Bulgarians movedinto the Ba.lkans, where they adopted theprevailing I'lavic tongue of the originalinhabitants. The Hungarians penetratedas far a.s the Alps. But the Finnishtribes Hligrated in a northwesterly tli.rec­tion until they gradually and peacefullypopulated the almost UJlinhabited forest,river, and lake t€rritories of north­eastern Europe between the Baltic andthe White Sea. Here they split up into

two branches known today as Finus andEstonians.

RUSSIA..." NEIGHBORS

Now the Finns became acquaintedwith the sea. They built ships andsailed and rowed all over the waters ofnorthern Europe. Sometimes on theirtrips of piracy they got into fights withtheir new maritime neighbors, the Ger­manic vikings from Scandinavia. Onother occasions the Finnish and Estoniansea rovers allied themselves ~ith theScandinavian ,·ikings and undertook ma­rauding expeditions with their little war­ships as far as Ireland in the we t orwent on peaceful trading trips along thegreat rivers of' eastern Europe as far asthe Black Sea in the south.

On these southern jOllfneys the Finnsmade their first acquaintance witlt theSlavs, who..e center of gravity then la.vin the present Ukraine. later t·o :;h.iitnortheastward. The Slass expanded,conquering 1\'10 cow (then a small townbelonging to a Volga-Fimush tribe) whichwas later to become the center of theRussian world.

Held back for some time by GenghiKhan and his de..,cendants, the Ru ianflood started mOvlla aaain from thiscenter in aU directions: westward afa.r as Poland, southward a far asTurkey, ea ·twnrd across the Urals to

92 THE XXth CENTURY

II

II

the Pacific, and northward to theArctic Ocean. One people after anotherwas subjugated-by cunning or by force-and superficially Russianized. In thefield of culture, muoh was adopted fromthem by the Russians and from then onimply presented as "Russian" to the

world. 1h1s process lasted for centuriesand has continued up to present times,now under the cloak of Bolshevism-inthe Baltic countries, Poland, and Bessa­rauia. That is why the present-day"l~ussian" people of more than onehundred and fifty millions is not a real"people" but a mixture of remnants ofthe most varied origin, remnants thathave been pushed around during thecourse of time.

It was only in one direction that theRussians did not succeed in penetrating:northwest, toward the Atlantic. Therestood (and still stand) the Finns, fightingnow for more than eight hundred years,with greater or lesser success, sometimesoverrun but never broken. Thus it iseasy to understand that the history ofFinland consists more than anything elseof resistance against the Russian Bood.

FINNS AND SWEDES

When Russian pressure began to bedirected toward the Baltic, the friendlyrelations between the Finns and Swedeswere strengthened. The Swedes, who hadbeen Christianized earlier, brought theChristian faith to Finland. Early in thefifteenth century, most of the Finnishtribes were united under the King ofSweden as a separate dukedom, withrights equal to those of the rest of thekingdom. Thus it happened that, whentho Russian attacks became more dan­gerous, the Swedish kings could oftensend aid and troops to Finland.

The lot of the older and at that timeculturally more advanced brothers of thel?inns, the Estonians, who lived south ofthe Gulf of Finland, was a different one.Hard pres 'ed at first by the Danishvikings, the E tonians were then Chris­tianized by force by the German Knightsand later incorpon\,ted by Rus ia. Liber­a,ted in 1918 by the Imperial German

armies and having later themselves foughtwith success against the Bolsheviks, theEstonians were overrun again by theRussians in 1940 and once more had tobe freed by German armies. Today theyare fighting shoulder to shoulder withGermans, Finns, and other Europeansagainst the oommon enemy.

Up to about the middle of the seven­teenth century, the united Swedish­Finnish efforts succeeded not only inmore or less restoring the Finnish­Russian border after every Russian inva­sion but even in pushing it eastward andthus rescuing a few more Finnish tribalfragments from the Russian sea of peoples.

In return for Swedish help, Finnishtroops fought in the Swedish expedi­tionary armies campaigning in CentralEurope. As a rule, approximately onethird of these expeditionary armies wascomposed of Finnish troops. The Swed­ish-Finnish Beet, which gained absolutesupremacy over the Baltio, was often toa large extent built and manned byFinns and led by Finnish admirals. Andthe Finnish cavalry was especially 8UCCess­ful, showing the Central European armiesfor the first time 8ince Genghis Khanhow an attack at a gallop should beridden.

When the native royal house of Swedendied out, it was replaced by foreignrulers with their foreign dynastic in­terests and feelings. Swedish as well asFinnish troops were sent again and againto shed their blood in far-off Europeancountries for remote, selfish, and oftenfantastic dynastic interests. Stripped ofdefenders and adequate means, Finlandwas left more and more at a disadvantagetoward the Russian aggressor and wasplundered, burned, and laid waste. Finn­ish representations fell on deaf ears inthe ca.pital of Sweden, which felt securein Finland's rear and behind the Baltic.

UNION WITH RUSSIA AND SEOESSION

Consequently, the Finns (under theleadership of the great-grandfather of thepresent Marshal Mannerheim) decided in1809, when the greater part of the coun­try was handed over again to the Rus-

BULWAUK OF THE NORTH 93

sians by the Swedish king, to cut loosefrom Sweden and to accept the honorableproposal of the l~ussian Tsar to enterinto a union with Ru sia a an auton­omou gl'and duchy-the Tsar becomingGrand Duke of Finland-with its ownFinnish government, its old parliament{Russia did not obtain her parliamentuntil a hundred years later), its OW11

\n,ws, army, finances. and customs barrieragain:t Russia. Finland also kept herowu money, and the Finns did not ac­quire l~ussian na,tionality nor did anyl~us ians acquire the Finnish one. Until189 th.is agreement was 10yaUy adheredto by both sides; in that yeal', however,it was broken by weak Nicholas II underthe influence of the Pan-Slavic movement.He ordered the Russianization of Finlandafter the hnuish military bodies hadfirst been dissolved step by step. Theinstant the Tsar went back on l'lis word,the Finnish movement of secession re­commenced.

Finnish resi, tance \\"a' tremendouslystrengthened hy the .Japanese victoriesagainst the Russians in I U04/05. Thesevictories were celebrated ill Finland asdays of national rejoicing, and since thenthe Finns have felt the utmost sympathyfor Japan.

Then eame 1914 and the Great War.Many young men, most of them students,were secretly sent to Germany in orderto be trained in the German Army andall the battlefield. III July 1917 theFinns proclaimed their independence.Under the supreme command of Karl(Tustav Mannerheim, then a general, theFinnish Army was reorganized and, withthe aid of German troops under Generalvon der Goltz, the Russians were drivenout after bitter fighting lasting until thesummer of 19 L8.

Three more wari! were fought againstthe Russians in 19L9/21 in order toliberate the Finnish brothers living inEast Karelia under the Bolshevist yoke.But unfortunately the Finnish strengthwas at that time not yet sufficient.In the Peace of Dorpat, Finland had tobe satisfied with Moscow's "guarantee",.of national autonomy for East Karelia.

THE WINTER WAR OF 1939{40

Early in tile morning of November 30,1939, the Russians attacked Finland onthe entire land, sea, and air front. Afterjust having completed her short Polishcampaign, Hussia was able to throw themilitary strength of her huge populationagainst Finland's four million inhabitants.

The Russians declared that the aim ofthis war was to conquer aU of Finlandand pLace her under tL Red goverllIllent.Russian radio speakers and newspapersannounced that the Soviet motorizedtroops would be in Viipuri within a fewdays and in Helsinki in a week, and theSoviets deluded themselves to the extentthat they expected the Finns to greetthem with open arms. The Rus::liansuperiority was overwhelming, l:lspeciallyin technical respects and in the air, notonly in general and throughout thecountry but right at the front. To giveonly one example: the Finnish Al'my hadless than 20 tanks, while the Russiansused about 1 000' tanks on the KurolianIsthmus a.lone. The season, too, wasmost favorable to the Soviet mechanizedattacks: the roads, lakes, river,,;, andmar:;hes of Finland were already firmlyfrozen over everywhere, yet there wasone month without snow to be expectedfor the main war theater, southernFinland.

South of Lake Ladoga, in the maindirection Leningrad/Viipuri, the Russiansattacked immediately with some ~50,000

men. On the entire front, reaching tothe Arctic Ocean, about 30 divi:;ioll:3,amounting altogether to abollt half amillion men, were employed.

During the first month of war, however,one third of the ta.nks were de~troyed,

and not a single F'innish town, let aloneViipuri or Helsinki, was ctl,ptured by theRussians in aU of Finland throughout thewhole war. Of course, the Soviet com­muniqnes would report, for in tance,"the Fiunish town of Nautsi was capturedtoday." AetuaUy, however, Nautsi con­sists of two houses and seven barns. Itis obvious that, after such official reports,even the most simple Finnish workman

94 THE X-X.th CEl\"TURY

no longer believes a7lY Ru sian or Allie ID WI;. In fact, the Finnish n -wspapers. till su gest that everyone should listento II Illy radio prograll1~!

till fresh in e\-erybody' memory ithe fa.et that the pul>li opinion of theworld including that of England andAm rica, was o\'erwh Imin 'lyon thoside of the Finns, he ring their everyvictory against the BoI'hevist hordes.

TU!::\, MEANT lit" L'\E

Th re cun l>e no doubt that the Rus­sian lel1ller:5, both political and military,had gru ly mi,'calculated. They meantbusin -bu iness of the bloodiest quick­e t, and mo t brutal kind-from t he verybeginning. About thi' there ean onlybe ne opinion among those who rea.llypar icipated or among the gowrnmeuu;of tb e nations whieh w re in a politicalposition to end their 0\\ n obserH'rs toth front. After the firl'lt stulIlling re­v I' al .. , when t h fir t inyU 'ion troop'with their r"lliio-prupaganda 'ulumn",military bamls, portable pamphlet print­ing presses, and tun uf giant -'talinphotographs and placard. were 'topped,surl'tl\IlHlcd. nd annibiluted by the Finn:;;,th H.u:-::<iun command 'cut all uvailable

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troop" to thc front, including J1 cial an telite t.roops frum Moscow llnd L krainianmilitary di trict, 011 the Karelian 1 ,th­mU • a lone. ~o clh'ision '" re corwcn tra t.ed,an arm as large as thn a the di, pos Iof the Ru. ian commander ill ·lriefGeneral Linientch in the Far Ea:-:t. duringthe final ph 'e of tire Ru:' o-J 11 pllrre\Var. Often there were 400 can nOli, ofall calibers masscd on a ..;ecwr of fourkilometers, and 13 divisiuns on £L edorof about 20 kilometcr~. firing lip to300.000 !:'heU a day, The motto f theRussian leaders was to finish ofT th seFinns a: quickly as pos~ible. no rnntterwhat the co t. before the 'ollotlel', riversand marshes find the 00,000 lakes ofFinland were frecd from t Ireil' ('liver ofice by the pring, More lind lllr,rc freshtro p were. ent up frum behind, andoften there was no time r npp rtunit,\ t.oevacuato the remains of thu e that hadbeen used up at the front. Tho 'ewounded who could nut ~ t hack ICl therear by them elve were 0ften left to theirfate.

Th uyiet Air Free al:o did it: bestor Tllth I' wur:.<t, !:'pec ia 11.\' againl-t theciriliun population, !\IICillt :30) heavy,;j00 mediulll and about ~,ooo li.'ht I,omb­crs and pllr~'lIit plant's drtlJlflCd llflJlrtlxi­matel,\' 110,000 hom))!' "nto thf' ('i\ ilianpopllilltitill and fin'd "II it \litlr Illll('lrinogum: during lire t hrct' and It half Illorrth.of "'ar. Ullrin' thc:e f,omhanlm nt' Hndatta.tks ,,'ith inc ndian' Ilmll1Ullitipn, it\\'a. espeeinIly I Ire ;.:rm{I1 towns and vil­lages l'lIilt of w(l()d ,,'hich flutTered,

THE MILlTA.RY RESt'LTS

~-\nd tllc rc 'lIlls? On tIll' front IStretch­ill' n rth\\·a.rd frum Lake La/Ill '11 tu theArcti' 0 'can th Ru" ian cliyi, i"m. didnot achie\'e a !>ill).!lc Hit 'C"fl, The Finn­ish skill at fi Iiting in the :-:Illl\\' and€'!'peeially in the frets "'u;; >:up l'i.,r tothe J lJ!'!'ian with all thl>ir modern armfland 111 chllnizatiun. Ther llre e\,('[1 :-:.lmemedieval chronit:les whit:h tell of ~lJc('eSfles

gained by Fillni~b ski trnop!- againstRu. inn in\·u<!~, (The art flf ,'kiingwa br ught by the Filllk fr<,m A.. ia,according to the disC'onries mud by

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AN ARMY AND

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'.

BULWARK OF THE NORTH 97'

Fridtjof Nansen, the famous Norwegianexplorer. In northern Scandinavia theNorwegians and Swedes took it over fromthe Finns. Skiing was then made in­tcmationally popular by smart N 01'­

wegian, Tirolese, and Swiss tourist re­sort .j

One Soviet division after another, onetank brigade after another-among themthe "pride of the proletariat, ' the ~los­

cow tank brigade, famous from so manyRed Square parades-was stopped, en­circled, und annihilated to the last man.The excellent and plentiful equipment inCUlUlons, tanks, etc., was immediatelyput into use by the Finnish Army. Onlyon the Karelian Isthmus, where there 'wasno pos 'ibility of encirclement for theFinns, did the Soviet troop masses succeednow and again, after incredible losses inli\'es and material, in gaining a littleterritory. However, they never succeed­ed in advancing far enough beyond theborder to occupy even U single Finnishtown.

By the end of the war 'ollle ~OO.OOO

Russians had fa.llen and idJOut 1,500tanks and 700 plane' had been destroyed.•'c\'l'n ltussian divisions had been totallval1l1ihilated oy encirclement., and va'tquantities of the most modern equip­ment, cannons, automobile, ammunition,etc., had been captured. •'everal otherdivisions were already encircled or nearlyso. Spring had arrived with the thawand the breaking up of the ice. And itwas probably this last fact which inducedthe Rus::-:ian leader.' to off 'I' a com promisepeace.

COlliLPROllllSE .PEACE

The l'innish Guvernment acceptedpeace mediat.ion with n. hCLLVy heart.There was, it i' true. more material thanat the oeginning of the WfLr. Va·t boutyhad bcen takcn. and no Finnish matcrialh<Ld been lost to the Ru sians. Duringthe whole war the Finnish iumy lostfour ea,nnon:-and even these were boot.ypI' viously taken from the Rus, ians.But the 10..ses in lives naturallv madethemselves felt. And, above all. 'Finlandstill stood all alone in the world against

the Red giant. At three place along theeastern border, territory had to be cededto the Ru ·sians. But no population wasceded; fur no one wanted to remain thereunder the "liberator " and "oringers ofculture": they all movcd :l\va.y intoFinland.

The Russians bad gainell a few areaswhose inhabitants had I ft to a mallbefore they arrived. But their greatestgain was the lessons they learned fromthe mistakes they had made in the con­duct of the war. Of course, the So\'ietpropaganda declared that the Red Armyhad not tried hard enough and that inreality it was much stronger, better, andmore modern. 1£ the Russians tried tocamouf:iage anything during and afterthat war. it was their weaknesses, nottheir strong poiuts. One thing. however,is true: even during the war they alreadyapplied the new lessons they bad learned,and immediately after the war theybegan with ruthless energy to correcttheir operative a.nd tactical doctrine,training, and organizat.ion. For example,a special People's Comll1i!'sariat for themanufacture of trench mortars was e:,;tab­li .. bed. As a result. the Red Armr had('ha nged com pletely eigh teen n;onthslateI'.

THE PHESE)lT WAR

Since June 22, 1941, it has no longerbeen neces 'ary for Finland to . tandalone aO"ainst Bolshevism. Today. mostof the states of Europe have rC'alized thedanger threa.t, ning from the U~SH, andhave undertaken the active and finalremoval of this dl1,nger.

At the beginning of this ",ar theFinnish commander in chief. again l'ieldMarshal .Mannerheim. saw his first taskin splitting up the Hussian forces on the.out-hern Finnish front into two. Forthi' pltrpose th Ru 'sian po:ition alongt.he new 'outheast.ern border were pierced,a,nd the Finnil'h troop quickly reachedLake Ladoga..

The soul h rn ha 1£ of the RII...ia n frontwas then rolled up for some distancetoward the outhwest. La.t.er an en­eircling thru. t was made to the l: ulf of

98 THE XXth CENTUHY

THE LlBP..I1ATIOK OF EA'T KA/-tELlA

Iuk h8, an im portant town on the ~lur­

mansk railway and on lhe Whit ~ca.

The important German po itillll' llavsince then been held ccurcly ugllim,t allHu "ian attack.

The FilUli::;h peopl and the FinnishArmy are toda.y more confidpll anddetermined tlmll ever before, 'I'll grea.t­cst danger, the shortage of fund (inJlorronl time ollle IU to 15 per (' nt ofFinland'::; foud is imported), lln~ heenremo\- d by (: rman and alii d (Inquestsin the krain. On May lG. I!J·~:l. theFinnish l\'Iemorinl Da.y, Finln,nl!'" 1'1' miCl'Dr. Linkomjes declared on' again thatFinland i ready aJld willing tv fi~ht. tllthe last man ngainst 1111 enemies. a /I 1 tbatshe will n t p rmit any nati n to threatenher national exi~tenc .

"Eol hevi m must be de.:troy(,J nt aUco ls, and whoever fails to re liz thi.necessity will face de trueti(ln for h illlsel f."

'"'"'"

After bU"in I' taken the old Finni 'hterritories on the Kllrelian Istltllllh' a:ndnorth of Lake Ladoaa., Field MarshalMann rheim h aan at th end of t hfir t y ar of "'ur to libemte the FilUli..hbrothcl's on tho castel'll side of the t lidhordeI', in ",ha.t the . oviets culled":\utIJIHJJllOU' 'uviet KarcLia,"

In the :;ollth, ::,cveml thrust. weromade aloll' the eiloll-rn ,hure Ilf LakLadu'l1 a.s far Il the Svir Hi"l'I', Th.iHmaneu'"cr lJlu ·kcd th M urlllun"k/ L '!lin­!rad railwa'" and th talill CUll, I ullcI'ecur d the- S\'ir }{'iver as a l'\()lItl ernIroteeli n for the Finni~h rigbt. n<.l. 11...Then th railw y 'ortavalu PetrvzawlJd·k(Finni .. h: Aiinislinna), the nly railwayfrom Finland to the M:w'mansk railway'outh of KandalaksLa, \vu '~l'lllrccl.

Aiter the occupation of this upply line,th e nque't f oviet Kar Iia \I'll.' s.\".­tematicully ontinued and eiuTi(·d out,both outhwtlrd and northward.

Tho Fiuuwh-Soviot Front 19,11/42

Finland uth of Viipuri and tills keycity taken by an attack from the r /.11'.

Simultaneou Iy a second thru t was madeacro th chain of la.k connected bythe Vuok::;i River, whereby this trongnalural d f n e line was felled with oneblow. Within a 'hort irne all the. ovietfor on the Karelian Isthmus werethrown hu. k southward behind the per­man nt defense line of Lenin rad. Atabout tho same time tit Germans closedin on Leningrad from the sOllth.

To the n rth of t.ho first break-throughto Lake Ladoga tho town of SortaviLlaw~ lllso taken by an ncircling thru tand tho RussjauB thrown back b Illnd theold border.

In northern Finland, German troopadvancing from Norway a.tta ked simul­tanoously. Along the coast of the ArcticOc an th y succeeded in advan ina half­way to Murman k, the only ice-free oceanport in the entire Soviet Union. Furthersouth they managed to penetrate acrthe old Finnish border halfway to Kanda.-