Winter War: Soviet-Finnish War: 1939-40

Russo-Finnish War in a gist

War waged by the Soviet Union against Finland at the start of World War II, following the signing of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. When Finland refused to grant the Soviets a naval base and other concessions, Soviet troops attacked on several fronts in November 1939. The heavily outnumbered Finns under Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim put up a skillful defense until February 1940, when heavy Russian bombardments breached the Finns' southern defenses. A peace treaty in March 1940 ceded western Karelia to Russia and allowed construction of a Soviet naval base on the Hanko peninsula.

The war happened because Soviet Union despite the Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler's Germany was wary of it. It wanted Finland as a bulwark against Nazi Germany.

“We cannot do anything about geography, nor can you. Since Leningrad cannot be moved away, the frontier must be further off.”
--- Stalin

Despite the difference in the size of the two armies, the Finns put up a good fight, mainly because they were better acclimatised and better prepared than the Russians.

THE FINNISH WINTER WAR (Source: Kaiku.com)

On November 30, 1939, it was Stalin's next move. 250,000 Russian troops under the cover of a coordinated air and artillery bombardment crossed into Finland to begin one of the least publicized and most costly campaigns in the annals of military history. It would be a "walk over;" General Meretskov estimated it would take only 10 to 12 days for his 26 well equipped 14,000 man divisions to reach Helsinki. Russian propaganda had been so convincing that it was felt that the Finns would be waving flags and welcoming the Red Army with open arms. Opposing him were nine poorly equipped 11,000-man Finnish divisions.

Meretskov never suspected that his army was about to plunge into a frozen hell, the second coldest winter since 1828, and oppose Mannerheim, probably one of the greatest defensive tacticians since Robert E. Lee. So confident were the Soviets of a quick victory march to Helsinki that they came with parade bands, but without winter uniforms, without supplies for a protracted campaign and without medical services. Even more sinister was the fact that Stalin had purged most of his regular army officers two years earlier and placed most of the responsibility for the army in the hands of political commissars.

For 105 days the world held its breath and learned the word sisu, while Russians died at the incredible rate of nearly 10,000 per day and the Finns lost 250 per day. When the armistice finally came on March 13, 1940, the Finns counted 25,000 dead, 55,000 wounded, and 450,000 homeless, a terrible price for a country of only four million people. However, even the Finns did not know the devastation that they had caused the Russians until years later. All this was at the hands of an army of less than 250,000 (mostly light infantry, home guard units) with hardly any anti-tank weapons (except Molotov cocktails) and 41 operational fighter aircraft. In the words of my father-in-law, Antti Olavi, who fought in this war: "Our lakes are full of dead Russians."

 This is how American cartoonist Herb Block saw the Russian invasion of Finland


It was a grim fight. A wreck of a Soviet tank lies amidst the destroyed forest.

Russian losses were quite heavy

Finnish civilians dive to the ground as the sirens warn the arrival of Russian planes

Soviet propaganda poster. That is what the Russians thought of the Finnish.

The Russians inspect the captured Finnish defence bunkers

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