The first Soviet-Finnish war- fighting between the White Finnish troops and units of the Red Army on the territory of Soviet Russia (March 1918 - October 1920).
Background
1918
On February 23, 1918, while at Antrea station (now Kamennogorsk), addressing the troops, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army, General Carl Gustav Mannerheim, delivered his speech, the “oath of the sword,” in which he stated that “he will not sheathe the sword,... before the last warrior and hooligan of Lenin is expelled from both Finland and East Karelia." However, there was no official declaration of war from Finland. General Mannerheim's desire to become the savior of “old Russia” was viewed negatively in Finland. At a minimum, they demanded the support of Western countries and guarantees that White Russia would recognize Finnish independence. , the white movement was unable to create a united front, which sharply reduced the chances of success. Other leaders white movement refused to recognize Finnish independence. And for more active actions, without risk to their country, allies were needed.
On February 27, the Finnish government sent a petition to Germany so that, as a country fighting against Russia, considering Finland as an ally of Germany, it would demand that Russia make peace with Finland on the basis of the annexation of Eastern Karelia to Finland. The future border with Russia proposed by the Finns was supposed to run along the line Eastern coast of Lake Ladoga - Lake Onega - White Sea.
By the beginning of March, a plan for organizing “national uprisings in Eastern Karelia” was developed at Mannerheim’s headquarters and special Finnish instructors were allocated - career military personnel - to create hotbeds of uprising.
On March 6-7, an official statement by the head of the Finnish state, regent Per Evind Svinhufvud, appeared that Finland was ready to make peace with Soviet Russia on “moderate Brest conditions,” that is, if Eastern Karelia and part of the Murmansk railway went to Finland and the entire Kola Peninsula.
On March 7-8, German Emperor Wilhelm II responded to an appeal from the Finnish government that Germany would not wage war for Finnish interests with the Soviet government, which signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and would not support Finland’s military actions if it moved them beyond its borders.
On March 7, the Finnish Prime Minister declares claims to Eastern Karelia and the Kola Peninsula, and on March 15, Finnish General Mannerheim approves the “Wallenius Plan”, which provides for the seizure of part of the former territory Russian Empire to the line Petsamo (Pechenga) - Kola Peninsula - White Sea - Lake Onega - Svir River - Lake Ladoga.
In May, White Guard troops in Estonia began military operations, threatening Petrograd.
In May and June, on the eastern and northern shores of Lake Ladoga, Red Army detachments held back the advance of Finnish volunteers. In May-June 1919, Finnish volunteers advanced on the Lodeynoye Pole area and crossed the Svir.
At the end of June 1919, the Red Army began a counteroffensive in the Vidlitsa direction and on July 8, 1919 in the Olonets sector of the Karelian front. Finnish volunteers were driven back beyond the border line.
On May 18, 1920, units of the Red Army liquidated the North Karelian state with its capital in the village of Ukhta (Arkhangelsk province), which received financial and military assistance from the Finnish government. Only in July 1920 were the Finns able to be driven out of most of eastern Karelia. Finnish troops remained only in the Rebolsk and Porosozersk volosts of Eastern Karelia.
Notes
see also
Literature and sources
- For Soviet Karelia, 1918-1920: memories of the civil war / collection, ed. V. I. Mazeshersky. Petrozavodsk, Karelian book. publishing house, 1963-535 pp.
- Karelia during the period of civil war and foreign intervention 1918-1920. Sat., documents and materials / ed. d.ist. n. Y. A. Balagurov, V. I. Mazeshersky. Petrozavodsk, Karelian book. publishing house, 1964-648 pp.
Links
- Pokhlebkin V.V.
Everything that I will talk about further was collected by me bit by bit from the memories and letters of our relatives in France, England, as well as from the stories and memories of my relatives and friends in Russia and Lithuania.
To my great regret, I was able to do this only after my father’s death, many, many years later...
Grandfather’s sister Alexandra Obolensky (later Alexis Obolensky) and Vasily and Anna Seryogin, who voluntarily went, were also exiled with them, who followed their grandfather by their own choice, since Vasily Nikandrovich for many years was grandfather’s attorney in all his affairs and one of the most his close friends.
Alexandra (Alexis) Obolenskaya Vasily and Anna Seryogin
Probably, you had to be truly a FRIEND in order to find the strength to make such a choice and go of your own free will to where you were going, as you go only to your own death. And this “death”, unfortunately, was then called Siberia...
I have always been very sad and painful for our beautiful Siberia, so proud, but so mercilessly trampled by the Bolshevik boots! ... And no words can tell how much suffering, pain, lives and tears this proud, but tormented land has absorbed... Is it because it was once the heart of our ancestral home that the “far-sighted revolutionaries” decided to denigrate and destroy this land, choosing it for their own devilish purposes?... After all, for many people, even many years later, Siberia still remained a “cursed” land, where someone’s father, someone’s brother, someone’s died. then a son... or maybe even someone's entire family.
My grandmother, whom I, to my great chagrin, never knew, was pregnant with my dad at that time and had a very difficult time with the journey. But, of course, there was no need to wait for help from anywhere... So the young Princess Elena, instead of the quiet rustling of books in the family library or the usual sounds of the piano when she played her favorite works, this time she listened only to the ominous sound of wheels, which seemed to menacingly They were counting down the remaining hours of her life, so fragile and which had become a real nightmare... She sat on some bags by the dirty carriage window and incessantly looked at the last pathetic traces of the “civilization” that was so familiar and familiar to her, going further and further away...
Grandfather's sister, Alexandra, with the help of friends, managed to escape at one of the stops. By general agreement, she was supposed to get (if she was lucky) to France, where this moment her whole family lived there. True, none of those present had any idea how she could do this, but since this was their only, albeit small, but certainly last hope, giving it up was too great a luxury for their completely hopeless situation. Alexandra’s husband, Dmitry, was also in France at that moment, with the help of whom they hoped, from there, to try to help her grandfather’s family get out of the nightmare into which life had so mercilessly thrown them, at the vile hands of brutal people...
Upon arrival in Kurgan, they were placed in a cold basement, without explaining anything and without answering any questions. Two days later, some people came for my grandfather and said that they allegedly came to “escort” him to another “destination”... They took him away like a criminal, without allowing him to take any things with him, and without deigning to explain, where and for how long he is being taken. No one ever saw grandfather again. After some time, an unknown military man brought his grandfather’s personal belongings to the grandmother in a dirty coal sack... without explaining anything and leaving no hope of seeing him alive. At this point, any information about my grandfather’s fate ceased, as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth without any traces or evidence...
The tormented, tormented heart of poor Princess Elena did not want to come to terms with such a terrible loss, and she literally bombarded the local staff officer with requests to clarify the circumstances of the death of her beloved Nicholas. But the “red” officers were blind and deaf to the requests of a lonely woman, as they called her, “of the nobles,” who was for them just one of thousands and thousands of nameless “license” units that meant nothing in their cold and cruel world ...It was a real inferno, from which there was no way out back into that familiar and kind world in which her home, her friends, and everything that she had been accustomed to from an early age remained, and that she loved so strongly and sincerely... And there was no one who could help or at least give the slightest hope of survival.
The Seryogins tried to maintain presence of mind for the three of them, and tried by any means to lift the mood of Princess Elena, but she went deeper and deeper into an almost complete stupor, and sometimes sat all day long in an indifferently frozen state, almost not reacting to her friends’ attempts to save her heart. and the mind from final depression. There were only two things that briefly brought her back to the real world - if someone started talking about her unborn child or if any, even the slightest, new details came about the supposed death of her beloved Nikolai. She desperately wanted to know (while she was still alive) what really happened, and where her husband was, or at least where his body was buried (or dumped).
Unfortunately, there is almost no information left about the life of these two courageous and bright people, Elena and Nicholas de Rohan-Hesse-Obolensky, but even those few lines from Elena’s two remaining letters to her daughter-in-law, Alexandra, which were somehow preserved in family archives Alexandra in France, show how deeply and tenderly the princess loved her missing husband. Only a few handwritten sheets have survived, some of the lines of which, unfortunately, cannot be deciphered at all. But even what was successful screams with deep pain about a great human misfortune, which, without experiencing, is not easy to understand and impossible to accept.
April 12, 1927. From a letter from Princess Elena to Alexandra (Alix) Obolenskaya:
“I’m very tired today. I returned from Sinyachikha completely broken. The carriages are filled with people, it would be a shame to even carry livestock in them…………………………….. We stopped in the forest - there was such a delicious smell of mushrooms and strawberries... It’s hard to believe that it was there that these unfortunates were killed! Poor Ellochka (meaning Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fedorovna, who was a relative of my grandfather along the Hesse line) was killed nearby, in this terrible Staroselim mine... what a horror! My soul cannot accept this. Do you remember we said: “may the earth rest in peace”?.. Great God, how can such a land rest in peace?!..
Oh Alix, my dear Alix! How can one get used to such horror? ...................... ..................... I'm so tired of begging and humiliating myself... Everything will be completely useless if the Cheka does not agree to send a request to Alapaevsk...... I will never know where to look for him, and I will never know what they did to him. Not an hour goes by without me thinking about such a dear face to me... What a horror it is to imagine that he lies in some abandoned pit or at the bottom of a mine!.. How can one endure this everyday nightmare, knowing that he has already will I never see him?!.. Just like my poor Vasilek (the name that was given to my dad at birth) will never see him... Where is the limit of cruelty? And why do they call themselves people?..
My dear, kind Alix, how I miss you!.. At least I would like to know that everything is fine with you, and that Dmitry, dear to your soul, does not leave you in these difficult moments......... ................................... If I had even a drop of hope left to find my dear Nikolai, I would seems to have endured everything. My soul seems to have gotten used to this terrible loss, but it still hurts a lot... Everything without him is different and so desolate.”
May 18, 1927. An excerpt from Princess Elena’s letter to Alexandra (Alix) Obolenskaya:
“The same dear doctor came again. I can’t prove to him that I simply don’t have any more strength. He says that I should live for the sake of little Vasilko... Is this so?.. What will he find on this terrible earth, my poor baby? ........................................ The cough has returned, and sometimes it becomes impossible to breathe. The doctor always leaves some drops, but I’m ashamed that I can’t thank him in any way. ................................... Sometimes I dream about our favorite room. And my piano... God, how far it all is! And did all this even happen? ........................... and the cherries in the garden, and our nanny, so affectionate and kind. Where is all this now? ................................ (out the window?) I don’t want to look, it’s all covered in soot and you can only see dirty boots… I hate damp.”
My poor grandmother, from the dampness in the room, which was not warmed up even in summer, soon fell ill with tuberculosis. And, apparently weakened by the shocks she had suffered, starvation and illness, she died during childbirth, without ever seeing her baby, and without finding (at least!) the grave of his father. Literally before her death, she took the word from the Seryogins that, no matter how difficult it was for them, they would take the newborn (if he survived, of course) to France, to his grandfather’s sister. Which, in that wild time, to promise, of course, was almost “wrong”, since there was no way to do it real possibility the Seryogins, unfortunately, did not have... But they, nevertheless, promised her, in order to somehow ease the last minutes of her, so brutally ruined, very young life, and so that her soul, tormented by pain, could, at least with a little with hope, leave this cruel world... And even knowing that they would do everything possible to keep their word to Elena, the Seryogins still didn’t really believe in their hearts that they would ever be able to bring this whole crazy idea to life...
So, in 1927, in the city of Kurgan, in a damp, unheated basement, a little boy was born, and his name was Prince Vasily Nikolaevich de Rohan-Hesse-Obolensky, Lord of Sanbury... He was the only son of Duke de'Rohan-Hesse-Obolensky and Princess Elena Larina.
Then he still could not understand that he was left completely alone in this world and that his fragile life was now completely dependent on the goodwill of a man named Vasily Seryogin...
And this kid also didn’t know that on his father’s side, he was given a stunningly “colorful” Family Tree, which his distant ancestors wove for him, as if preparing the boy in advance to accomplish some special, “great” deeds... and, thereby placing on his then still very fragile shoulders a huge responsibility to those who once so diligently wove his “genetic thread”, connecting their lives into one strong and proud tree...
He was a direct descendant of the great Merovingians, born in pain and poverty, surrounded by the death of his relatives and the ruthless cruelty of the people who destroyed them... But this did not change who this little man who had just been born really was.
And his amazing family began in the 300th (!) year, with the Merovingian king Conon the First (Conan I). (This is confirmed in a handwritten four-volume volume - a manuscript book by the famous French genealogist Norigres, which is located in our family library in France). His Family Tree grew and expanded, weaving into its branches such names as Dukes Rohan in France, Marquises Farnese in Italy, Lords Strafford in England, Russian princes Dolgoruky, Odoevsky... and many, many others , some of which could not be traced even by the world’s most highly qualified genealogists in the UK (Royal College of Arms), who jokingly said that this was the most “international” family tree they had ever compiled.
And it seems to me that this “mix” also did not happen so accidentally... After all, all the so-called noble families had very high-quality genetics, and its correct mixing could have a positive impact on the creation of a very high-quality genetic foundation for the essence of their descendants, which, according to happy circumstances, and my father appeared.
Apparently, mixing “international” gave much better genetic result than purely “family” mixing, which for a long time was almost an “unwritten law” of all European high-born families, and very often ended in hereditary hemophilia...
But no matter how “international” the physical foundation of my father was, his SOUL (and I can say this with full responsibility) until the end of his life was truly Russian, despite all, even the most amazing, genetic connections...
But let’s return to Siberia, where this “little prince”, born in a basement, in order to simply survive, with the consent of the broad and kind soul of Vasily Nikandrovich Seregin, one fine day became simply Vasily Vasilyevich Seregin, a citizen of the Soviet Union... In which he lived his entire adult life, died, and was buried under the tombstone: “The Seryogin Family,” in the small Lithuanian town of Alytus, far from his family castles, which he had never heard of...
I learned all this, unfortunately, only in 1997, when dad was no longer alive. I was invited to the island of Malta by my cousin, Prince Pierre de Rohan-Brissac, who had been looking for me for a long time, and he also told me who I and my family really are. But I will talk about this much later.
In the meantime, let's return to where in 1927, the kindest souls of people - Anna and Vasily Seryogin, had only one concern - to keep the word given to their dead friends, and, at any cost, take little Vasilko out of this “cursed By God and people" of the earth to a somewhat safe place, and later, try to fulfill their promise and deliver it to distant and completely unfamiliar France... So they began their difficult journey, and, with the help of local connections and friends, They took my little dad to Perm, where, as far as I know, they lived for several years.
The Finnish Civil War (January 27 - May 16, 1918) ended with the complete victory of the White Finns. Red Finland was defeated, thousands of people fell under the skating rink of white terror. The Russians were expelled from Finland and their property was confiscated. The Finns received Russian military installations, fortresses, and arsenals at their disposal; public and private property worth billions of gold rubles was confiscated (). Thus, Finland was able to create the foundation of its army and economy at the expense of Russia.
Background
Having gained independence, Finland became an enemy of Russia. At first the Finns acted in conjunction with Germany, then with the Entente. The White Finns captured the entire territory of the former Grand Duchy of Finland. However, this was not enough for Finnish nationalists. They dreamed of a “Greater Finland.” Moreover, for this it was necessary to take land from Russia. Already on March 7, 1918, the head of the White Finnish government, Svinhuvud, announced that Finland was ready to conclude a peace treaty with Soviet Russia on “moderate terms.” The Finns demanded that Eastern Karelia, part of the Murmansk railway and the entire Kola Peninsula be given to them. On March 15, the commander-in-chief of the White Finnish army, General Mannerheim, sent three invasion groups to conquer Eastern Karelia. Mannerheim approved the Wallenius plan, which provided for the seizure of Russian territory along the line Petsamo - Kola Peninsula - White Sea - Lake Onega - Svir River - Lake Ladoga. Politician and military man Kurt Martti Wallenius (1893-1968) advocated the creation of a “Greater Finland” in 1918-1921. he was the head of the border guard in Lapland.
Mannerheim was also full of expansionist plans. In particular, he proposed to liquidate Petrograd as the capital of Russia and turn this city and its surrounding areas and satellite cities into a “free city-republic.” On March 18, in Ukhta, which was occupied by Finnish troops, the “Provisional Committee for Eastern Karelia” was assembled, which adopted a resolution on the annexation of Eastern Karelia to Finland. The Finnish leadership not only planned to significantly expand its lands, but also to seize warehouses with various materials and equipment, food in Murmansk. The allies of the Russian Empire delivered goods by sea. Before the revolution, the tsarist government did not have time to export valuable property; after it, export was stopped altogether.
In April 1918, a large Finnish detachment moved to the port of Pechenga (Petsamo). The British were not interested in the Finns seizing valuable property, moreover, it could fall into the hands of the Germans, so they transferred a detachment of Russian Red Guards on their cruiser to Pechenga and reinforced them with a detachment of English sailors. Through the joint efforts of the Russians and the British, the Finnish attacks on May 10-12 were repulsed. In addition, the British helped defend Kandalaksha. The Finns decided not to get involved with the British and did not attack Kandalaksha. As a result, local Russian authorities, with the support of the Entente, which did not intend to strengthen Finland at its own expense, were able to hold the Kola Peninsula.
Together with the Entente against Russia
On May 15, Finland officially declared war on Soviet Russia. The Finnish leadership believed that Russia should compensate for the “losses” caused to Finland by the war (the Finnish Civil War). The Finnish leadership wanted to receive Eastern Karelia and the Kola Peninsula as compensation for losses.
However, Germany intervened. Berlin reasoned that widespread captures by Finnish troops, including an attack on Petrograd, would cause a massive patriotic upsurge in Russia. And this could lead to the fall of the Soviet government and the establishment of a Russian government that would be oriented towards the Entente. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk will be torn apart. Back on March 8, 1918, German Emperor Wilhelm II officially declared that Germany would not wage war for the interests of Finland with Soviet Russia, which signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and would not support Finnish troops if they fought outside their borders. At the end of May - beginning of June, Berlin, in the form of an ultimatum, demanded Finland to abandon the attack on Petrograd. The Finnish leadership had to come to terms and begin negotiations with the Soviet government. The “Finnish hawk” Baron Mannerheim was dismissed. The general left for Sweden.
In the summer of 1918, Finland and Soviet Russia began preliminary negotiations on the terms of a peace agreement. On July 12, the Finns prepared a project to move the Finnish border with Russia on the Karelian Isthmus in exchange for significant compensation in Eastern Karelia. The project was approved in Germany. In essence, this territorial exchange project repeated the proposals the USSR would make to Finland before the start of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. In August 1918, negotiations between the Finnish and Soviet delegations took place in Berlin, through the mediation of the Germans. However, the Finns stubbornly refused to conclude a peace agreement. Then the Germans, without the consent of the Finns, concluded an “Additional Treaty” to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. According to it, Berlin guaranteed peace on the part of Finland if the Soviet government took all measures to remove Entente troops from the North of Russia. After the expulsion of the Entente forces, Russian power was to be established in the North. The Finns were outraged and broke off the negotiations. As a result, fragile neutrality was established on the border between Russia and Finland. Germany still kept Finland from attacking Russia.
It must be said that during this period Berlin planned to turn Finland into its protectorate. On August 18, 1918, the Finnish “circumcised” parliament (almost half of its Social Democratic deputies were arrested or fled to Russia) declared Finland a kingdom. On October 9, 1918, the parliament elected the Hessian Prince Friedrich Karl, brother-in-law of the German Kaiser, as Finnish king. Until the arrival of the elected king in Finland and his coronation, the duties of the head of the kingdom were to be performed by a regent. He became the current de facto leader of the state, Chairman of the Senate (Government) of Finland Per Evind Svinhuvud.
Flag of the Kingdom of Finland
However, the collapse of the German Empire put an end to the Kingdom of Finland. The November Revolution in Germany led to the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of a regime of parliamentary democracy. Germany could no longer control the Finnish leadership. The Finns realized that it was time to change owners. On November 18, 1918, the German-sympathizing Senate was dissolved. On December 12, 1918, King Frederick Charles abdicated the throne. On December 16, German troops departed Finland for Germany. Svinhufvud announced his resignation from the post of regent and handed it over to Mannerheim, who was oriented toward the Entente. Legislatively, Finland became a republic only in 1919.
Finland's reorientation towards the Entente immediately affected relations with Russia. Already on October 15, 1918, Finnish troops occupied part of Karelia. The Finns began to fire at Soviet ships. Mannerheim in London held informal negotiations with the British, in which he made a number of proposals. Thus, he asked for official approval of the intervention from Great Britain, support for the Finnish offensive on Petrograd, the entry of the British fleet into the Baltic Sea, the disarmament of Russian forces in the Baltic, the expansion of Finland at the expense of Russia, the autonomy of the Arkhangelsk and Olonets provinces, etc.
Already at the end of November 1918, Britain began to prepare for intervention in the Baltic. British ships arrived in Copenhagen under the command of Rear Admiral A. Sinclair. Weapons began to be supplied to the White Estonians in Revel. The Estonians received guns, machine guns and thousands of rifles. In December, British ships began to fire at Red troops on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. The Baltic Fleet had more ships than the British. But the ships had not been repaired for several years, and most of them simply could not go to the open sea. In addition, discipline among the sailors was extremely low. The officer corps was greatly weakened. The Baltic Fleet has lost most of its combat effectiveness. Therefore, British ships, mostly of the latest construction - 1915-1918, quickly established dominance in the Gulf of Finland. On December 26, the British captured the Soviet destroyers Spartak and Avtroil, which actually offered no resistance. The Soviet destroyers were towed to Revel and transferred to the Estonian Navy. The destroyers were repaired, and together with British ships they actively acted against the ships of the Baltic Fleet and the troops of the Red Army.
At the end of 1918, the Finnish corps under the command of Major General Wetzer landed in Estonia. Formally, it was a volunteer corps, in fact, it was regular Finnish troops. Overall command was exercised by Mannerheim. The Finnish Corps participated in battles with the Red Army until the end of February 1919. In January 1919, Finnish troops captured another part of Karelia. In February 1919, at a conference in Versailles, the Finnish delegation demanded that all of Karelia and the Kola Peninsula be transferred to Finland.
Under the leadership of Mannerheim, the Finnish military developed a plan for a large-scale attack on Soviet Russia. According to this plan, after the snow melted, the southern group (regular army) was supposed to launch an offensive in the Olonets - Lodeynoye Pole direction. The northern group (Finnish Security Corps - Shutskor, Swedish and Karelian volunteers) was supposed to strike in the direction of Kungozero - Syamozero. The Finnish offensive was supposed to begin simultaneously with the offensive of the troops of the white General Yudenich, who were located in Estonia. For help to the White Army, Mannerheim demanded that Yudenich give up Karelia and the Kola Peninsula. Yudenich agreed to give up Karelia, but the Kola Peninsula agreed to give up only after the construction of the railway to Arkhangelsk.
On April 21-22, Finnish troops crossed the border with Russia in several areas and, without encountering resistance from Soviet troops, who were not here, began to move deeper into Soviet Russia. On April 21, Vidlitsa was captured, on April 23 - Toloksa and Olonets, on April 24 - Veshkelitsa. On April 25, Finnish troops reached Pryazha, already threatening Petrozavodsk. The situation was critical. Karelia could fall within a few days. It is also necessary to take into account that simultaneously British-Canadian units and White Guards were attacking Kondopoga - Petrozavodsk from the north. However, during stubborn battles, the Finnish offensive on Petrozavodsk was stopped. On May 2, 1919, the Defense Council of the RSFSR declared the Petrozavodsk, Olonets and Cherepovets provinces in a state of siege. On May 4, a general mobilization of the Northwestern region of Soviet Russia was announced.
In May - June 1919, fierce battles took place in the area of Lake Ladoga. Small detachments of the Red Army (the main forces were occupied on other fronts and directions) held back the pressure of the well-armed, trained and numerically superior Finnish army. The White Finns were advancing on Lodeynoye Pole. Several Finnish detachments were able to cross the Svir below Lodeynoye Pole. The advance of Finnish troops was helped to hold back Soviet ships.
The Soviet command prepared an offensive operation with the goal of defeating the White Finnish troops and destroying the enemy’s “Interlake Bridgehead”. Ground forces and naval forces were to participate in the operation. The basis of the Soviet forces were the regiments of the 1st Rifle Division, the 1st Finnish Soviet Rifle Regiment, ships of the Onega Military Flotilla and two destroyers of the Baltic Fleet. The Vidlitsa operation (June 27 - July 8, 1919) was led by the head of the Olonetsky section M.P. Gusarov, Commissioner E.A. Rakhya and the commander of the Onega military flotilla E.S. Panzerzhansky.
On June 27, 1919, Soviet ships launched a fire attack on the enemy defense system near Vidlitsa and landed two troops. At the same time, the forces of the 1st Infantry Division went on the offensive. Subsequently, Soviet ships supported the advance of the ground forces with naval artillery fire. Both landings were successful. The Finnish batteries were suppressed, the Finnish troops were defeated and retreated north in panic. The trophies of the Red Army were four German 88-mm cannons, five 57-mm naval guns and other weapons. As a result of the offensive operation, the forces of the Finnish army were defeated and thrown back beyond the state border. The Red Army received orders not to cross the border.
To be continued…
1939-1940 (Soviet-Finnish War, in Finland known as the Winter War) - armed conflict between the USSR and Finland in the period from November 30, 1939 to March 12, 1940.
Its reason was the desire of the Soviet leadership to move the Finnish border away from Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in order to strengthen the security of the northwestern borders of the USSR, and the refusal of the Finnish side to do this. The Soviet government asked to lease parts of the Hanko Peninsula and some islands in the Gulf of Finland in exchange for a larger area of Soviet territory in Karelia, with the subsequent conclusion of a mutual assistance agreement.
The Finnish government believed that accepting Soviet demands would weaken the strategic position of the state and lead to Finland losing its neutrality and its subordination to the USSR. The Soviet leadership, in turn, did not want to give up its demands, which, in its opinion, were necessary to ensure the security of Leningrad.
The Soviet-Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus (Western Karelia) ran just 32 kilometers from Leningrad, the largest center of Soviet industry and the second largest city in the country.
The reason for the start of the Soviet-Finnish war was the so-called Maynila incident. According to the Soviet version, on November 26, 1939 at 15.45 Finnish artillery in the Mainila area fired seven shells at the positions of the 68th rifle regiment on Soviet territory. Three Red Army soldiers and one junior commander were allegedly killed. On the same day, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR addressed a note of protest to the Finnish government and demanded the withdrawal of Finnish troops from the border by 20-25 kilometers.
The Finnish government denied the shelling of Soviet territory and proposed that not only Finnish, but also Soviet troops be withdrawn 25 kilometers from the border. This formally equal demand was impossible to fulfill, because then Soviet troops would have to be withdrawn from Leningrad.
On November 29, 1939, the Finnish envoy in Moscow was handed a note about the severance of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Finland. On November 30 at 8 a.m., troops of the Leningrad Front received orders to cross the border with Finland. On the same day, Finnish President Kyusti Kallio declared war on the USSR.
During "perestroika" several versions of the Maynila incident became known. According to one of them, the shelling of the positions of the 68th regiment was carried out by a secret unit of the NKVD. According to another, there was no shooting at all, and in the 68th regiment on November 26 there were neither killed nor wounded. There were other versions that did not receive documentary confirmation.
From the very beginning of the war, the superiority of forces was on the side of the USSR. The Soviet command concentrated 21 rifle divisions, one tank corps, three separate tank brigades (a total of 425 thousand people, about 1.6 thousand guns, 1,476 tanks and about 1,200 aircraft) near the border with Finland. To support the ground forces, it was planned to attract about 500 aircraft and more than 200 ships of the Northern and Baltic fleets. 40% of Soviet forces were deployed on the Karelian Isthmus.
The group of Finnish troops had about 300 thousand people, 768 guns, 26 tanks, 114 aircraft and 14 warships. The Finnish command concentrated 42% of its forces on the Karelian Isthmus, deploying the Isthmus Army there. The remaining troops covered separate directions from the Barents Sea to Lake Ladoga.
The main line of defense of Finland was the “Mannerheim Line” - unique, impregnable fortifications. The main architect of Mannerheim's line was nature itself. Its flanks rested on the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. The shore of the Gulf of Finland was covered by large-caliber coastal batteries, and in the Taipale area on the shore of Lake Ladoga, reinforced concrete forts with eight 120- and 152-mm coastal guns were created.
The "Mannerheim Line" had a front width of 135 kilometers, a depth of up to 95 kilometers and consisted of a support strip (depth 15-60 kilometers), a main strip (depth 7-10 kilometers), a second strip 2-15 kilometers from the main one, and rear (Vyborg) defense line. Over two thousand long-term fire structures (DOS) and wood-earth fire structures (DZOS) were erected, which were united into strong points of 2-3 DOS and 3-5 DZOS in each, and the latter - into resistance nodes (3-4 strong points point). The main line of defense consisted of 25 resistance units, numbering 280 DOS and 800 DZOS. Strong points were defended by permanent garrisons (from a company to a battalion in each). In the gaps between the strong points and the nodes of resistance there were positions for field troops. Strongholds and positions of field troops were covered by anti-tank and anti-personnel barriers. In the support zone alone, 220 kilometers of wire barriers in 15-45 rows, 200 kilometers of forest debris, 80 kilometers of granite obstacles up to 12 rows, anti-tank ditches, scarps (anti-tank walls) and numerous minefields were created.
All fortifications were connected by a system of trenches and underground passages and were supplied with food and ammunition necessary for long-term independent combat.
On November 30, 1939, after a lengthy artillery preparation, Soviet troops crossed the border with Finland and began an offensive on the front from the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Finland. In 10-13 days, in separate directions they overcame the zone of operational obstacles and reached the main strip of the “Mannerheim Line”. Unsuccessful attempts to break through it continued for more than two weeks.
At the end of December, the Soviet command decided to stop further offensive on the Karelian Isthmus and begin systematic preparations for breaking through the Mannerheim Line.
The front went on the defensive. The troops were regrouped. The North-Western Front was created on the Karelian Isthmus. The troops received reinforcements. As a result, Soviet troops deployed against Finland numbered more than 1.3 million people, 1.5 thousand tanks, 3.5 thousand guns, and three thousand aircraft. By the beginning of February 1940, the Finnish side had 600 thousand people, 600 guns and 350 aircraft.
On February 11, 1940, the assault on the fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus resumed - the troops of the North-Western Front, after 2-3 hours of artillery preparation, went on the offensive.
Having broken through two lines of defense, Soviet troops reached the third on February 28. They broke the enemy's resistance, forced him to begin a retreat along the entire front and, developing an offensive, enveloped the Vyborg group of Finnish troops from the northeast, captured most of Vyborg, crossed the Vyborg Bay, bypassed the Vyborg fortified area from the northwest, and cut the highway to Helsinki.
The fall of the Mannerheim Line and the defeat of the main group of Finnish troops put the enemy in a difficult situation. Under these conditions, Finland turned to the Soviet government asking for peace.
On the night of March 13, 1940, a peace treaty was signed in Moscow, according to which Finland ceded about a tenth of its territory to the USSR and pledged not to participate in coalitions hostile to the USSR. On March 13, hostilities ceased.
In accordance with the agreement, the border on the Karelian Isthmus was moved away from Leningrad by 120-130 kilometers. The entire Karelian Isthmus with Vyborg, the Vyborg Bay with islands, the western and northern coasts of Lake Ladoga, a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, and part of the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas went to the Soviet Union. The Hanko Peninsula and the maritime territory around it were leased to the USSR for 30 years. This improved the position of the Baltic Fleet.
As a result of the Soviet-Finnish war, the main strategic goal pursued by the Soviet leadership was achieved - to secure the northwestern border. However, the international position of the Soviet Union worsened: it was expelled from the League of Nations, relations with England and France worsened, and an anti-Soviet campaign unfolded in the West.
The losses of Soviet troops in the war were: irrevocable - about 130 thousand people, sanitary - about 265 thousand people. Irreversible losses of Finnish troops are about 23 thousand people, sanitary losses are over 43 thousand people.
(Additional
NURANI
Is it possible to classify a war? And not somewhere in the distant and little-known corners of the third world, which not everyone can find on a map, but in their own country, a war that crushed the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers and raged near the “second capital” of the country?
The Soviet-Finnish war of 1939 was not classified in literally words, just like, for example, the participation of Soviet specialists in combat operations in Vietnam. And just the mention of her was clearly not enough to go to places not so distant. This war was simply “relegated to the background”; if it was mentioned at all, it was in passing, “pattering through the lip,” without focusing attention.
And this turned out to be enough to ensure that the date November 30, 1939 - the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish war that lasted 104 days - did not “work” in the mind in the same way as June 22, 1941. It still remains an unknown war. The truth about that company was too inconvenient, too “prickly”, regarding which it is still difficult to clearly and unambiguously answer the question of who won in it.
But, most importantly, this war raises many questions, “convenient” answers, which still have no answer.
Inconvenient neighbors
Neighboring kingdoms, principalities, khanates and emirates did not always transfer to Russia voluntarily. In the early stages of colonization, Russia was in no hurry to transform the newly acquired lands into general governorates and provinces, maintaining some semblance of their formal sovereignty.
Finland, which came under the control of Moscow after another war with Sweden, was luckier: it retained its autonomous status as a “Grand Duchy” until 1917, when the Russian Empire, like an overheated cauldron with rusted walls, was torn apart from the inside.
Finland perceived the fall of the Russian monarchy as a long-awaited chance to achieve independence. On December 6, 1917, the Finnish Senate declared Finland an independent state. Lenin’s “self-determination up to secession” had to be proven not in words, but in deeds, and on December 18 (31), 1917, the Council of People's Commissars of Russia turned to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee with a proposal to recognize the independence of the Republic of Finland. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee made the corresponding decision on December 22, 1917 (January 4, 1918). But in fact, the government of Soviet Russia clearly had no intention of “letting go” of Finland.
In January 1918, a civil war began in Finland, in which the “Reds” (Finnish socialists), who enjoyed not only moral support from Moscow, were opposed by the “Whites”, supported, as Soviet propaganda assured, by Germany and Sweden. But, unlike Russia itself, in Finland the civil war ended with the victory of the “White Finns,” that is, supporters of the country’s independence. This was a heavy blow for Moscow.
The “world revolution” clearly did not work out; moreover, in completely Soviet Eastern Karelia, the movement of supporters of the annexation of these lands to Finland was growing stronger. As a result, the civil war escalated into the First Soviet-Finnish War, which ended in 1920. Clashes, however, continued until 1922.
However, all wars, as we know, end someday. And formally everything looked quite decent and peaceful. The Tartu (Yuryev) Peace Treaty was concluded between Soviet Russia and Finland. And to say that this agreement was received ambiguously in Finland is to say nothing. A number of prominent politicians, including Baron Mannerheim, considered this treaty a national disgrace and a betrayal of compatriots who remained in Eastern Karelia, and the representative of Rebol H. N. (Bobi) Siven shot himself in protest.
But the USSR did not have much reason to celebrate the victory. To the obvious displeasure of Moscow, the Pechenga region (Petsamo), as well as the western part of the Rybachy Peninsula and most of the Sredny Peninsula, went to Finland in the North, in the Arctic. And, most importantly, in Helsinki they clearly understood: at best, Soviet Russia tolerated Finland’s independence “through gritted teeth,” waiting for a convenient reason to “fix” the border.
Time for great hopes
Meanwhile, in a world that had not yet forgotten the First World War, the idea of general disarmament and security was gaining strength. The recently concluded First World War revolutionized the minds of many. The first gas attacks, new, at that time ultra-modern weapons, a huge number of victims and unprecedented cruelty caused a completely predictable reaction: this should not happen again.
The League of Nations had already been created, and in European countries, especially in Scandinavia, they enthusiastically disarmed and reduced defense spending. Denmark disarmed completely, Sweden and Norway significantly reduced their weapons, and against this background in Finland, the government and the majority of parliament members consistently cut spending on defense and weapons. Since 1927, due to cost savings, military exercises have not been held at all. The allocated money was barely enough to maintain the army. The issue of spending on weapons provision was not considered in parliament. Tanks and military aircraft were completely absent. But not everyone shared this complacency.
And one of those who believed that the country would still need an army was Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim. On July 10, 1931, he headed the newly created Defense Council. Mannerheim had no doubt: as long as the Bolsheviks were in power in Russia with their ideas of a “World Republic of Soviets” and a “world revolution,” Finland could at any moment be attacked from the east, and it was necessary to prepare for this attack.
The chance to prepare for war really came to him only in 1937. When did the construction of the famous “Mannerheim Line” - a system of long-term fortifications - begin on the Karelian Isthmus?
Later, Viktor Suvorov would evaluate the Finnish defense system this way: “For twenty years, almost the entire military budget of Finland was spent on creating fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus. A defensive line was built with a length of 135 kilometers and a depth of up to 90 kilometers. The flanks rested on the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga.
Behind endless minefields, behind anti-tank ditches and granite gouges, behind reinforced concrete tetrahedrons and wire barriers in ten, twenty, thirty rows (at an altitude of 65.5 - forty-seven rows of thick mined barbed wire on metal stakes, the central rows are rails driven into the ground instead of stakes), and so, behind these barriers are reinforced concrete casemates: three, four, five floors underground, the ceilings are one and a half to two meters of fortification reinforced concrete, the floor walls are covered with armored slabs, all of this is littered with multi-ton granite boulders and covered with soil. Everything is disguised. Dense spruce forests have already risen above these casemates. And the forests are covered with snow. Machine gunners, riflemen, artillerymen sit behind armor and concrete, deep embrasures extinguish the flashes of shots, distort and muffle the sound of fire - they shoot at point-blank range, but to us it all seems like they are shooting from behind a distant forest...”
Pre-war negotiations
Finland had to be convinced very soon that these preparations were far from superfluous - in 1938. When secret negotiations began between Moscow and Helsinki. On April 14, 1938, Second Secretary Boris Yartsev arrived at the USSR Embassy in Finland in Helsinki. At a meeting with Foreign Minister Rudolf Holsti, he explained his country’s position with all proletarian frankness: the USSR government is confident that Germany is planning an attack on the USSR, these plans include a side attack through Finland, and therefore Moscow needs guarantees. The Red Army, he ingratiatingly “warned,” would not wait on the border if Finland allowed a landing. But if Finland resists the Germans, the USSR will provide it with military and economic assistance - you yourself will not be able to cope with the Germans.
In Helsinki they assured that Finland would not allow its territorial integrity to be violated and Soviet Russia to be invaded through its territory, but this was not enough for Moscow: the USSR demanded the signing of a secret agreement and military bases on islands belonging to Finland. The idea was rejected in Helsinki. In March 1939, the USSR tightened its requirements: now Moscow demanded that the islands of Gogland, Laavansaari (now Moshchny), Tyutyarsaari, and Seiskari be leased for 30 years. Again it was not possible to reach an agreement.
But, as you know, in order for negotiations to end in success, it is necessary that all their participants want this. But if at least one of the parties uses them as a “diplomatic screen”, and the issue has already been quietly resolved in favor of war, then the negotiations will definitely fail.
Spheres of influence section
Meanwhile, the clouds were gathering over Europe. On August 23, 1939, the USSR and Germany concluded a Non-Aggression Treaty - the same Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, with secret protocols and annexes on the division of “spheres of influence”. According to the secret additional protocol, the Treaty included Finland in the sphere of interests of the USSR. And it is clear that behind euphemisms such as “guarantees of non-interference in the event of war” was hidden a “go-ahead” for the restoration of the borders of the former Russian Empire.
The USSR and Germany began implementing secret additional protocols in September 1939. On September 1, Germany attacked Poland, having previously staged a provocation in Gleiwitz - now Gliwice. And USSR troops entered Polish territory on September 17. European countries, confident that “the Germans need not the West, but the East,” did not come to the aid of Poland in the same way as they recently handed over Austria and Czechoslovakia to Hitler for the slaughter.
Meanwhile, Moscow is actively expanding its territory. From September 28 to October 10, the USSR concluded mutual assistance agreements with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, according to which these countries provided the USSR with their territory for the deployment of Soviet military bases. On October 5, the same “offer that cannot be refused” was made to Finland. But Helsinki responded by saying that the conclusion of such a pact would contradict its position of absolute neutrality. In addition, the USSR's unexpected non-aggression treaty with Germany had already eliminated the main reason for the Soviet Union's demands on Finland - the danger of a German attack through Finnish territory.
Nevertheless, on October 5, 1939, Soviet-Finnish negotiations start in Moscow. And here, for the first time, Soviet representatives started talking about the fact that, they say, the border with Finland runs too close to Leningrad. Joseph Stalin remarked: “We can’t do anything about geography, just like you... Since Leningrad cannot be moved, we will have to move the border further away from it.” The Soviet proposals resembled an ultimatum: transfer part of the Karelian Isthmus to the USSR, lease the Hanko Peninsula to the USSR for a period of 30 years for the construction of a naval base and station a four thousand military contingent there for its defense, provide the Soviet Navy with ports on the Hanko Peninsula in Hanko itself and in Lappohja , transfer to the USSR the islands of Gogland, Laavansaari (now Moshchny), Tyutyarsaari, Seiskari...
The Soviet ultimatum in Helsinki was rejected. And on October 10, soldiers were called up from the reserves for unscheduled exercises, which meant full mobilization.
Today, many historians are sure: in Finland they expected to hold out for two weeks, and then the allies should have come to the aid of the country. But the bitter experience of Czechoslovakia and Poland, alas, left no doubt: old Europe interprets its obligations very freely. But Finland also did not consider it possible to “bend in” to Moscow. Negotiations continued, Karl Mannerheim tried to convince parliamentarians of the need for a compromise, and in the USSR, meanwhile, own preparation to war. If the Finnish exercises were aimed at repelling aggression, then the Soviet exercises were about seizing Finnish territory. The troops of the Leningrad Military District were put on combat readiness. But, most importantly, very impressive propaganda was unfolding in the country.
On November 3, 1939, Pravda wrote: “We will throw to hell every game of political gamblers and go our own way, no matter what, we will ensure the security of the USSR, no matter what, breaking all and every obstacle on the way to the goal.”
On the same day, troops of the Leningrad Military District and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet received directives to prepare military operations against Finland. On November 26, the following article appeared in Pravda: “A buffoon at the post of prime minister,” which became the signal for the start of an anti-Finnish propaganda campaign. On the same day, there was an artillery shelling of the territory of the USSR near the village of Maynila. There is, alas, no doubt that this was a Soviet provocation: Mannerheim had withdrawn his troops from the border ahead of time to a distance that would prevent any misunderstandings from arising. However, the USSR blamed Finland for everything. On November 28, the denunciation of the Non-Aggression Treaty with Finland was announced, and on November 30, Soviet troops were given the order to attack.
It is alleged that the measures we are taking are directed against the independence of Finland or to interfere in its internal and external affairs. This is the same malicious slander. We consider Finland, whatever regime may exist there, to be independent and sovereign state in all its foreign and domestic policies. We stand firmly for the Finnish people to decide their internal and external affairs, as they themselves see fit,” Molotov assured in his speech on November 29. Then, in the same way, on the morning of January 20, 1990, on Baku radio, representatives of the military commandant’s office will assure that they are defending “freedom and democracy” here.
On the second day of the war, a puppet Terijoki government was created on the territory of the USSR, headed by the Finnish communist Otto Kuusinen. On December 2, the Soviet government signed a mutual assistance agreement with the Kuusinen government and refused any contacts with the legitimate government of Finland led by Risto Ryti. Later, M.I. Semiryaga in his book “Secrets of Stalin’s diplomacy. 1941-1945” wrote: “With a high degree of confidence we can assume: if things at the front had gone in accordance with the operational plan, then this “government” would have arrived in Helsinki with a specific political goal - to unleash a civil war in the country.” And then, following the example of western Belarus, western Ukraine and the Baltic countries, the USSR would simply annex Finland.
But things at the front, alas, were not going as desired. Nikita Khrushchev cited an indicative fact in his memoirs. According to him, at a meeting in the Kremlin, Stalin said: “Let's start today... We will just raise our voices a little, and the Finns will only have to obey. If they persist, we will fire only one shot, and the Finns will immediately raise their hands and surrender.” The war seemed like a pleasure ride. Why stand on ceremony with this Finland! We also found “geographical news”! But the military reality turned out to be different.
Invisible Front
The plan for the war with Finland provided for the deployment of military operations in two main directions - on the Karelian Isthmus, where it was planned to conduct a direct breakthrough of the Mannerheim Line in the direction of Vyborg, and north of Lake Ladoga in order to prevent counterattacks and a possible landing of troops by Finland’s Western allies from the Barents Sea.
After a successful breakthrough (or bypassing the line from the north), the Red Army was able to wage war on flat territory that did not have serious long-term fortifications. In such conditions, Soviet strategists calculated, a significant advantage in manpower and an overwhelming advantage in technology could manifest itself in the most complete way. After breaking through the fortifications, it was planned to launch an attack on Helsinki and achieve a complete cessation of resistance. At the same time, the actions of the Baltic Fleet and access to the Norwegian border in the Arctic were planned.
But the USSR did not take into account that they would have to fight not on the textbook “sandbox”, but in the conditions of a real war. “Tanks have nothing to do in forests; it is impossible to adjust artillery fire in forests. Forest. Impenetrable forest. Taiga. There is no horizon line. The artillery observer does not see where the shells are falling: they whistle and howl overhead, but they cannot understand where they fall. And the battery is yelling into the phone: undershot? flight? And the devil knows! You can only see the explosions from the very clearing on which these same shells are falling. But Finnish artillery has always been in these places. Each battery has targeted its lines over many years of peacetime; gunners, spotters, commanders know the firing data by heart,” points out Viktor Suvorov.
The army found itself in the so-called “support zone,” through which it was still necessary to break through to the main fortifications of the “Mannerheim Line.” “This is a completely standard situation. A Soviet column of tanks, motorized infantry, and artillery is walking along a forest road,” continues Viktor Suvorov. – You can’t go left or right – there are mines. Ahead is a bridge. Sappers checked - there are no mines. The first tanks enter the bridge and take off into the air along with the bridge: explosive charges were placed in the bridge supports during construction; detecting them is not so easy, and if the charges are detected, then any attempt to remove them will lead to an explosion. So, a Soviet column many kilometers long, like a huge snake, was stopped on the road. Now it’s the turn of the Finnish snipers.”
In such a situation, the Soviet 44th Rifle Division, trapped on three parallel roads near three blown-up bridges, lost its entire command staff during the day of battle. Finnish skiers operated in small, elusive groups, from pre-prepared bases, and the Soviet army could do nothing with them. It was in Finland that Molotov cocktails were first used, and it was here that they were nicknamed “Molotov cocktails.”
Already a month after the start of the war, the cheerful songs “Receive us, Suomi-beauty” had to be forgotten. On the Karelian Isthmus, by December 21, 1939, the Soviet offensive had completely stopped. On December 26, Soviet troops went on the defensive. The Military Council of the 7th Army, which was advancing on the Karelian Isthmus, led by Meretskov, sent a report to the Headquarters of the High Command, which reported that without the destruction of the enemy’s main pillboxes and measures for engineering barriers to the approaches to Finnish positions, a successful offensive was impossible.
The auxiliary strike, carried out in difficult areas north of Lake Ladoga, ended in complete failure: two Soviet divisions were surrounded and were almost completely destroyed. In total, five Soviet divisions were surrounded and almost completely destroyed in that area before the end of the war. Only after bringing in reinforcements, the Red Army resumed its offensive on the Karelian Isthmus on February 1, 1940. Now the North-Western Front operated here under the command of S.K. Timoshenko, which included two armies - the 7th and 13th. On the morning of February 11, a general offensive began, during which the Red Army managed to break through the “Mannerheim Line.”
Here, perhaps, we should digress somewhat from the topic. A breakthrough in layered defense is an a priori extraordinary event from the point of view of military tactics and strategy. During the entire First World War, it was possible to break through the front only once - during the famous “Brusilovsky breakthrough”. And although experts now believe that the “Mannerheim Line” was inferior to the “Maginot Line” (which the Germans simply bypassed, first capturing Belgium and attacking France from its territory), according to most experts, in February 1940, the Red Army in Finland fulfilled its in fact, an impossible task.
But here again “unaccounted factors” intervened. The Red Army's offensive stopped again by February 21 due to heavy losses and depletion of ammunition. Then it was possible to resume it; by the end of February, Soviet troops reached the Finnish rear defensive positions in the Vyborg area, but it was still not an easy walk. Moreover, Finland's stubborn resistance was bearing fruit. At first, volunteers came to help this country.
And on February 5, in London and Paris they decided to send an expeditionary force to Scandinavia to help Finland. The Swedish government also seriously considered the possibility of sending battalions of volunteers to help the Finns (two of them arrived at the northern sector of the front at the end of February and replaced the Finnish brigade there, which was being transferred to the Karelian Isthmus). Two British divisions intended to be sent to France were left in metropolis and began preparations for landing in Norway together with 1-2 French divisions. But Stalin could no longer go to war with Great Britain and France. On February 12, the first ships already went to sea, but were returned after receiving news that Finland had concluded peace.
The peace signed in Moscow was difficult for Finland. The territory of the Karelian Isthmus with Vyborg, islands in the Gulf of Finland, the western and northern coast of Lake Ladoga with the cities of Kexholm, Sortavala, Suoyarvi, the territory further north of Ladoga with the city of Kuolajärvi and part of the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas in the Far North went to the Soviet Union. Petsamo, captured by the Red Army in the early days of the war, was returned to the Finns. The Hanko Peninsula was leased to the Soviet Union for 30 years to create a naval base there. On March 31, 1940, the territories ceded by Finland, with the exception of the Karelian Isthmus, were united with Soviet Karelia into the Karelo-Finnish SSR, the party organization of which was headed by the same Kuusinen. The “Finnish Democratic Republic” was no longer mentioned.
Only in the USSR they didn’t feel like winners. The USSR, as an aggressor, was expelled from the League of Nations and subjected to significant sanctions. But most importantly, we had to AGREE with Finland while maintaining its sovereignty. And even after the victory over Germany in 1945, when relations with Finland again began to be built “from scratch,” this country avoided the fate of the states of Eastern Europe.
The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940 (Soviet-Finnish War, Finnish talvisota - Winter War, Swedish vinterkriget) - an armed conflict between the USSR and Finland from November 30, 1939 to March 12, 1940.
On November 26, 1939, the USSR government sent a note of protest to the Finnish government regarding the artillery shelling, which, according to the Soviet side, was carried out from Finnish territory. Responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities was placed entirely on Finland. The war ended with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. The USSR included 11% of the territory of Finland (with the second largest city of Vyborg). 430 thousand Finnish residents were forcibly resettled by Finland from the front-line areas inland and lost their property.
According to some historians, this offensive USSR vs. Finland refers to World War II. In Soviet historiography, this war was viewed as a separate bilateral local conflict, not part of the Second World War, just like the battles at Khalkhin Gol. The outbreak of hostilities led to the fact that in December 1939 the USSR, as an aggressor, was expelled from the League of Nations.
Background
Events of 1917-1937
On December 6, 1917, the Finnish Senate declared Finland an independent state. On December 18 (31), 1917, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR addressed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) with a proposal to recognize the independence of the Republic of Finland. On December 22, 1917 (January 4, 1918), the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to recognize the independence of Finland. In January 1918, a civil war began in Finland, in which the “reds” (Finnish socialists), with the support of the RSFSR, were opposed by the “whites”, supported by Germany and Sweden. The war ended with the victory of the “whites”. After the victory in Finland, the Finnish “White” troops provided support to the separatist movement in Eastern Karelia. The first Soviet-Finnish war that began during the already civil war in Russia lasted until 1920, when the Tartu (Yuryev) Peace Treaty was concluded. Some Finnish politicians, such as Juho Paasikivi, regarded the treaty as "too good a peace", believing that great powers would only compromise when absolutely necessary. K. Mannerheim, former activists and leaders of separatists in Karelia, on the contrary, considered this world a disgrace and a betrayal of compatriots, and Rebol representative Hans Haakon (Bobi) Siven (Finnish: H. H. (Bobi) Siven) shot himself in protest. Mannerheim, in his “oath of the sword,” publicly spoke out for the conquest of Eastern Karelia, which was not previously part of the Principality of Finland.
Nevertheless, relations between Finland and the USSR after the Soviet-Finnish wars of 1918-1922, as a result of which the Pechenga region (Petsamo), as well as the western part of the Rybachy Peninsula and most of the Sredny Peninsula, were transferred to Finland in the Arctic, were not friendly, however openly hostile too.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the idea of general disarmament and security, embodied in the creation of the League of Nations, dominated government circles in Western Europe, especially in Scandinavia. Denmark disarmed completely, and Sweden and Norway significantly reduced their weapons. In Finland, the government and the majority of parliament members have consistently cut spending on defense and weapons. Since 1927, to save money, no military exercises have been held at all. The allocated money was barely enough to maintain the army. The parliament did not consider the cost of providing weapons. There were no tanks or military aircraft.
However, the Defense Council was created, which was headed by Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim on July 10, 1931. He was firmly convinced that as long as the Bolshevik government was in power in the USSR, the situation there was fraught with the most serious consequences for the whole world, primarily for Finland: “The plague coming from the east could be contagious.” In a conversation that same year with Risto Ryti, then the governor of the Bank of Finland and a well-known figure in the Progressive Party of Finland, Mannerheim outlined his thoughts on the need for the speedy creation military program and its financing. However, Ryti, after listening to the argument, asked the question: “But what is the benefit of providing the military department with such large sums if no war is expected?”
In August 1931, after inspecting the defensive structures of the Enckel Line, created in the 1920s, Mannerheim became convinced of its unsuitability for modern warfare, both due to its unfortunate location and destruction by time.
In 1932, the Tartu Peace Treaty was supplemented by a non-aggression pact and extended until 1945.
In the Finnish budget of 1934, adopted after the signing of a non-aggression pact with the USSR in August 1932, the article on the construction of defensive structures on the Karelian Isthmus was crossed out.
V. Tanner noted that the Social Democratic faction of the parliament “...still believes that a prerequisite for maintaining the country’s independence is such progress in the well-being of the people and the general conditions of their life, in which every citizen understands that this is worth all the costs of defense.”
Mannerheim described his efforts as “a futile attempt to pull a rope through a narrow pipe filled with resin.” It seemed to him that all his initiatives to unite the Finnish people in order to take care of their home and ensure their future were met with a blank wall of misunderstanding and indifference. And he filed a petition for removal from his position.
Negotiations 1938-1939
Yartsev's negotiations in 1938-1939
The negotiations were started at the initiative of the USSR; initially they were conducted in secret, which suited both sides: the Soviet Union preferred to officially maintain “free hands” in the face of an unclear prospect in relations with Western countries, and for Finnish officials, the announcement of the fact of negotiations was inconvenient from the point of view of domestic politics, since the population of Finland had a generally negative attitude towards the USSR.
On April 14, 1938, Second Secretary Boris Yartsev arrived in Helsinki, at the USSR Embassy in Finland. He immediately met with Foreign Minister Rudolf Holsti and outlined the position of the USSR: the USSR government is confident that Germany is planning an attack on the USSR and these plans include a side attack through Finland. That is why Finland’s attitude towards the landing of German troops is so important for the USSR. The Red Army will not wait on the border if Finland allows the landing. On the other hand, if Finland resists the Germans, the USSR will provide it with military and economic assistance, since Finland itself is not able to repel the German landing. Over the next five months, he held numerous conversations, including with Prime Minister Kajander and Minister of Finance Väinö Tanner. The Finnish side's guarantees that Finland would not allow its territorial integrity to be violated and Soviet Russia to be invaded through its territory were not enough for the USSR. The USSR demanded a secret agreement, obligatory in the event of a German attack, its participation in the defense of the Finnish coast, the construction of fortifications on the Åland Islands and the placement of Soviet military bases for the fleet and aviation on the island of Hogland (Finnish: Suursaari). No territorial demands were made. Finland rejected Yartsev's proposals at the end of August 1938.
In March 1939, the USSR officially announced that it wanted to lease the islands of Gogland, Laavansaari (now Moshchny), Tyutyarsaari and Seskar for 30 years. Later, as compensation, they offered Finland territories in Eastern Karelia. Mannerheim was ready to give up the islands, since they were still practically impossible to defend or use to protect the Karelian Isthmus. However, negotiations were fruitless and ended on April 6, 1939.
On August 23, 1939, the USSR and Germany entered into a Non-Aggression Treaty. According to the secret additional protocol to the Treaty, Finland was included in the sphere of interests of the USSR. Thus, the contracting parties - Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - provided each other with guarantees of non-interference in the event of war. Germany began World War II by attacking Poland a week later, on September 1, 1939. USSR troops entered Polish territory on September 17.
From September 28 to October 10, the USSR concluded mutual assistance agreements with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, according to which these countries provided the USSR with their territory for the deployment of Soviet military bases.
On October 5, the USSR invited Finland to consider the possibility of concluding a similar mutual assistance pact with the USSR. The Finnish government stated that the conclusion of such a pact would be contrary to its position of absolute neutrality. In addition, the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany had already eliminated the main reason for the Soviet Union's demands on Finland - the danger of a German attack through Finnish territory.
Moscow negotiations on the territory of Finland
On October 5, 1939, Finnish representatives were invited to Moscow for negotiations “on specific political issues" The negotiations took place in three stages: October 12-14, November 3-4 and November 9.
For the first time, Finland was represented by the envoy, State Councilor J. K. Paasikivi, the Finnish Ambassador to Moscow Aarno Koskinen, Foreign Ministry official Johan Nykopp and Colonel Aladar Paasonen. On the second and third trips, Finance Minister Tanner was authorized to negotiate along with Paasikivi. On the third trip, State Councilor R. Hakkarainen was added.
At these negotiations, the proximity of the border to Leningrad was discussed for the first time. Joseph Stalin remarked: “We can’t do anything about geography, just like you... Since Leningrad cannot be moved, we will have to move the border further away from it.”
The version of the agreement presented by the Soviet side looked like this:
Finland moves the border 90 km from Leningrad.
Finland agrees to lease the Hanko Peninsula to the USSR for a period of 30 years for the construction of a naval base and the deployment of a four-thousand-strong military contingent there for its defense.
The Soviet navy is provided with ports on the Hanko Peninsula in Hanko itself and in Lappohja (Finnish) Russian.
Finland transfers the islands of Gogland, Laavansaari (now Moshchny), Tytjarsaari and Seiskari to the USSR.
The existing Soviet-Finnish non-aggression pact is supplemented by an article on mutual obligations not to join groups and coalitions of states hostile to one side or the other.
Both states disarm their fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus.
The USSR transfers to Finland territory in Karelia with a total area twice as large as the Finnish one received (5,529 km²).
The USSR undertakes not to object to the armament of the Åland Islands by Finland's own forces.
The USSR proposed a territorial exchange in which Finland would receive larger territories in Eastern Karelia in Reboli and Porajärvi.
The USSR made its demands public before the third meeting in Moscow. Germany, which had concluded a non-aggression pact with the USSR, advised the Finns to agree to them. Hermann Goering made it clear to Finnish Foreign Minister Erkko that demands for military bases should be accepted and that there was no point in hoping for German help.
The State Council did not comply with all the demands of the USSR, since public opinion and parliament were against it. Instead, a compromise option was proposed - the Soviet Union was offered the islands of Suursaari (Gogland), Lavensari (Moshchny), Bolshoi Tyuters and Maly Tyuters, Penisaari (Small), Seskar and Koivisto (Berezovy) - a chain of islands that stretches along the main shipping fairway in the Gulf of Finland, and the territories closest to Leningrad in Terijoki and Kuokkala (now Zelenogorsk and Repino), deep into Soviet territory. The Moscow negotiations ended on November 9, 1939.
Previously, a similar proposal was made to the Baltic countries, and they agreed to provide the USSR with military bases on their territory. Finland chose something else: to defend the inviolability of its territory. On October 10, soldiers from the reserve were called up for unscheduled exercises, which meant full mobilization.
Sweden has made its position of neutrality clear, and there have been no serious assurances of assistance from other states.
Since mid-1939, military preparations began in the USSR. In June-July, the Main Military Council of the USSR discussed the operational plan for the attack on Finland, and from mid-September the concentration of units of the Leningrad Military District along the border began.
In Finland, the Mannerheim Line was being completed. On August 7-12, major military exercises were held on the Karelian Isthmus, where they practiced repelling aggression from the USSR. All military attaches were invited, except the Soviet one.
The Finnish government refused to accept Soviet conditions - since, in their opinion, these conditions went far beyond the issue of ensuring the security of Leningrad - while at the same time trying to achieve a Soviet-Finnish trade agreement and Soviet consent to armament of the Åland Islands, the demilitarized status of which was regulated Åland Convention of 1921. In addition, the Finns did not want to give the USSR their only defense against possible Soviet aggression - a strip of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus, known as the “Mannerheim Line”.
The Finns insisted on their position, although on October 23-24, Stalin somewhat softened his position regarding the territory of the Karelian Isthmus and the size of the proposed garrison of the Hanko Peninsula. But these proposals were also rejected. “Do you want to provoke a conflict?” /IN. Molotov/. Mannerheim, with the support of Paasikivi, continued to insist to his parliament on the need to find a compromise, declaring that the army would hold out on the defensive for no more than two weeks, but to no avail.
On October 31, speaking at a session of the Supreme Council, Molotov outlined the essence of the Soviet proposals, while hinting that the hard line taken by the Finnish side was allegedly caused by the intervention of third-party states. The Finnish public, having first learned about the demands of the Soviet side, categorically opposed any concessions.
Negotiations resumed in Moscow on November 3 immediately reached a dead end. The Soviet side followed with a statement: “We civilians have made no progress. Now the floor will be given to the soldiers.”
However, Stalin made concessions the next day, offering to buy it instead of renting the Hanko Peninsula or even rent some coastal islands from Finland instead. Tanner, then Minister of Finance and part of the Finnish delegation, also believed that these proposals opened the way to reaching an agreement. But the Finnish government stood its ground.
On November 3, 1939, the Soviet newspaper Pravda wrote: “We will throw to hell every game of political gamblers and go our own way, no matter what, we will ensure the security of the USSR, no matter what, breaking down all and every obstacle on the way to the goal.” " On the same day, the troops of the Leningrad Military District and the Baltic Fleet received directives to prepare for military operations against Finland. At the last meeting, Stalin, at least outwardly, showed a sincere desire to achieve a compromise on the issue of military bases. But the Finns refused to discuss it, and on November 13 they left for Helsinki.
There was a temporary lull, which the Finnish government considered to confirm the correctness of its position.
On November 26, Pravda published an article “A buffoon at the post of Prime Minister,” which became the signal for the start of an anti-Finnish propaganda campaign. On the same day, there was an artillery shelling of the territory of the USSR near the village of Maynila. The USSR leadership blamed Finland for this incident. In Soviet information agencies, a new one was added to the terms “White Guard”, “White Pole”, “White emigrant” widely used to name hostile elements - “White Finn”.
On November 28, the denunciation of the Non-Aggression Treaty with Finland was announced, and on November 30, Soviet troops were given the order to go on the offensive.
Causes of the war
According to statements from the Soviet side, the USSR's goal was to achieve by military means what could not be done peacefully: to ensure the security of Leningrad, which was dangerously close to the border even in the event of war breaking out (in which Finland was ready to provide its territory to the enemies of the USSR as a springboard) would inevitably be captured in the first days (or even hours). In 1931, Leningrad was separated from the region and became a city of republican subordination. Part of the borders of some territories subordinate to the Leningrad City Council was also the border between the USSR and Finland.
“Did the Government and Party do the right thing by declaring war on Finland? This question specifically concerns the Red Army.
Could it be possible to do without war? It seems to me that it was impossible. It was impossible to do without war. The war was necessary, since peace negotiations with Finland did not yield results, and the security of Leningrad had to be ensured unconditionally, because its security is the security of our Fatherland. Not only because Leningrad represents 30-35 percent of the defense industry of our country and, therefore, the fate of our country depends on the integrity and safety of Leningrad, but also because Leningrad is the second capital of our country.
Speech by I.V. Stalin at a meeting of the commanding staff 04/17/1940"
True, the very first demands of the USSR in 1938 did not mention Leningrad and did not require moving the border. Demands for the lease of Hanko, located hundreds of kilometers to the west, increased the security of Leningrad. The only constant in the demands was the following: to obtain military bases on the territory of Finland and near its coast and to oblige it not to ask for help from third countries.
Already during the war, two concepts emerged that are still being debated: one, that the USSR pursued its stated goals (ensuring the security of Leningrad), the second, that the true goal of the USSR was the Sovietization of Finland.
However, today there is a different division of concepts, namely: according to the principle of classifying a military conflict as a separate war or part of the Second World War, which, in turn, represents the USSR as a peace-loving country or as an aggressor and ally of Germany. Moreover, according to these concepts, the Sovietization of Finland was only a cover for the USSR’s preparation for a lightning invasion and the liberation of Europe from German occupation with the subsequent Sovietization of all of Europe and the part of African countries occupied by Germany.
M.I. Semiryaga notes that on the eve of the war, both countries had claims against each other. The Finns were afraid of the Stalinist regime and were well aware of the repressions against Soviet Finns and Karelians in the late 1930s, the closure of Finnish schools, and so on. The USSR, in turn, knew about the activities of ultranationalist Finnish organizations that aimed to “return” Soviet Karelia. Moscow was also worried about Finland’s unilateral rapprochement with Western countries and, above all, with Germany, which Finland agreed to, in turn, because it saw the USSR as the main threat to itself. Finnish President P. E. Svinhuvud said in Berlin in 1937 that “the enemy of Russia must always be the friend of Finland.” In a conversation with the German envoy, he said: “The Russian threat to us will always exist. Therefore, it is good for Finland that Germany will be strong.” In the USSR, preparations for a military conflict with Finland began in 1936. On September 17, 1939, the USSR expressed support for Finnish neutrality, but literally on the same days (September 11-14) it began partial mobilization in the Leningrad Military District, which clearly indicated that a forceful solution was being prepared.
According to A. Shubin, before the signing of the Soviet-German Pact, the USSR undoubtedly sought only to ensure the security of Leningrad. Helsinki’s assurances of its neutrality did not satisfy Stalin, since, firstly, he considered the Finnish government to be hostile and ready to join any external aggression against the USSR, and secondly (and this was confirmed by subsequent events), the neutrality of small countries itself did not guarantee that they could not be used as a springboard for attack (as a result of occupation). After the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the demands of the USSR became stricter, and here the question arises of what Stalin was really striving for at this stage. Theoretically, presenting his demands in the fall of 1939, Stalin could plan to carry out in the coming year in Finland: a) Sovietization and inclusion in the USSR (as happened with other Baltic countries in 1940), or b) a radical social reorganization while maintaining formal signs of independence and political pluralism (as was done after the war in the Eastern European so-called “people's democracies”, or in) Stalin could only plan for now to strengthen his positions on the northern flank of a potential theater of military operations, without risking yet interfering in the internal affairs of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. M. Semiryaga believes that to determine the nature of the war against Finland, “it is not necessary to analyze the negotiations in the fall of 1939. To do this, you just need to know the general concept of the world communist movement of the Comintern and the Stalinist concept - great power claims to those regions that were previously part of the Russian Empire... And the goals were to annex all of Finland as a whole. And there is no point in talking about 35 kilometers to Leningrad, 25 kilometers to Leningrad...” Finnish historian O. Manninen believes that Stalin sought to deal with Finland according to the same scenario, which was ultimately implemented with the Baltic countries. “Stalin’s desire to “resolve issues peacefully” was the desire to peacefully create a socialist regime in Finland. And at the end of November, starting the war, he wanted to achieve the same thing through occupation. “The workers themselves had to decide whether to join the USSR or found their own socialist state.” However, O. Manninen notes, since these plans of Stalin were not formally recorded, this view will always remain in the status of an assumption and not a provable fact. There is also a version that, putting forward claims to border lands and a military base, Stalin, like Hitler in Czechoslovakia, sought to first disarm his neighbor, taking away his fortified territory, and then capture him.
An important argument in favor of the theory of Sovietization of Finland as the goal of the war is the fact that on the second day of the war, a puppet Terijoki government was created on the territory of the USSR, headed by the Finnish communist Otto Kuusinen. On December 2, the Soviet government signed a mutual assistance agreement with the Kuusinen government and, according to Ryti, refused any contact with the legitimate government of Finland led by Risto Ryti.
We can assume with a great deal of confidence: if things at the front had gone according to the operational plan, then this “government” would have arrived in Helsinki with a specific political goal - to unleash a civil war in the country. After all, the appeal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Finland directly called […] to overthrow the “government of executioners.” Kuusinen’s address to the soldiers of the Finnish People’s Army directly stated that they were entrusted with the honor of hoisting the banner of the Democratic Republic of Finland on the building of the Presidential Palace in Helsinki.
However, in reality, this “government” was used only as a means, although not very effective, for political pressure on the legitimate government of Finland. It fulfilled this modest role, which, in particular, is confirmed by Molotov’s statement to the Swedish envoy in Moscow, Assarsson, on March 4, 1940, that if the Finnish government continues to object to the transfer of Vyborg and Sortavala to the Soviet Union, then subsequent Soviet peace conditions will be even tougher and the USSR will then agree to a final agreement with the “government” of Kuusinen
M. I. Semiryaga. "Secrets of Stalin's diplomacy. 1941-1945"
A number of other measures were also taken, in particular, among the Soviet documents on the eve of the war there are detailed instructions on the organization of the “Popular Front” in the occupied territories. M. Meltyukhov, on this basis, sees in Soviet actions a desire to Sovietize Finland through an intermediate stage of a left-wing “people's government”. S. Belyaev believes that the decision to Sovietize Finland is not evidence of the original plan to seize Finland, but was made only on the eve of the war due to the failure of attempts to agree on changing the border.
According to A. Shubin, Stalin’s position in the fall of 1939 was situational, and he maneuvered between a minimum program - ensuring the security of Leningrad, and a maximum program - establishing control over Finland. Stalin did not strive directly for the Sovietization of Finland, as well as the Baltic countries, at that moment, since he did not know how the war would end in the West (indeed, in the Baltics decisive steps towards Sovietization were taken only in June 1940, that is, immediately after how the defeat of France took place). Finland's resistance to Soviet demands forced him to resort to a tough military option at an unfavorable moment for him (in winter). Ultimately, he ensured that he at least completed the minimum program.
According to Yu. A. Zhdanov, back in the mid-1930s, Stalin in a private conversation announced a plan (“distant future”) to move the capital to Leningrad, noting its proximity to the border.
Strategic plans of the parties
USSR plan
The plan for the war with Finland provided for the deployment of military operations in three directions. The first of them was on the Karelian Isthmus, where it was planned to conduct a direct breakthrough of the Finnish defense line (which during the war was called the “Mannerheim Line”) in the direction of Vyborg, and north of Lake Ladoga.
The second direction was central Karelia, adjacent to that part of Finland where its latitudinal extent was the smallest. It was planned here, in the Suomussalmi-Raate area, to cut the country's territory in two and enter the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia into the city of Oulu. The selected and well-equipped 44th Division was intended for the parade in the city.
Finally, in order to prevent counterattacks and possible landings of Finland's Western allies from the Barents Sea, it was planned to conduct military operations in Lapland.
The main direction was considered to be the direction to Vyborg - between Vuoksa and the coast of the Gulf of Finland. Here, after successfully breaking through the defense line (or bypassing the line from the north), the Red Army received the opportunity to wage war on a territory convenient for tanks to operate, which did not have serious long-term fortifications. In such conditions, a significant advantage in manpower and an overwhelming advantage in technology could manifest itself in the most complete way. After breaking through the fortifications, it was planned to launch an attack on Helsinki and achieve a complete cessation of resistance. At the same time, the actions of the Baltic Fleet and access to the Norwegian border in the Arctic were planned. This would ensure a quick takeover of Norway in the future and stop supplies iron ore to Germany.
The plan was based on a misconception about the weakness of the Finnish army and its inability to resist for a long time. The estimate of the number of Finnish troops also turned out to be incorrect: “it was believed that the Finnish army in wartime would have up to 10 infantry divisions and a dozen and a half separate battalions.” In addition, the Soviet command did not have information about the line of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus, and by the beginning of the war they had only “sketchy intelligence information” about them. Thus, even at the height of the fighting on the Karelian Isthmus, Meretskov doubted that the Finns had long-term structures, although he was reported about the existence of the Poppius (Sj4) and Millionaire (Sj5) pillboxes.
Finland plan
In the direction of the main attack correctly determined by Mannerheim, it was supposed to detain the enemy for as long as possible.
The Finnish defense plan north of Lake Ladoga was to stop the enemy on the line Kitelya (Pitkäranta area) - Lemetti (near Lake Syskujarvi). If necessary, the Russians were to be stopped further north at Lake Suoyarvi in echelon positions. Before the war, a railway line from the Leningrad-Murmansk railway was built here and large reserves of ammunition and fuel were created. Therefore, the Finns were surprised when seven divisions were brought into battle on the northern shore of Ladoga, the number of which was increased to 10.
The Finnish command hoped that all the measures taken would guarantee rapid stabilization of the front on the Karelian Isthmus and active containment on the northern section of the border. It was believed that the Finnish army would be able to independently restrain the enemy for up to six months. According to the strategic plan, it was supposed to wait for help from the West, and then carry out a counter-offensive in Karelia.
Armed forces of opponents
|
Divisions, |
Private |
Guns and |
Tanks |
Aircraft |
|
|
Finnish army |
|||||
|
Red Army |
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|
Ratio |
The Finnish army entered the war poorly armed - the list below indicates how many days of the war the supplies available in warehouses lasted:
- cartridges for rifles, machine guns and machine guns - for 2.5 months;
- shells for mortars, field guns and howitzers - for 1 month;
- fuels and lubricants - for 2 months;
- aviation gasoline - for 1 month.
The Finnish military industry was represented by one state-owned cartridge factory, one gunpowder factory and one artillery factory. The overwhelming superiority of the USSR in aviation made it possible to quickly disable or significantly complicate the work of all three.
The Finnish division included: headquarters, three infantry regiment, one light brigade, one field artillery regiment, two engineer companies, one communications company, one engineer company, one quartermaster company.
The Soviet division included: three infantry regiments, one field artillery regiment, one howitzer artillery regiment, one battery anti-tank guns, one reconnaissance battalion, one communications battalion, one engineering battalion.
The Finnish division was inferior to the Soviet one both in numbers (14,200 versus 17,500) and in firepower, as can be seen from the following comparative table:
|
Weapon |
Finnish |
Soviet |
|
Rifles |
||
|
Submachine guns |
||
|
Automatic and semi-automatic rifles |
||
|
7.62 mm machine guns |
||
|
12.7 mm machine guns |
||
|
Anti-aircraft machine guns (four-barreled) |
||
|
Dyakonov rifle grenade launchers |
||
|
Mortars 81−82 mm |
||
|
Mortars 120 mm |
||
|
Field artillery (37-45 mm caliber guns) |
||
|
Field artillery (75-90 mm caliber guns) |
||
|
Field artillery (105-152 mm caliber guns) |
||
|
Armored vehicles |
The Soviet division was twice as powerful as the Finnish division in terms of the total firepower of machine guns and mortars, and three times as powerful in artillery firepower. The Red Army did not have submachine guns in service, but this was partially compensated by the presence of automatic and semi-automatic rifles. Artillery support for Soviet divisions was carried out at the request of the high command; They had at their disposal numerous tank brigades, as well as an unlimited amount of ammunition.
On the Karelian Isthmus, Finland’s line of defense was the “Mannerheim Line,” consisting of several fortified defensive lines with concrete and wood-earth firing points, communication trenches, and anti-tank barriers. In a state of combat readiness there were 74 old (since 1924) single-embrasure machine-gun bunkers for frontal fire, 48 new and modernized bunkers that had from one to four machine-gun embrasures for flanking fire, 7 artillery bunkers and one machine-gun-artillery caponier. In total, 130 long-term fire structures were located along a line about 140 km long from the shore of the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga. In 1939, the most modern fortifications were created. However, their number did not exceed 10, since their construction was at the limit of the state’s financial capabilities, and the people named them because high cost"millionaires".
The northern coast of the Gulf of Finland was fortified with numerous artillery batteries on the shore and on the coastal islands. A secret agreement was concluded between Finland and Estonia on military cooperation. One of the elements was to coordinate the fire of Finnish and Estonian batteries with the aim of completely blocking the Soviet fleet. This plan did not work: by the beginning of the war, Estonia had provided its territories for military bases of the USSR, which were used by Soviet aviation for air strikes on Finland.
On Lake Ladoga, the Finns also had coastal artillery and warships. The section of the border north of Lake Ladoga was not fortified. Here, preparations were made in advance for partisan operations, for which there were all the conditions: wooded and swampy terrain, where the normal use of military equipment is impossible, narrow dirt roads and ice-covered lakes, where enemy troops are very vulnerable. At the end of the 30s, many airfields were built in Finland to accommodate aircraft from the Western Allies.
Finland began building its navy with coastal defense ironclads (sometimes incorrectly called "battleships"), equipped for maneuvering and fighting in skerries. Their main dimensions: displacement - 4000 tons, speed - 15.5 knots, armament - 4x254 mm, 8x105 mm. The battleships Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen were laid down in August 1929 and accepted into the Finnish Navy in December 1932.
Cause of war and breakdown of relations
The official reason for the war was the Maynila Incident: on November 26, 1939, the Soviet government addressed the Finnish government with an official note stating that “On November 26, at 15:45, our troops located on the Karelian Isthmus near the border of Finland, near the village of Mainila, were unexpectedly fired upon from Finnish territory by artillery fire. A total of seven gun shots were fired, as a result of which three privates and one junior commander were killed, seven privates and two command personnel were wounded. Soviet troops, having strict orders not to succumb to provocation, refrained from returning fire.". The note was drawn up in moderate terms and demanded the withdrawal of Finnish troops 20-25 km from the border in order to avoid a repetition of incidents. Meanwhile, Finnish border guards hastily conducted an investigation into the incident, especially since border posts witnessed the shelling. In a response note, the Finns stated that the shelling was recorded by Finnish posts, the shots were fired from the Soviet side, according to the observations and estimates of the Finns, from a distance of about 1.5-2 km to the southeast of the place where the shells fell, that on the border the Finns only have border guards troops and no guns, especially long-range ones, but that Helsinki is ready to begin negotiations on the mutual withdrawal of troops and begin a joint investigation of the incident. The USSR's response note read: “The denial on the part of the Finnish government of the fact of the outrageous artillery shelling of Soviet troops by Finnish troops, which resulted in casualties, cannot be explained otherwise than by a desire to mislead public opinion and mock the victims of the shelling.<…>The refusal of the Finnish government to withdraw troops who carried out a villainous attack on Soviet troops, and the demand for the simultaneous withdrawal of Finnish and Soviet troops, formally based on the principle of equality of arms, exposes the hostile desire of the Finnish government to keep Leningrad under threat.”. The USSR announced its withdrawal from the Non-Aggression Pact with Finland, citing the fact that the concentration of Finnish troops near Leningrad created a threat to the city and was a violation of the pact.
On the evening of November 29, the Finnish envoy in Moscow Aarno Yrjö-Koskinen (Finnish) Aarno Yrjo-Koskinen) was summoned to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, where Deputy People's Commissar V.P. Potemkin handed him a new note. It stated that, in view of the current situation, the responsibility for which rests with the Finnish government, the USSR government recognized the need to immediately recall its political and economic representatives from Finland. This meant a break in diplomatic relations. On the same day, the Finns noted an attack on their border guards at Petsamo.
On the morning of November 30, the last step was taken. As stated in the official statement, “by order of the High Command of the Red Army, in view of new armed provocations on the part of the Finnish military, troops of the Leningrad Military District at 8 o’clock in the morning on November 30 crossed the border of Finland on the Karelian Isthmus and in a number of other areas”. That same day, Soviet aircraft bombed and machine-gunned Helsinki; At the same time, as a result of the pilots' error, mainly residential working areas were damaged. In response to protests from European diplomats, Molotov stated that Soviet planes were dropping bread on Helsinki for the starving population (after which Soviet bombs began to be called “Molotov bread baskets” in Finland). However, there was no official declaration of war.
In Soviet propaganda and then historiography, responsibility for the outbreak of the war was placed on Finland and Western countries: “ The imperialists were able to achieve some temporary success in Finland. At the end of 1939 they managed to provoke Finnish reactionaries to war against the USSR».
Mannerheim, who as commander-in-chief had the most reliable information about the incident near Maynila, reports:
...And now the provocation that I had been expecting since mid-October happened. When I personally visited the Karelian Isthmus on October 26, General Nennonen assured me that the artillery was completely withdrawn behind the line of fortifications, from where not a single battery was able to fire a shot beyond the border... ...We did not have to wait long for the implementation of Molotov’s words spoken at Moscow negotiations: “Now it will be the soldiers’ turn to talk.” On November 26, the Soviet Union organized a provocation now known as “Shots at Maynila”... During the 1941-1944 war, Russian prisoners described in detail how the clumsy provocation was organized...
N. S. Khrushchev says that late autumn(meaning November 26) he dined in Stalin’s apartment with Molotov and Kuusinen. There was a conversation between the latter about the implementation of the decision that had already been made - presenting Finland with an ultimatum; At the same time, Stalin announced that Kuusinen would lead the new Karelo-Finnish SSR with the annexation of the “liberated” Finnish regions. Stalin believed “that after Finland is presented with ultimatum demands of a territorial nature and if it rejects them, military action will have to begin”, noting: “this thing starts today”. Khrushchev himself believed (in agreement with Stalin's sentiments, as he claims) that "It's enough to tell them loudly<финнам>, if they don’t hear, then fire the cannon once, and the Finns will raise their hands up and agree with the demands.”. Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal G.I. Kulik (artilleryman) was sent to Leningrad in advance to organize a provocation. Khrushchev, Molotov and Kuusinen sat with Stalin for a long time, waiting for the Finns to answer; everyone was sure that Finland would be scared and agree to Soviet conditions.
It should be noted that internal Soviet propaganda did not advertise the Maynila incident, which served as a frankly formal reason: it emphasized that the Soviet Union was committing liberation campaign to Finland to help Finnish workers and peasants overthrow the oppression of the capitalists. A striking example is the song “Accept us, Suomi-beauty”:
We come to help you deal with it,
Pay with interest for the shame.
Welcome us, Suomi - beauty,
In a necklace of clear lakes!
At the same time, the mention in the text of “a low sun autumn"gives rise to the assumption that the text was written ahead of time in anticipation of an earlier start of the war.
War
After the severance of diplomatic relations, the Finnish government began evacuating the population from the border areas, mainly from the Karelian Isthmus and Northern Ladoga region. The bulk of the population gathered between November 29 and December 4.
The beginning of the battles
The first stage of the war is usually considered to be the period from November 30, 1939 to February 10, 1940. At this stage, the Red Army units were advancing in the territory from the Gulf of Finland to the shores of the Barents Sea.
The group of Soviet troops consisted of the 7th, 8th, 9th and 14th armies. The 7th Army advanced on the Karelian Isthmus, the 8th Army north of Lake Ladoga, the 9th Army in northern and central Karelia, and the 14th Army in Petsamo.
The advance of the 7th Army on the Karelian Isthmus was opposed by the Army of the Isthmus (Kannaksen armeija) under the command of Hugo Esterman. For the Soviet troops, these battles became the most difficult and bloody. The Soviet command had only “sketchy intelligence information about the concrete strips of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus.” As a result, the allocated forces to break through the “Mannerheim Line” turned out to be completely insufficient. The troops turned out to be completely unprepared to overcome the line of bunkers and bunkers. In particular, there was little large-caliber artillery needed to destroy pillboxes. By December 12, units of the 7th Army were able to overcome only the line support zone and reach the front edge of the main defense line, but the planned breakthrough of the line on the move failed due to clearly insufficient forces and poor organization of the offensive. On December 12, the Finnish army carried out one of its most successful operations at Lake Tolvajärvi. Until the end of December, attempts at a breakthrough continued, but were unsuccessful.
The 8th Army advanced 80 km. It was opposed by the IV Army Corps (IV armeijakunta), commanded by Juho Heiskanen. Some of the Soviet troops were surrounded. After heavy fighting they had to retreat.
The advance of the 9th and 14th Armies was opposed by the Northern Finland Task Force (Pohjois-Suomen Ryhmä) under the command of Major General Viljo Einar Tuompo. Its area of responsibility was a 400-mile stretch of territory from Petsamo to Kuhmo. The 9th Army launched an offensive from White Sea Karelia. It penetrated the enemy’s defenses at 35-45 km, but was stopped. The forces of the 14th Army, advancing on the Petsamo area, achieved the greatest success. Interacting with the Northern Fleet, the troops of the 14th Army were able to capture the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas and the city of Petsamo (now Pechenga). Thus, they closed Finland's access to the Barents Sea.
Some researchers and memoirists try to explain the Soviet failures also by the weather: severe frosts (up to −40 °C) and deep snow - up to 2 m. However, as data meteorological observations, and other documents refute this: until December 20, 1939, on the Karelian Isthmus, the temperature ranged from +1 to −23.4 °C. Then, until the New Year, the temperature did not drop below −23 °C. Frosts down to −40 °C began in the second half of January, when there was a lull at the front. Moreover, these frosts hindered not only the attackers, but also the defenders, as Mannerheim also wrote about. There was also no deep snow before January 1940. Thus, operational reports of Soviet divisions dated December 15, 1939 indicate a depth of snow cover of 10-15 cm. Moreover, successful offensive operations in February took place in more severe weather conditions.
Significant problems for the Soviet troops were caused by Finland's use of mine-explosive devices, including homemade ones, which were installed not only on the front line, but also in the rear of the Red Army, along troop routes. On January 10, 1940, in the report of the authorized People's Commissariat of Defense, Army Commander II Rank Kovalev, to the People's Commissariat of Defense, it was noted that, along with enemy snipers, the main losses to the infantry were caused by mines. Later, at a meeting of the commanding staff of the Red Army to collect experience in combat operations against Finland on April 14, 1940, the chief of engineers of the North-Western Front, brigade commander A.F. Khrenov, noted that in the front action zone (130 km) the total length of the minefields was 386 km, with In this case, mines were used in combination with non-explosive engineering obstacles.
An unpleasant surprise was also the massive use of Molotov cocktails by the Finns against Soviet tanks, later nicknamed the “Molotov cocktail.” During the 3 months of the war, the Finnish industry produced over half a million bottles.
During the war, Soviet troops were the first to use radar stations (RUS-1) in combat conditions to detect enemy aircraft.
Terijoki government
On December 1, 1939, a message was published in the Pravda newspaper stating that the so-called “People's Government” had been formed in Finland, headed by Otto Kuusinen. In historical literature, Kuusinen’s government is usually called “Terijoki”, since after the outbreak of the war it was located in the village of Terijoki (now the city of Zelenogorsk). This government was officially recognized by the USSR.
On December 2, negotiations took place in Moscow between the government of the Finnish Democratic Republic, headed by Otto Kuusinen, and the Soviet government, headed by V. M. Molotov, at which a Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Friendship was signed. Stalin, Voroshilov and Zhdanov also took part in the negotiations.
The main provisions of this agreement corresponded to the requirements that the USSR had previously presented to Finnish representatives (transfer of territories on the Karelian Isthmus, sale of a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, lease of Hanko). In exchange, the transfer of significant territories in Soviet Karelia and monetary compensation to Finland was provided. The USSR also pledged to support the Finnish People's Army with weapons, assistance in training specialists, etc. The agreement was concluded for a period of 25 years, and if one year before the expiration of the agreement, neither party declared its termination, it was automatically extended for another 25 years. The agreement came into force from the moment it was signed by the parties, and ratification was planned “as soon as possible in the capital of Finland - the city of Helsinki.”
In the following days, meetings between Molotov and official representatives Sweden and the USA, at which the recognition of the People's Government of Finland was announced.
It was announced that the previous government of Finland had fled and, therefore, was no longer governing the country. The USSR declared at the League of Nations that from now on it would negotiate only with the new government.
Accepted Comrade Molotov on December 4, the Swedish envoy Mr. Winter announced the desire of the so-called “Finnish government” to begin new negotiations on an agreement with the Soviet Union. Comrade Molotov explained to Mr. Winter that the Soviet government did not recognize the so-called “Finnish government”, which had already left Helsinki and headed in an unknown direction, and therefore there could now be no question of any negotiations with this “government”. The Soviet government recognizes only the people's government of the Finnish Democratic Republic, has concluded an agreement of mutual assistance and friendship with it, and this is a reliable basis for the development of peaceful and favorable relations between the USSR and Finland.
The “People's Government” was formed in the USSR from Finnish communists. The leadership of the Soviet Union believed that using in propaganda the fact of the creation of a “people's government” and the conclusion of a mutual assistance agreement with it, indicating friendship and alliance with the USSR while maintaining the independence of Finland, would influence the Finnish population, increasing the disintegration in the army and in the rear.
Finnish People's Army
On November 11, 1939, the formation of the first corps of the “Finnish People's Army” (originally the 106th Mountain Rifle Division), called “Ingria”, began, which was staffed by Finns and Karelians who served in the troops of the Leningrad Military District.
By November 26, there were 13,405 people in the corps, and in February 1940 - 25 thousand military personnel who wore their national uniform (made of khaki cloth and was similar to the Finnish uniform of the 1927 model; claims that it was a captured Polish uniform army, are mistaken - only part of the overcoats were used from it).
This “people’s” army was supposed to replace the occupation units of the Red Army in Finland and become the military support of the “people’s” government. “Finns” in confederate uniforms held a parade in Leningrad. Kuusinen announced that they would be given the honor of hoisting the red flag over the presidential palace in Helsinki. The Directorate of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks prepared a draft instruction “Where to begin the political and organizational work of communists (note: the word “ communists“crossed out by Zhdanov) in areas liberated from white rule,” which indicated practical measures to create popular front in occupied Finnish territory. In December 1939, this instruction was used in work with the population of Finnish Karelia, but the withdrawal of Soviet troops led to the curtailment of these activities.
Despite the fact that the Finnish People's Army was not supposed to participate in hostilities, from the end of December 1939, FNA units began to be widely used to carry out combat missions. Throughout January 1940, scouts from the 5th and 6th regiments of the 3rd SD FNA carried out special sabotage missions in the 8th Army sector: they destroyed ammunition depots in the rear of Finnish troops, blew up railway bridges, and mined roads. FNA units took part in the battles for Lunkulansaari and the capture of Vyborg.
When it became clear that the war was dragging on and the Finnish people did not support the new government, Kuusinen's government faded into the shadows and was no longer mentioned in the official press. When Soviet-Finnish consultations on concluding peace began in January, it was no longer mentioned. Since January 25, the government of the USSR recognizes the government in Helsinki as the legitimate government of Finland.
Foreign military assistance to Finland
Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, detachments and groups of volunteers from different countries peace. In total, over 11 thousand volunteers arrived in Finland, including 8 thousand from Sweden (“Swedish Volunteer Corps (English) Russian”), 1 thousand from Norway, 600 from Denmark, 400 from Hungary (“Detachment Sisu"), 300 from the USA, as well as citizens of Great Britain, Estonia and a number of other countries. A Finnish source puts the figure at 12 thousand foreigners who arrived in Finland to take part in the war.
- Among those who fought on the side of Finland were Russian White emigrants: in January 1940, B. Bazhanov and several other Russian White emigrants from the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) arrived in Finland; after a meeting on January 15, 1940 with Mannerheim, they received permission to form anti-Soviet armed detachments from captured Red Army soldiers. Subsequently, several small “Russian People’s Detachments” were created from the prisoners under the command of six White emigrant officers from the EMRO. Only one of these detachments - 30 former prisoners of war under the command of "Staff Captain K." for ten days he was on the front line and managed to take part in the hostilities.
- Jewish refugees who arrived from a number of European countries joined the Finnish army.
Great Britain supplied Finland with 75 aircraft (24 Blenheim bombers, 30 Gladiator fighters, 11 Hurricane fighters and 11 Lysander reconnaissance aircraft), 114 field guns, 200 anti-tank guns, 124 automatic small arms, 185 thousand artillery pieces shells, 17,700 aerial bombs, 10 thousand anti-tank mines and 70 Boyce anti-tank rifles model 1937.
France decided to supply Finland with 179 aircraft (transfer 49 fighters free of charge and sell another 130 aircraft of various types), but in fact during the war 30 M.S.406C1 fighters were transferred free of charge and six more Caudron C.714 arrived after the end of hostilities and in the war did not participate; Finland also received 160 field guns, 500 machine guns, 795 thousand artillery shells, 200 thousand hand grenades, 20 million rounds of ammunition, 400 sea mines and several thousand sets of ammunition. Also, France became the first country to officially allow the registration of volunteers to participate in the Finnish war.
Sweden supplied Finland with 29 aircraft, 112 field guns, 85 anti-tank guns, 104 anti-aircraft guns, 500 automatic small arms, 80 thousand rifles, 30 thousand artillery shells, 50 million rounds of ammunition, as well as other military equipment and raw materials. In addition, the Swedish government allowed the country's "Finland's Cause - Our Cause" campaign to collect donations for Finland, and the Swedish Bank provided a loan to Finland.
The Danish government sold Finland about 30 pieces of 20-mm anti-tank guns and shells for them (at the same time, in order to avoid accusations of violating neutrality, the order was called “Swedish”); sent a medical convoy and skilled workers to Finland, and also authorized a campaign to raise funds for Finland.
Italy sent 35 Fiat G.50 fighters to Finland, but five aircraft were destroyed during their transportation and development by personnel. The Italians also transferred to Finland 94.5 thousand Mannlicher-Carcano rifles mod. 1938, 1500 Beretta pistols mod. 1915 and 60 Beretta M1934 pistols.
The Union of South Africa donated 22 Gloster Gauntlet II fighters to Finland.
A representative of the US government made a statement that the entry of American citizens into the Finnish army does not contradict the US neutrality law, a group of American pilots was sent to Helsinki, and in January 1940 the US Congress approved the sale of 10 thousand rifles to Finland. Also, the United States sold Finland 44 Brewster F2A Buffalo fighters, but they arrived too late and did not have time to take part in hostilities.
Belgium supplied Finland with 171 MP.28-II submachine guns, and in February 1940 - 56 P-08 Parabellum pistols.
Italian Foreign Minister G. Ciano in his diary mentions assistance to Finland from the Third Reich: in December 1939, the Finnish envoy to Italy reported that Germany “unofficially” sent to Finland a batch of captured weapons captured during the Polish campaign. In addition, on December 21, 1939, Germany entered into an agreement with Sweden in which it promised to supply Sweden with the same amount of weapons as it would transfer to Finland from its own reserves. The agreement caused an increase in the volume of military assistance from Sweden to Finland.
In total, during the war, 350 aircraft, 500 guns, more than 6 thousand machine guns, about 100 thousand rifles and other weapons, as well as 650 thousand hand grenades, 2.5 million shells and 160 million cartridges were delivered to Finland.
Fighting in December - January
The course of hostilities revealed serious gaps in the organization of command and supply of the Red Army troops, poor preparedness of the command staff, and the lack of specific skills among the troops necessary to wage war in winter in Finland. By the end of December it became clear that fruitless attempts to continue the offensive would lead nowhere. There was relative calm at the front. Throughout January and early February, troops were reinforced, replenishment inventories, reformation of parts and connections. Subdivisions of skiers were created, methods were developed to overcome mined areas, obstacles, and methods of combating defensive structures, personnel training was conducted. To storm the “Mannerheim Line”, the North-Western Front was created under the command of Army Commander 1st Rank Timoshenko and member of the Leningrad Military Council Zhdanov. The front included the 7th and 13th armies. In the border areas, a huge amount of work was carried out on the hasty construction and re-equipment of communication routes for uninterrupted supply of the active army. The total number of personnel was increased to 760.5 thousand people.
To destroy the fortifications on the Mannerheim Line, the first echelon divisions were assigned destruction artillery groups (AD) consisting of from one to six divisions in the main directions. In total, these groups had 14 divisions, which had 81 guns with calibers of 203, 234, 280 m.
During this period, the Finnish side also continued to replenish troops and supply them with weapons coming from the allies. At the same time, fighting continued in Karelia. Formations of the 8th and 9th armies operating along roads in continuous forest areas, suffered heavy losses. If in some places the achieved lines were held, in others the troops retreated, in some places even to the border line. The Finns widely used guerrilla warfare tactics: small autonomous detachments of skiers armed with machine guns attacked troops moving along the roads, mainly in the dark, and after the attacks they went into the forest where bases were established. Snipers caused heavy losses. According to the strong opinion of the Red Army soldiers (however, refuted by many sources, including Finnish ones), the greatest danger was posed by “cuckoo” snipers who fired from the trees. The Red Army formations that broke through were constantly surrounded and forced their way back, often abandoning their equipment and weapons.
The Battle of Suomussalmi became widely known in Finland and abroad. The village of Suomussalmi was occupied on December 7 by the forces of the Soviet 163rd Infantry Division of the 9th Army, which was given the responsible task of striking Oulu, reaching the Gulf of Bothnia and, as a result, cutting Finland in half. However, the division was subsequently surrounded by (smaller) Finnish forces and cut off from supplies. The 44th Infantry Division was sent to help her, which, however, was blocked on the road to Suomussalmi, in a defile between two lakes near the village of Raate by the forces of two companies of the 27th Finnish regiment (350 people). Without waiting for its approach, the 163rd Division at the end of December, under constant attacks from the Finns, was forced to break out of the encirclement, losing 30% of its personnel and most of its equipment and heavy weapons. After which the Finns transferred the released forces to encircle and liquidate the 44th Division, which by January 8 was completely destroyed in the battle on the Raat Road. Almost the entire division was killed or captured, and only a small part of the military personnel managed to escape from the encirclement, abandoning all equipment and convoys (the Finns received 37 tanks, 20 armored vehicles, 350 machine guns, 97 guns (including 17 howitzers), several thousand rifles, 160 vehicles , all radio stations). The Finns won this double victory with forces several times smaller than the enemy (11 thousand, according to other sources - 17 thousand) people with 11 guns versus 45-55 thousand with 335 guns, more than 100 tanks and 50 armored vehicles. The command of both divisions was placed under tribunal. The commander and commissar of the 163rd division were removed from command, one regimental commander was shot; Before the formation of their division, the command of the 44th division (brigade commander A.I. Vinogradov, regimental commissar Pakhomenko and chief of staff Volkov) was shot.
The victory at Suomussalmi had enormous moral significance for the Finns; Strategically, it buried plans for a breakthrough to the Gulf of Bothnia, which were extremely dangerous for the Finns, and so paralyzed Soviet troops in this area that they did not take active action until the very end of the war.
At the same time, south of Suomussalmi, in the Kuhmo area, the Soviet 54th Infantry Division was surrounded. The winner of Suomussalmi, Colonel Hjalmar Siilsavuo, was promoted to major general, but he was never able to liquidate the division, which remained surrounded until the end of the war. The 168th Rifle Division, which was advancing on Sortavala, was surrounded at Lake Ladoga and was also surrounded until the end of the war. There, in South Lemetti, at the end of December and beginning of January, the 18th Infantry Division of General Kondrashov, along with the 34th Tank Brigade of Brigade Commander Kondratyev, was surrounded. Already at the end of the war, on February 28, they tried to break out of the encirclement, but upon exiting they were defeated in the so-called “valley of death” near the city of Pitkäranta, where one of the two exiting columns was completely destroyed. As a result, out of 15,000 people, 1,237 people left the encirclement, half of them wounded and frostbitten. Brigade commander Kondratyev shot himself, Kondrashov managed to get out, but was soon shot, and the division was disbanded due to the loss of the banner. The number of deaths in the “valley of death” amounted to 10% of the total number of deaths in the entire Soviet-Finnish war. These episodes were vivid manifestations of the Finnish tactics, called mottitaktiikka, the tactics of motti - “pincers” (literally motti - a pile of firewood that is placed in the forest in groups, but at a certain distance from each other). Taking advantage of their advantage in mobility, detachments of Finnish skiers blocked roads clogged with sprawling Soviet columns, cut off the advancing groups and then wore them down with unexpected attacks from all sides, trying to destroy them. At the same time, the surrounded groups, unable, unlike the Finns, to fight off roads, usually huddled together and occupied a passive all-round defense, making no attempt to actively resist the attacks of the Finnish partisan detachments. Their complete destruction was made difficult for the Finns only by the lack of mortars and heavy weapons in general.
On the Karelian Isthmus the front stabilized by December 26. Soviet troops began careful preparations for breaking through the main fortifications of the Mannerheim Line and conducted reconnaissance of the defense line. At this time, the Finns unsuccessfully tried to disrupt the preparations for a new offensive with counterattacks. So, on December 28, the Finns attacked the central units of the 7th Army, but were repulsed with heavy losses.
On January 3, 1940, off the northern tip of the island of Gotland (Sweden), with 50 crew members, the Soviet submarine S-2 sank (probably hit a mine) under the command of Lieutenant Commander I. A. Sokolov. S-2 was the only RKKF ship lost by the USSR.
Based on the Directive of the Headquarters of the Main Military Council of the Red Army No. 01447 of January 30, 1940, the entire remaining Finnish population was subject to eviction from the territory occupied by Soviet troops. By the end of February, 2080 people were evicted from the areas of Finland occupied by the Red Army in the combat zone of the 8th, 9th, 15th armies, of which: men - 402, women - 583, children under 16 years old - 1095. All resettled Finnish citizens were placed in three villages of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic: in Interposelok, Pryazhinsky district, in the village of Kovgora-Goimae, Kondopozhsky district, in the village of Kintezma, Kalevalsky district. They lived in barracks and mandatory worked in the forest at logging. They were allowed to return to Finland only in June 1940, after the end of the war.
February offensive of the Red Army
On February 1, 1940, the Red Army, having brought up reinforcements, resumed its offensive on the Karelian Isthmus across the entire width of the front of the 2nd Army Corps. The main blow was delivered in the direction of Summa. Artillery preparation also began. From that day on, every day for several days the troops of the North-Western Front under the command of S. Timoshenko rained down 12 thousand shells on the fortifications of the Mannerheim Line. Five divisions of the 7th and 13th armies carried out a private offensive, but were unable to achieve success.
On February 6, the attack on the Summa strip began. In the following days, the offensive front expanded both to the west and to the east.
On February 9, the commander of the troops of the North-Western Front, Army Commander of the first rank S. Timoshenko, sent directive No. 04606 to the troops, according to which, on February 11, after powerful artillery preparation, the troops of the North-Western Front were to go on the offensive.
On February 11, after ten days of artillery preparation, the general offensive of the Red Army began. The main forces were concentrated on the Karelian Isthmus. In this offensive, ships of the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga Military Flotilla, created in October 1939, acted together with the ground units of the North-Western Front.
Since the attacks of Soviet troops on the Summa region were not successful, the main attack was moved east, to the direction of Lyakhde. At this point, the defending side suffered huge losses from artillery bombardment and Soviet troops managed to break through the defense.
During three days of intense battles, the troops of the 7th Army broke through the first line of defense of the Mannerheim Line, introduced tank formations into the breakthrough, which began to develop their success. By February 17, units of the Finnish army were withdrawn to the second line of defense, as there was a threat of encirclement.
On February 18, the Finns closed the Saimaa Canal with the Kivikoski dam, and the next day the water began to rise in Kärstilänjärvi.
By February 21, the 7th Army reached the second defense line, and the 13th Army reached the main defense line north of Muolaa. By February 24, units of the 7th Army, interacting with coastal detachments of sailors of the Baltic Fleet, captured several coastal islands. On February 28, both armies of the Northwestern Front began an offensive in the zone from Lake Vuoksa to the Vyborg Bay. Seeing the impossibility of stopping the offensive, the Finnish troops retreated.
At the final stage of the operation, the 13th Army advanced in the direction of Antrea (modern Kamennogorsk), the 7th Army - towards Vyborg. The Finns put up fierce resistance, but were forced to retreat.
England and France: plans for military operations against the USSR
Great Britain provided assistance to Finland from the very beginning. On the one hand, the British government tried to avoid turning the USSR into an enemy, on the other hand, it was widely believed that because of the conflict in the Balkans with the USSR, “we would have to fight one way or another.” The Finnish representative in London, Georg Achates Gripenberg, approached Halifax on December 1, 1939, asking for permission to ship war materials to Finland, provided they were not re-exported to Nazi Germany (with which Britain was at war). The head of the Northern Department, Laurence Collier, believed that British and German goals in Finland could be compatible and wanted to involve Germany and Italy in the war against the USSR, while opposing, however, the proposed Finland used the Polish fleet (then under British control) to destroy Soviet ships. Thomas Snow (English) Thomas Snow), the British representative in Helsinki, continued to support the idea of an anti-Soviet alliance (with Italy and Japan), which he had expressed before the war.
Amid government disagreements, the British Army began supplying weapons, including artillery and tanks, in December 1939 (while Germany refrained from supplying heavy weapons to Finland).
When Finland requested bombers to attack Moscow and Leningrad and to destroy the railway to Murmansk, the latter idea received support from Fitzroy MacLean in the Northern Department: helping the Finns destroy the road would allow Britain to "avoid the same operation" later, independently and in less favorable conditions.” Maclean's superiors, Collier and Cadogan, agreed with Maclean's reasoning and requested an additional supply of Blenheim aircraft to Finland.
According to Craig Gerrard, plans for intervention in the war against the USSR, then emerging in Great Britain, illustrated the ease with which British politicians forgot about the war they were currently waging with Germany. By the beginning of 1940, the prevailing view in the Department of the North was that the use of force against the USSR was inevitable. Collier, as before, continued to insist that appeasement of the aggressors was wrong; Now the enemy, unlike his previous position, was not Germany, but the USSR. Gerrard explains the position of MacLean and Collier not on ideological, but on humanitarian grounds.
Soviet ambassadors in London and Paris reported that in “circles close to the government” there was a desire to support Finland in order to reconcile with Germany and send Hitler to the East. Nick Smart believes, however, that at a conscious level the arguments for intervention did not come from an attempt to exchange one war for another, but from the assumption that the plans of Germany and the USSR were closely linked.
From the French point of view, the anti-Soviet orientation also made sense due to the collapse of plans to prevent the strengthening of Germany through a blockade. Soviet supplies of raw materials meant that the German economy continued to grow, and the French began to realize that after some time, as a result of this growth, winning the war against Germany would become impossible. In such a situation, although moving the war to Scandinavia posed a certain risk, inaction was an even worse alternative. The Chief of the French General Staff, Gamelin, ordered the planning of an operation against the USSR with the aim of waging war outside French territory; plans were soon prepared.
Great Britain did not support some French plans: for example, an attack on oil fields in Baku, an attack on Petsamo using Polish troops (the Polish government in exile in London was formally at war with the USSR). However, Britain was also moving closer to opening a second front against the USSR.
On 5 February 1940, at a joint war council (at which Churchill attended but did not speak), it was decided to seek Norwegian and Swedish consent to a British-led operation in which an expeditionary force would land in Norway and move east.
French plans, as Finland's situation worsened, became more and more one-sided.
On March 2, 1940, Daladier announced his readiness to send 50,000 French soldiers and 100 bombers to Finland for the war against the USSR. The British government was not informed in advance of Daladier's statement, but agreed to send 50 British bombers to Finland. A coordination meeting was scheduled for March 12, 1940, but due to the end of the war the plans remained unrealized.
The end of the war and the conclusion of peace
By March 1940, the Finnish government realized that, despite demands for continued resistance, Finland would not receive any military assistance other than volunteers and weapons from the allies. After breaking through the Mannerheim Line, Finland was obviously unable to hold back the advance of the Red Army. There was a real threat of a complete takeover of the country, which would be followed by either joining the USSR or a change of government to a pro-Soviet one.
Therefore, the Finnish government turned to the USSR with a proposal to begin peace negotiations. On March 7, a Finnish delegation arrived in Moscow, and on March 12, a peace treaty was concluded, according to which hostilities ceased at 12 o'clock on March 13, 1940. Despite the fact that Vyborg, according to the agreement, was transferred to the USSR, Soviet troops launched an assault on the city on the morning of March 13.
According to J. Roberts, Stalin's conclusion of peace on relatively moderate terms could have been caused by the awareness of the fact that an attempt to forcefully Sovietize Finland would have encountered massive resistance from the Finnish population and the danger of Anglo-French intervention to help the Finns. As a result, the Soviet Union risked being drawn into a war against the Western powers on the German side.
For participation in the Finnish war, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to 412 military personnel, over 50 thousand were awarded orders and medals.
Results of the war
All officially declared territorial claims of the USSR were satisfied. According to Stalin, " the war ended after 3 months and 12 days, only because our army did a good job, because our political boom set for Finland turned out to be correct».
The USSR gained full control over the waters of Lake Ladoga and secured Murmansk, which was located near Finnish territory (Rybachy Peninsula).
In addition, according to the peace treaty, Finland assumed the obligation to build a railway on its territory connecting the Kola Peninsula through Alakurtti with the Gulf of Bothnia (Tornio). But this road was never built.
On October 11, 1940, the Agreement between the USSR and Finland on the Åland Islands was signed in Moscow, according to which the USSR had the right to place its consulate on the islands, and the archipelago was declared a demilitarized zone.
For starting the war on December 14, 1939, the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations. The immediate reason for the expulsion was the mass protests of the international community over the systematic bombing of civilian targets by Soviet aircraft, including the use of incendiary bombs. US President Roosevelt also joined the protests.
US President Roosevelt declared a “moral embargo” on the Soviet Union in December. On March 29, 1940, Molotov stated in the Supreme Council that Soviet imports from the United States had even increased compared to the previous year, despite the obstacles put in place by the American authorities. In particular, the Soviet side complained about obstacles Soviet engineers upon admission to aircraft factories. In addition, under various trade agreements in the period 1939-1941. The Soviet Union received 6,430 machine tools from Germany worth 85.4 million marks, which compensated for the decrease in equipment supplies from the United States.
Another negative result for the USSR was the formation among the leadership of a number of countries of the idea of the weakness of the Red Army. Information about the course, circumstances and results (a significant excess of Soviet losses over Finnish ones) of the Winter War strengthened the position of supporters of the war against the USSR in Germany. At the beginning of January 1940, the German envoy in Helsinki Blucher presented a memorandum to the Foreign Ministry with the following assessments: despite superiority in manpower and equipment, the Red Army suffered one defeat after another, left thousands of people in captivity, lost hundreds of guns, tanks, aircraft and decisively failed to conquer the territory. In this regard, German ideas about Bolshevik Russia should be reconsidered. The Germans proceeded from false premises when they believed that Russia was a first-class military factor. But in reality, the Red Army has so many shortcomings that it cannot cope even with a small country. Russia in reality does not pose a threat to such a great power as Germany, the rear in the East is safe, and therefore it will be possible to speak with the gentlemen in the Kremlin in a completely different language than it was in August - September 1939. For his part, Hitler, based on the results Winter War, called the USSR a colossus with feet of clay.
W. Churchill testifies that "failure of Soviet troops" caused in public opinion in England "contempt"; “In British circles many congratulated themselves on the fact that we were not very zealous in trying to win the Soviets to our side<во время переговоров лета 1939 г.>, and were proud of their foresight. People too hastily concluded that the purge destroyed the Russian army and that all this confirmed the organic rottenness and decline of the Russian state and social system.”.
On the other hand, the Soviet Union gained experience in waging war in winter, in wooded and swampy areas, experience in breaking through long-term fortifications and fighting an enemy using guerrilla warfare tactics. In clashes with Finnish troops equipped with a Suomi submachine gun, it was found important submachine guns, previously removed from service: the production of PPD was hastily restored and technical specifications were given for the creation of a new submachine gun system, which resulted in the appearance of the PPSh.
Germany was bound by a treaty with the USSR and could not publicly support Finland, which it made clear even before the outbreak of hostilities. The situation changed after major defeats of the Red Army. In February 1940, Toivo Kivimäki (later ambassador) was sent to Berlin to test out possible changes. Relations were initially cool, but changed dramatically when Kivimäki announced Finland's intention to accept help from the Western Allies. On February 22, the Finnish envoy was urgently arranged for a meeting with Hermann Goering, the number two in the Reich. According to the memoirs of R. Nordström at the end of the 1940s, Goering unofficially promised Kivimäki that Germany would attack the USSR in the future: “ Remember that you should make peace on any terms. I guarantee that when in a short time we go to war against Russia, you will get everything back with interest" Kivimäki immediately reported this to Helsinki.
The results of the Soviet-Finnish war became one of the factors that determined the rapprochement between Finland and Germany; in addition, they could in a certain way influence the leadership of the Reich regarding plans for an attack on the USSR. For Finland, rapprochement with Germany became a means of containing the growing political pressure from the USSR. Finland's participation in World War II on the side of the Axis powers was called the "Continuation War" in Finnish historiography, in order to show the relationship with the Winter War.
Territorial changes
- Karelian Isthmus and Western Karelia. As a result of the loss of the Karelian Isthmus, Finland lost its existing defense system and began to rapidly build fortifications along the new border (Salpa Line), thereby moving the border from Leningrad from 18 to 150 km.
- Part of Lapland (Old Salla).
- Part of the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas (the Petsamo (Pechenga) region, occupied by the Red Army during the war, was returned to Finland).
- Islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland (Gogland Island).
- Rent of the Hanko (Gangut) peninsula for 30 years.
In total, as a result of the Soviet-Finnish War, the Soviet Union acquired about 40 thousand km² of Finnish territories. Finland reoccupied these territories in 1941, in the early stages of the Great Patriotic War, and in 1944 they again ceded to the USSR (see Soviet-Finnish War (1941-1944)).
Finnish losses
Military
According to 1991 data:
- killed - ok. 26 thousand people (according to Soviet data in 1940 - 85 thousand people);
- wounded - 40 thousand people. (according to Soviet data in 1940 - 250 thousand people);
- prisoners - 1000 people.
Thus, the total losses in the Finnish troops during the war amounted to 67 thousand people. brief information about each of the victims on the Finnish side was published in a number of Finnish publications.
Modern information about the circumstances of the death of Finnish military personnel:
- 16,725 killed in action, remains evacuated;
- 3,433 killed in action, remains not evacuated;
- 3671 died in hospitals from wounds;
- 715 died from non-combat causes (including diseases);
- 28 died in captivity;
- 1,727 missing and declared dead;
- The cause of death for 363 military personnel is unknown.
In total, 26,662 Finnish military personnel were killed.
Civil
According to official Finnish data, during air raids and bombings of Finnish cities (including Helsinki), 956 people were killed, 540 were seriously and 1,300 slightly injured, 256 stone and about 1,800 wooden buildings were destroyed.
Losses of foreign volunteers
During the war, the Swedish Volunteer Corps lost 33 people killed and 185 wounded and frostbite (with frostbite making up the vast majority - about 140 people).
Two Danes were killed - pilots who fought in the LLv-24 fighter air group, and one Italian who fought as part of the LLv-26.
USSR losses
Monument to those who fell in the Soviet-Finnish war (St. Petersburg, near the Military Medical Academy)
The first official figures for Soviet casualties in the war were published at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 26, 1940: 48,475 dead and 158,863 wounded, sick and frostbitten.
According to reports from the troops on March 15, 1940:
- wounded, sick, frostbitten - 248,090;
- killed and died during the sanitary evacuation stages - 65,384;
- died in hospitals - 15,921;
- missing - 14,043;
- total irrecoverable losses - 95,348.
Name lists
According to the lists of names compiled in 1949-1951 by the Main Personnel Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Defense and the General Staff Ground Forces, the losses of the Red Army in the war were as follows:
- died and died from wounds during the sanitary evacuation stages - 71,214;
- died in hospitals from wounds and illnesses - 16,292;
- missing - 39,369.
In total, according to these lists, irretrievable losses amounted to 126,875 military personnel.
Other loss estimates
In the period from 1990 to 1995, new, often contradictory data about the losses of both the Soviet and Finnish armies appeared in Russian historical literature and in journal publications, and the general trend of these publications was an increasing number of Soviet losses and a decrease in Finnish ones from 1990 to 1995. So, for example, in the articles of M. I. Semiryagi (1989) the number of killed Soviet soldiers was indicated at 53.5 thousand, in the articles of A. M. Noskov, a year later - 72.5 thousand, and in the articles of P. A Aptekar in 1995 - 131.5 thousand. As for the Soviet wounded, then, according to P. A. Aptekar, their number is more than double the results of the study by Semiryagi and Noskov - up to 400 thousand people. According to data from Soviet military archives and hospitals, sanitary losses amounted to (by name) 264,908 people. It is estimated that about 22 percent of the losses were due to frostbite.
Losses in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. based on the two-volume “History of Russia. XX century":
|
USSR |
Finland |
|
|
1. Killed, died from wounds |
about 150,000 |
|
|
2. Missing people |
||
|
3. Prisoners of war |
about 6000 (5465 returned) |
From 825 to 1000 (about 600 returned) |
|
4. Wounded, shell-shocked, frostbitten, burned |
||
|
5. Airplanes (in pieces) |
||
|
6. Tanks (in pieces) |
650 destroyed, about 1800 knocked out, about 1500 out of action due to technical reasons |
|
|
7. Losses at sea |
submarine "S-2" |
auxiliary patrol ship, tugboat on Ladoga |
"Karelian Question"
After the war, local Finnish authorities and provincial organizations of the Karelian Union, created to protect the rights and interests of the evacuated residents of Karelia, tried to find a solution to the issue of returning lost territories. During the Cold War, Finnish President Urho Kekkonen repeatedly negotiated with the Soviet leadership, but these negotiations were unsuccessful. The Finnish side did not openly demand the return of these territories. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the issue of transferring territories to Finland was raised again.
In matters relating to the return of ceded territories, the Karelian Union acts together with and through the foreign policy leadership of Finland. In accordance with the “Karelia” program adopted in 2005 at the congress of the Karelian Union, the Karelian Union seeks to ensure that the political leadership of Finland actively monitors the situation in Russia and begins negotiations with Russia on the issue of the return of the ceded territories of Karelia as soon as a real basis arises and both sides will be ready for this.
Propaganda during the war
At the beginning of the war, the tone of the Soviet press was bravura - the Red Army looked ideal and victorious, while the Finns were portrayed as a frivolous enemy. On December 2 (2 days after the start of the war), Leningradskaya Pravda will write:
You can’t help but admire the valiant soldiers of the Red Army, armed with the latest sniper rifles, brilliant automatic light machine guns. The armies of two worlds collided. The Red Army is the most peace-loving, the most heroic, powerful, equipped with advanced technology, and the army of the corrupt Finnish government, which the capitalists force to rattle their sabers. And the weapon, let’s be honest, is old and worn. There is not enough gunpowder for more.
However, within a month the tone of the Soviet press changed. They began to talk about the power of the “Mannerheim Line”, difficult terrain and frost - the Red Army, losing tens of thousands killed and frostbitten, was stuck in the Finnish forests. Starting with Molotov’s report on March 29, 1940, the myth of the impregnable “Mannerheim Line”, similar to the “Maginot Line” and the “Siegfried Line”, begins to live. which have not yet been crushed by any army. Later Anastas Mikoyan wrote: “ Stalin, an intelligent, capable man, in order to justify the failures during the war with Finland, invented the reason that we “suddenly” discovered a well-equipped Mannerheim line. A special film was released showing these structures to justify that it was difficult to fight against such a line and quickly win a victory.».
If Finnish propaganda portrayed the war as the defense of the homeland from cruel and merciless invaders, combining communist terrorism with traditional Russian great power (for example, in the song “No, Molotov!” the head of the Soviet government is compared with the tsarist governor-general of Finland Nikolai Bobrikov, known for his Russification policy and fight against autonomy), then Soviet Agitprop presented the war as a struggle against the oppressors of the Finnish people for the sake of the latter’s freedom. The term White Finns, used to designate the enemy, was intended to emphasize not the interstate or interethnic, but the class nature of the confrontation. “Your homeland has been taken away more than once - we are coming to return it”, says the song "Receive us, Suomi beauty", in an attempt to fend off accusations of taking over Finland. The order for LenVO troops dated November 29, signed by Meretskov and Zhdanov, states:
We are going to Finland not as conquerors, but as friends and liberators of the Finnish people from the oppression of landowners and capitalists.
We are not going against the Finnish people, but against the government of Kajander-Erkno, which oppresses the Finnish people and provoked a war with the USSR.
We respect the freedom and independence of Finland, received by the Finnish people as a result of the October Revolution.
Mannerheim Line - alternative
Throughout the war, both Soviet and Finnish propaganda significantly exaggerated the significance of the Mannerheim Line. The first is to justify the long delay in the offensive, and the second is to strengthen the morale of the army and the population. Accordingly, the myth of the “incredibly strongly fortified” “Mannerheim Line” was firmly entrenched in Soviet history and penetrated into some Western sources of information, which is not surprising, given the glorification of the line by the Finnish side literally - in song Mannerheimin linjalla(“On the Mannerheim Line”). The Belgian General Badu, a technical adviser on the construction of fortifications, a participant in the construction of the Maginot Line, stated:
Nowhere in the world were natural conditions as favorable for the construction of fortified lines as in Karelia. At this narrow place between two bodies of water - Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland - there are impenetrable forests and huge rocks. The famous “Mannerheim Line” was built from wood and granite, and where necessary from concrete. The anti-tank obstacles made in granite give the Mannerheim Line its greatest strength. Even twenty-five ton tanks cannot overcome them. In granite, the Finns, using explosions, equipped machine gun and gun nests, which are not afraid of the most strong bombs. Where there was a shortage of granite, the Finns did not spare concrete.
According to the Russian historian A. Isaev, “in reality, the Mannerheim Line was far from the best examples of European fortification. The vast majority of long-term Finnish structures were one-story, partially buried reinforced concrete structures in the form of a bunker, divided into several rooms by internal partitions with armored doors. Three bunkers of the “million-dollar” type had two levels, another three bunkers had three levels. Let me emphasize, precisely the level. That is, their combat casemates and shelters were located at different levels relative to the surface, casemates slightly buried in the ground with embrasures and completely buried, connecting their galleries with the barracks. There were negligibly few buildings with what could be called floors.” It was much weaker than the fortifications of the Molotov Line, not to mention the Maginot Line with multi-story caponiers equipped with their own power plants, kitchens, rest rooms and all amenities, with underground galleries connecting pillboxes, and even underground narrow-gauge railways. Along with the famous gouges made of granite boulders, the Finns used gouges made of low-quality concrete, designed for outdated Renault tanks and which turned out to be weak against the guns of new Soviet technology. In fact, the Mannerheim Line consisted mainly of field fortifications. The bunkers located along the line were small, located at a considerable distance from each other, and rarely had cannon armament.
As O. Mannien notes, the Finns had enough resources to build only 101 concrete bunkers (from low-quality concrete), and they used less concrete than the building of the Helsinki Opera House; the rest of the fortifications of the Mannerheim line were wood and earthen (for comparison: the Maginot line had 5,800 concrete fortifications, including multi-story bunkers).
Mannerheim himself wrote:
... Even during the war, the Russians floated the myth of the “Mannerheim Line.” It was argued that our defense on the Karelian Isthmus relied on an unusually strong defensive rampart built with the latest technology, which can be compared with the Maginot and Siegfried lines and which no army has ever broken through. The Russian breakthrough was “a feat unparalleled in the history of all wars”... All this is nonsense; in reality, the state of things looks completely different... There was a defensive line, of course, but it was formed only by rare long-term machine-gun nests and two dozen new pillboxes built at my suggestion, between which trenches were laid. Yes, the defensive line existed, but it lacked depth. The people called this position the “Mannerheim Line”. Its strength was the result of the stamina and courage of our soldiers, and not the result of the strength of the structures.
- Mannerheim, K. G. Memoirs. - M.: VAGRIUS, 1999. - P. 319-320. - ISBN 5-264-00049-2.
Perpetuation of memory
Monuments
- “Cross of Sorrow” is a memorial to Soviet and Finnish soldiers who fell in the Soviet-Finnish War. Opened June 27, 2000. Located in the Pitkyaranta region of the Republic of Karelia.
- The Kollasjärvi Memorial is a memorial to fallen Soviet and Finnish soldiers. Located in the Suoyarvi region of the Republic of Karelia.
Museums
- School Museum " Unknown War" - opened on November 20, 2013 at the Municipal Educational Institution "Secondary School No. 34" in the city of Petrozavodsk.
- The “Military Museum of the Karelian Isthmus” was opened in Vyborg by historian Bair Irincheev.
Fiction about war
- Finnish wartime song “No, Molotov!” (mp3, with Russian translation)
- “Receive us, Suomi beauty” (mp3, with Finnish translation)
- The song "Talvisota" by Swedish power metal band Sabaton
- “Song about battalion commander Ugryumov” - a song about captain Nikolai Ugryumov, the first Hero of the Soviet Union in the Soviet-Finnish war
- Alexander Tvardovsky.“Two Lines” (1943) - a poem dedicated to the memory of Soviet soldiers who died during the war
- N. Tikhonov, “Savolaksky huntsman” - poem
- Alexander Gorodnitsky, " Finnish border" - song.
- film “Frontline Girlfriends” (USSR, 1941)
- film “Behind Enemy Lines” (USSR, 1941)
- film “Mashenka” (USSR, 1942)
- film “Talvisota” (Finland, 1989).
- film “Angel's Chapel” (Russia, 2009).
- film “Military Intelligence: Northern Front (TV series)” (Russia, 2012).
- Computer game "Blitzkrieg"
- Computer game “Talvisota: Ice Hell”.
- Computer game "Squad Battles: Winter War".
Documentaries
- "The Living and the Dead." Documentary film about the “Winter War” directed by V. A. Fonarev
- “Mannerheim Line” (USSR, 1940)
- “Winter War” (Russia, Viktor Pravdyuk, 2014)