To me the Winter war has a lot of Intrest Its a bit of a David and Goliath.With the Russains of corse the bad guys .On the 30th November 1939 when the Russians Invaded Finland It is Estimated that they had 19 Infantty divisions and 5 Tank brigades group as Follows KARELIAN ISTHMUS:7th Army 8 Infantry Divisions A tank corps+2independent tank brigades Mission To force the defences of the Mannerheim line,take Viipuri and push on to Helsinki by the 3rd day of the offensive EAST SHORE LAKE LADOGA 8th Army 6 Infantry Divisions Mission To assist the 7th army in its frontal attack by drawing off the Finnish Defence CEANTRAL FINLAND 9th Army 4 Infantry Divisions Mission Launch two columns across the waist of Finland the left making for Oulu and the right making for Kemi LAPPLAND 14th Army 1 Infantry Division Mission To take Petsamo and cut Finland off from Norway Trying to stop this the Finns had KARELIAN ISTHMUS 5 divisions (II and III corps) EAST SHORE OF LAKE LADOGA 2 Divisions (IV corps) CENTRAL FINLAND A Screen of 9 Frontier Battalions (V corps) LAPPLAND 4 Independent battalions RESERVE 2 Incomplete divisions (I corps) and a Cavalry brigade On Finland Full Mobilisation she would provide 15 Divisions,but she faced the initial onslaught with only 120,000 Finnish against 300,000 Russians The Russians were backed up by 800 aircraft but the Finns only had 100 and many were not battle worthy
In the winter war Finland lost 26.662 and all this from a country with less than 4.5 million. Russian losses were much greater 126,875 this just gos to show the Finnish troops had Sisu (guts).Below there is break down of the losses Fallen,evacuated and buried 16.725 * Fallen body left in field 3.433 Died of wounds 3.671 MIA (Later declared as KIA) 1.727 Died as a POW 28 Died of accident/disease 715 Unknown causes 363 *The Finnish did not leave the Fallen on the Battle field if they could they would be evacuated back to the home town of the fallen.A point of note the Finnish still Have honour guards placed at the cemeties every Christmas and a candles are placed on each grave at night looks good.And shows that some still care
And to be honest, Finns are getting more and more prouder from that past. Just sad that not so many are left to see it anymore. But in christmas, its very beautiful in cemeteries where the candles are like the sea. And Franz, you have many places there to see monuments especially from civil war like Pispala. By the way some of my relatives lives in Pispala, beutiful place to visit
Finland is a beutiful place to be I love it here and my job leans I can travel round here .On christmas eve we my son and me put a grave candle on the grave of a unknown soldier The veterans mount an Honour guard as well
It was not only the german army who had foreign volunteers.In the winter war Finland had the following Austria 2 Belgium 51 Czechoslovakia 1 Estonia 56 France 2 Germany 18 Italy 4 Lithuania 2 Luxembourg 3 Netherlands 17 Poland 6 Portugal 1 Switzerland 6 Uk 13 Yogoslavia 1 The biggest was the Swedish with around 8000 it was then the Danish with 1000, norway 700, Hungary 346, and yes America with 350 and they did see action will post more when I find out
Thats what I go to see every christmas after taking candles to my fathers grave. Where I live we have an old cemetery too where are hundreds of candles in christmas. Its quite touching..
There were also some Irish volunteers in the Finnish Army during the Winter War. Many of these were part of the British force that never made it in time to fight. However some did see action (Gerald Kuss), not sure if they fought during the Continuation war. When I improve my Finnish language skills I would like to do some more research on this. Here is a link with more information : http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=9423&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Which is not really very surprising bearing in mind that the largest ethnic minority in Finland are Swedish speaking Finns (about 5% of the population). Perhaps this would be a good place to look at the historical antagonism that already existed between the Finns and the Russians. Since early Medieval times the Finns had found themselves caught up in the almost continuous series of conflicts between the Big Three (Russia, Sweden and Poland) for control over the Baltic Sea, with the Finns themselves becoming a subject race from the 13th Century of the Swedes (who converted the pagan Finns to Christianity, but at the same time also became the dominant Nobility), and then, from 1809, in accordance with the 1810 Treaty of Paris, as a province of the Russian Empire, Russian heavy-handed Government over the native Finnish population, particularly after the Great Famine (1866–1868) would effectively create a climate of nationalistic hatred towards the Russian masters (one can see parallels here with English rule over the Irish). This would climax in December1917 (following the Russian Revolution) in a declaration of Finnish independence. Initially the Bolsheviks supported the Finn’s independence (probably because it was seen to represent a common revolt against the hated bourgeoisie), but such was the aversion amongst the native Finns to Russia and Russians that within months the Social-Democrats had led a coup which resulted in a brief, but bitter civil war between the ‘Whites’(who supported Imperial Germany) and the ‘Reds’ (who supported the Bolsheviks revolution). A civil war that ended in victory for the ‘White’ faction Whilst the Bolsheviks would ultimately defeat the ‘Whites’ in Russia, the successful ‘White’ Finns were now left in control of territory which extended to within seventy miles of St. Petersburg (Leningrad) and also holding coastal fortresses on the Baltic Sea that the Soviet regime felt could be used to blockade their access to the outside world. The failure of the League of Nations during the 1930s to effectively stop Italian, German and Japanese acts of aggression, would give the Soviet Premiere, Joseph Stalin, an excuse to push the Finnish border back, and to take control of a number of strategic bases on the Baltic, A task that was made easier by the 1939 treaty with Hitler’s Germany.
After all, Finns fought against brothers, they did unbelievable turn in 1939 when Soviet attacked to Finland. Every single person in Finland were very tighten up against russians. There comes that famous "Winter war spirit". But again, still now there is somekind of a "two fronts" in peoples minds. I live near industrial town where is few paper mills and now that they closed one of those, there was huge blaming to "rich people". It is almost funny sometimes.
Fascinating...Can you tell me more about the Finnish Civil War (there seems to be very little on the subject written in English)? Also...Are the Sami people (Lapps) of the same ethnic origin as the Finns, or were the Finns a later migration to Scandinavia from the steppes?
I have a little knowldge about facts about that war, but here's one real story my grandma told me. She was a little girl, lived near Lahti when red people came to house, looking for her dad, knowing he is there. They didn't found him as he was hiding between outer and inner wall (he made that hide only two days before). So they took away, as revenge, my grandma's younger brother and told that they will release that little baby if my grand-grand dad shows up. He didn't heard that conversation then and when my grand grandma told him to come out, she also told that they took away their little son, he then (it is what I've been told) ran outside to surrender, only to find out that there's noone out there, but his little son. So, happy end in this story but many many not so happy endings happened.
