The war with Finland 1939-1940 is one of the shortest armed conflicts in the history of Soviet Russia. It lasted only 3.5 months, from November 30, 39 to March 13, 1940. A significant numerical superiority of the Soviet armed forces initially predicted the outcome of the conflict, and as a result, Finland was forced to sign a peace agreement. According to this agreement, the Finns ceded to the USSR almost a 10th part of their territory, and took upon themselves the obligation not to take part in any actions that threaten the Soviet Union.
Local minor military conflicts were characteristic of the eve of the Second World War, and not only representatives of Europe, but also Asian countries took part in them. The Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 was one of such short-term conflicts that did not suffer large human losses. Its cause was a single fact of shelling from the Finnish side on the territory of the USSR, more precisely, in the Leningrad region, which borders on Finland.
Until now, it is not known for certain whether the fact of the shelling was, or the government of the Soviet Union decided in this way to push its borders towards Finland in order to secure Leningrad as much as possible in case of a serious military conflict between European countries.
The participants in the conflict, which lasted only 3.5 months, were only Finnish and Soviet troops, and the Red Army outnumbered the Finnish by 2 times, and by 4 times in terms of equipment and guns.
The initial goal of the military conflict on the part of the USSR was the desire to get the Karelian Isthmus in order to ensure the territorial security of one of the largest and most important cities in the Soviet Union - Leningrad. Finland hoped for the help of its European allies, but received only the entry of volunteers into the ranks of its army, which did not make the task any easier, and the war ended without the deployment of a large-scale confrontation. Its results were the following territorial changes: the USSR received
- the cities of Sortavalu and Vyborg, Kuolojärvi,
- Karelian Isthmus,
- territory with Lake Ladoga,
- Rybachy and Sredniy peninsulas partially,
- part of the Hanko peninsula for rent to accommodate a military base.
As a result, the state border of Soviet Russia was shifted 150 km towards Europe from Leningrad, which actually saved the city. The Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 was a serious, thoughtful and successful strategic move by the USSR on the eve of World War II. It was this step and several others taken by Stalin that made it possible to predetermine its outcome, to save Europe, and perhaps the whole world, from being captured by the Nazis.
There are many legends about the Soviet-Finnish ("Winter") War. About Finnish “cuckoo” snipers who shot, as if in a shooting range, Soviet soldiers from trees, about the impregnable “Mannerheim Line”, about 50-degree frosts that interfered with the Red Army even more than “cuckoos” and concrete pillboxes on the Karelian Isthmus. And the fact that after the war Finland handed over to the USSR all the territories it required allows most researchers to believe that the Soviet Union, albeit at the cost of huge losses, nevertheless defeated little Finland.
In fact, everything is not so simple. Victory is the achievement by one of the parties of a strategic goal as a result of the war. And Moscow's demands to move the border deep into Finnish territory in exchange for part of Soviet Karelia were simply a pretext for aggression against Finland, since the army of this country with a population of 2.7 million did not pose any threat to the USSR and to the defense of Leningrad. After mobilization, its army consisted of 250 thousand soldiers and officers, 537 guns and mortars, 30 tanks and 130 aircraft. The forces of the Leningrad Military District alone, deployed against Finland by the beginning of the war, amounted to 425 thousand soldiers and commanders, 2876 guns and mortars, 2289 tanks and 2446 aircraft. That is, in terms of personnel, units of the LVO outnumbered the Finns by 1.6 times, in artillery and mortars - by 5.4 times, in aviation - by 9.1 times, and in tanks - by 88 times! What kind of Finnish danger is there - it’s not for nothing that Soviet newspapers before the Winter War contemptuously called their northern neighbor the “Finland booger” ...
Dwell in detail on the so-called. The “incident in Mainila”, which became a pretext for war, is not worth it: it has been proven and documented that the shelling of the Soviet border guards was a provocation by the NKVD.
The USSR was preparing for war in advance. Soviet soldiers already on November 30 - on the first day of the war - received the text of the march song (music by the Pokrass brothers, lyrics by A. d'Aktil) with rather strange words: "The low sun of autumn / Lights fires on bayonets."
When was it written? Certainly not on the night before the attack - the soldiers of the Red Army would not have had time to receive the text. S. Baimukhametov, a columnist for Novaya Gazeta, claims that “his American musicologist friend” “sent him a unique record via the Internet” dated August 1939 (S. Baimukhametov “How a song betrayed a state secret”, Novaya Gazeta, 08.12 .2005). Apparently, this is true, since as early as August 26, the first statements from pilots with a request to send them to the “Finnish front” had already appeared in Soviet air units in the Far East and Mongolia. Exactly three months before the Mainila incident!
In mid-September, the formation of special units from Finns and Karelians - Soviet citizens - began in the USSR. On November 19 (a week before Mainila), the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR K. Voroshilov signed an order on the formation in the Leningrad Military District (LVO) of the 106th Infantry Division under the command of Finn A. Anttila, the former commander of the 147th Division of the Kharkov Military District. Its personnel was completed by Finns and Karelians. With the outbreak of war, this division and other similar military units were consolidated into something similar to an army corps (over 20 thousand people) and called the "Finnish People's Army".
Soviet soldiers dig out a border post at the frontier outpost in Mainila. Photo November 30, 1939
The goal of the USSR military campaign against Finland was unequivocal: turning it into a Soviet republic. On November 30, the Red Army began the war. And on the second day of the war, at the small border station Terioki, occupied by the Red Army, a puppet Terioki government was created, headed by the Finnish communist O. Kuusinen. On December 2, the Soviet government signed an agreement on mutual assistance with him. Soviet propaganda reported that an "armed uprising of workers, peasants and soldiers against the bourgeois-fascist regime" began in Finland, and the Red Army came to the aid of the rebels. In the Soviet information agencies, military opponents began to be called White Finns, thus denoting the presence of “Red” Finns.
O. Kuusinen. Photo from the 1940s
The Finnish army entered the war poorly armed. The main weapons of the infantry were Mosin's three-rulers - the same as in the Red Army; they remained in the warehouses of the Russian imperial army, plus several thousand Suomi submachine guns of their own design. There were not enough rifles: during the war, the Finns had to arm the rear and training units with ancient Berdan single-shot rifles. The artillery consisted of Russian three-inch guns of the 1902 model. The Finns had ammunition for 2.5 months of the war, shells for 1 month, fuel and lubricants for 2 months, aviation gasoline for 1 month. The Finnish military industry was represented by one cartridge, one gunpowder and one artillery factory.
Soviet border guards inspect captured Finnish weapons. Photo 1940
I. Stalin and his clique did not doubt a quick and easy victory. N. Khrushchev writes in his memoirs that at a meeting in the Kremlin, Stalin said: “We will only raise our voice 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. However, the Finnish army, small in number and poorly armed, put up unprecedentedly strong resistance. In Finland, the horrors of the civil war of 1918 were still remembered, when local communists, in alliance with hordes of "revolutionary" sailors of the Baltic Fleet, distraught from vodka and cocaine, flooded the country with blood. Therefore, the Finns did not surrender, and the population from the border regions without exception went deep into the country, not wanting to be under the rule of the Bolsheviks.
Finnish soldiers in the trenches near Suomussalmi during the Winter War
The Red Army was unable to overcome the resistance of the Finns. Attacks on the Karelian Isthmus bogged down. In Karelia, the 9th Army of the Red Army in the battle that lasted from December 7, 1939 to January 8, 1940, suffered a crushing defeat near Suomussalmi. Throughout January, the Red Army pulled up reinforcements, preparing for decisive battles. On February 1, the Red Army resumed the offensive on the Karelian Isthmus, but again failed to succeed.
On February 11, the general offensive of the Red Army began, the number of which at the front reached 848 thousand people (almost four times more than the Finnish army). The main blow was delivered in the Vyborg direction. The Finnish troops withdrew, and on February 28 the assault on Vyborg began.
A Soviet officer examines Finnish handcuffs found in the Vyborg Castle
The Finns offered peace, agreeing to concessions - why they did this will be discussed below. On March 7, a Finnish delegation arrived in Moscow, and on March 12 a peace treaty was signed.
War is over. But what are its results? The plan of Sovietization of Finland failed, the Terioki government was "forgotten", the "Finnish People's Army" was disbanded. Contrary to popular belief, the Red Army was never able to take Vyborg, despite the concentration of a huge mass of Soviet troops there and the world's first use of napalm (according to the then Soviet terminology - "condensed gasoline"). He was "taken" only on March 13 - after the armistice.
Soviet officers in front of the Vyborg Castle
The Finnish army was not bled dry. Its irretrievable losses amounted to 22,839 people, which is only 9% of the pre-war strength of the army. Finland still had 130,000 reservists. The flow of foreign volunteers did not dry up either - Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Estonians, Americans, Hungarians, Italians. The 8,000-strong Swedish volunteer corps single-handedly repelled the Soviet offensive in Finnish Lapland throughout the war. Finland also had one more reserve that it did not have time to use - Russian volunteers from among the emigrants and prisoners. The Finns did not dare to create Russian formations for a long time, but just before the end of the war, the first detachment appeared on the front, formed by the emigrant organization ROVS. If the war continued, thousands of brave and skillful fighters would join its ranks.
Swedish volunteer in position during the Soviet-Finnish war
The Finnish side throughout the war replenished the army with weapons from the allies. 350 aircraft, 500 guns, more than 6,000 machine guns, about 100,000 rifles, 650,000 hand grenades, 2.5 million shells and 160 million rounds of ammunition were delivered to Finland. A huge number of weapons, including even aircraft, the Finns seized from the Red Army. The combat effectiveness and training of the Finnish troops during the war has greatly increased.
Three Finnish skiers on the march
The fact that the Red Army managed to occupy a part of the tiny Finnish territory behind the "Mannerheim Line" does not mean at all that it would have rolled forward to the fanfare. “Having covered the snow with corpses, they broke through the defense line - only 2-3 km, at the cost of losing several (!) Divisions, at the cost of losing tens of thousands of people. After that - a delay for a week.
Is that a success? If for every kilometer of the Mannerheim Line a division is placed, then what will the Red Army bring to Helsinki? We recall that these kilometers in the depth of defense are 90, and in some places even 95 ”(S. Grachev (Canada)“ A lion fights with a mouse, or Russia, washed with blood. The Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40. ”Vestnik ", No. 5 (212), 1999).
Before the armistice, the Finns flooded the Saimaa Canal, which was no less a serious obstacle to the Red Army than the Mannerheim Line, and also prepared other hydraulic structures for flooding. In general, Finland is a country of forests, swamps, lakes and rocks that turn it into a natural fortress. In Karelia, for example, there were no Finnish defensive structures, but it was there that the Finnish detachments inflicted the heaviest defeats on the Red Army.
So, what do we see in the bottom line by March 12 - the day of the truce? The "Mannerheim Line" was overcome on an insignificant section. In Karelia, the 14th Soviet Army was dissected, surrounded and defeated - its remnants in the last days before the truce made their way to the rear in small groups, dying of hunger, cold and Finnish bullets. The Karelian front turned into a giant hole into which the Finns could transfer any forces they wanted (they did not do this, why - more on that below). The only, albeit quite illusory, success of the Red Army was the occupation of the Rybachy Peninsula and the village of Petsamo, where the Finns had only a few companies of border guards and militias, but the Red Army commanders could not develop this success either - in the depths of Lapland they were stopped by Swedish volunteers.
Captured Red Army soldiers enter the house under the escort of Finnish soldiers
Those who talk about the victory of the Red Army do not take into account the weather factor. In March, spring begins with a thaw, then rivers and lakes open up. Peace was concluded by Moscow literally at the last moment: after mid-March and at least until mid-May, no offensive in Finland would be possible. And during this time, the Finns would inevitably accumulate strength. In Finland, offensive operations can only be carried out in winter, when rivers, swamps and lakes freeze and it is possible to carry out an offensive on ice. Russian troops partially occupied the territory of Finland many times - in the 16th, 18th and 19th centuries - and always in winter. I. Stalin's mistake was not that he went to Finland in winter, but, on the contrary, that he moved too early - at the end of November, when the snow had not yet fallen and the ice had not risen.
A lot could have happened before the start of the failed summer campaign of 1940. For example, the French-Polish Expeditionary Force was expected to land in Lapland. On March 2, French Prime Minister Daladier announced his readiness to send 50 thousand soldiers and 100 bombers against the USSR if the Finns asked for it - the operation could begin as early as the end of March. If the Red Army could not cope with the weakly armed Finnish army, the appearance at the front of the French Alpine shooters (it was planned to send them - elite units that easily defeated Mussolini's Bersaglieri in the summer of 1940) would endanger not only the 14th Soviet army, which fought in Arctic, but also Murmansk.
Edouard Daladier, French Prime Minister. Photo 1924
But even without the possible landing of the French, the position of the Red Army was extremely difficult. The Finnish plans for the spring-summer campaign included the transfer of flying detachments to Soviet Karelia, the organization of the Karelian uprising and the cutting of the Murmansk railway (in February, one detachment - as a test - freely reached the railway in the Kem region, blew up the canvas and returned safely). The support of the Finnish army by the majority of Soviet Karelians in the summer of 1941 proves that it would have been easy to raise an uprising. The blocking of the Murmansk region as a result of these operations would be extremely painful for the USSR.
The Red Army during the Winter War showed low combat capability. Its failures in the USSR were associated with the power of the Mannerheim Line. And it “consisted of several fortified defensive lanes with concrete and wood-and-earth firing points, communication passages and anti-tank barriers. In a state of combat readiness there were 74 old (1924) single-loop machine-gun bunkers of frontal fire, 48 new and modernized bunkers, which had from one to four machine-gun embrasures of flanking fire, and only 7 artillery bunkers and one machine gun-artillery caponier. Mannerheim subsequently rightly wrote that the strength of the defensive line "was the result of the stamina and courage of our soldiers, and not the result of the fortress of structures" (K. G. Mannerheim "Memoirs" . M., Vagrius. 1999. p. 319).
Soviet soldiers inspect the observation cap of a captured Finnish bunker
Indeed, the stamina and combat skills of the Finns were the main factor in their success; it is worth mentioning at least the sniper Simo Häyhä, who destroyed 742 Soviet soldiers and officers in three months of the war, as well as the aces pilots H. Wind and E. I. Juuttilainen, who shot down dozens of Soviet aircraft on their obsolete machines.
Simo Häyhä
Another myth is that Soviet failures are due to severe frosts and deep snow. However, the data of meteorological services refute this: until December 20, 1939, on the Karelian Isthmus, the temperature ranged from +2 to -7°C. Until the New Year, the temperature did not fall below -23°C, and frosts down to -40°C began only in the second half of January. And there was also no deep snow until January 1940: operational reports of Soviet divisions dated December 15, 1939 indicate a depth of snow cover of only 10-15 cm.
The problem of the Red Army was not in the mythical "cuckoos", not in the equally mythical powerful defensive line and not in the cold. The main problem was clearly manifested during the mentioned battle of Suomussalmi. On December 14, the 44th division of the 9th army advanced on Suomussalmi to help the 163rd division surrounded by Finnish troops. “The advance of the troops was completely unorganized. Parts of the division, strongly stretched along the road, were repeatedly surrounded by the Finns during January 3-7. As a result, on January 7, the division's advance was stopped, and its main forces were surrounded. The situation was not hopeless, since the division had a significant technical advantage over the Finns, but the division commander A. I. Vinogradov, the regimental commissar Pakhomenko and the chief of staff Volkov, instead of organizing defense and withdrawing troops from the encirclement, fled themselves, leaving the troops. At the same time, Vinogradov gave the order to leave the encirclement, abandoning equipment, which led to the abandonment of 37 serviceable tanks, more than three hundred machine guns, several thousand rifles, up to 150 vehicles, all radio stations, the entire convoy and horse train on the battlefield. More than a thousand people from among the personnel who left the encirclement were wounded or frostbite, some of the wounded were captured, because they were not taken out during the flight ”(Wikipedia).
Frozen Red Army soldier of the 44th Infantry Division
Under Suomussalmi, the Red Army units numbered 55 thousand people, the Finns - 11 thousand. Soviet losses amounted to killed, dead from wounds, frozen to death, captured and missing 23 thousand people. The irretrievable losses of the Finns - 900 people. The ratio is 25.5:1. Under Tolvajärvi, 4,000 Finns defeated a 20,000-strong Soviet grouping, and its total irretrievable losses reached 5,000 with Finnish losses of 100 people, i.e. ratio - 50:1. No wonder the Finnish General H. Esterman, when asked how he assesses the actions of the Red Army command during the war, answered: “We got the impression that the Russian commanders commanded a foreign legion, and not their compatriots. You can't fight like that!"
There were big problems with combat training. “The very first battles in the skies over Finland most cruelly dispelled the illusions about the combat readiness of the Red Army Air Force, especially bomber aircraft. On November 30, 1939, a squadron of the 35th high-speed bomber regiment flew out to strike at the most important objects of the enemy capital - the railway station and power plant, but as a result of losing orientation, they dropped their deadly cargo ... on the residential and diplomatic quarters of Helsinki. Such unintentional villainy led to the fact that the very next day, photographs of broken houses and crying children appeared in a number of Western newspapers. To the protests of most European countries, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, V. M. Molotov, with his usual cynicism, said that Soviet planes were dropping bags of bread for the hungry population of Finland ”(P. Aptekar“ Falcons or kites?).
Burning house in the Finnish city of Vaasa (Vaasa) after a Soviet air raid
It was mentioned above that there were only three military factories in Finland. Soviet aviation tried to hit them throughout the war - and so it never failed to hit a single target! A similar story happened with the battleship Väinemäinen, the largest ship in the Finnish navy. The entire aviation of the Baltic Fleet - 450 aircraft - was hunting for him throughout the war. And they never hit either! “Commissioner P. S. Shelukhin, assigned to the headquarters of the North-Western Front, wrote to the People’s Commissar of Defense: “The state of combat training of air units is at an extremely low level ... bombers do not know how to fly and especially maneuver in formation ... For there is no other way to explain the fact that our aviation with such colossal superiority could do almost nothing to the enemy for a month ... ”(P. Aptekar“ Falcons or Kites?).
Finnish coastal defense battleship Väinämöinen parked in the port. 1943-1944
After the Civil War of 1918-1922, the USSR received rather unsuccessful and poorly adapted borders for life. Thus, the fact that Ukrainians and Belarusians were separated by the line of the state border between the Soviet Union and Poland was not taken into account at all. Another of these "inconveniences" was the proximity of the border with Finland to the northern capital of the country - Leningrad.
In the course of the events preceding the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union received a number of territories that made it possible to significantly move the border to the west. In the north, this attempt to move the border encountered some resistance, which was called the Soviet-Finnish, or Winter, War.
Historical digression and the origins of the conflict
Finland as a state appeared relatively recently - on December 6, 1917 against the backdrop of the collapse of the Russian state. At the same time, the state received all the territories of the Grand Duchy of Finland along with Petsamo (Pechenga), Sortavala and territories on the Karelian Isthmus. Relations with the southern neighbor also did not work out from the very beginning: a civil war died down in Finland, in which anti-communist forces won, so there was clearly no sympathy for the USSR, which supported the Reds.
However, in the second half of the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, relations between the Soviet Union and Finland stabilized, being neither friendly nor hostile. Defense spending in Finland declined steadily in the 1920s, reaching its peak in 1930. However, the arrival of Carl Gustav Mannerheim as Minister of War changed the situation somewhat. Mannerheim immediately set a course to re-equip the Finnish army and prepare it for possible battles with the Soviet Union. Initially, the line of fortifications, at that time called the Enckel line, was inspected. The condition of its fortifications was unsatisfactory, so the re-equipment of the line began, as well as the construction of new defensive contours.
At the same time, the Finnish government took energetic steps to avoid conflict with the USSR. In 1932, a non-aggression pact was concluded, the term of which was to end in 1945.
Events 1938-1939 and causes of conflict
By the second half of the 1930s, the situation in Europe was gradually heating up. Hitler's anti-Soviet statements forced the Soviet leadership to take a closer look at neighboring countries that could become Germany's allies in a possible war with the USSR. The position of Finland, of course, did not make it a strategically important springboard, since the local nature of the terrain inevitably turned the fighting into a series of small battles, not to mention the impossibility of supplying huge masses of troops. However, Finland's close position to Leningrad could still turn it into an important ally.
It was these factors that forced the Soviet government in April-August 1938 to begin negotiations with Finland regarding guarantees of its non-alignment with the anti-Soviet bloc. However, in addition, the Soviet leadership also demanded that a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland be provided for Soviet military bases, which was unacceptable for the then government of Finland. As a result, the negotiations ended in vain.
In March-April 1939, new Soviet-Finnish negotiations took place, in which the Soviet leadership demanded the lease of a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland. The Finnish government was forced to reject these demands as well, as it was afraid of the "Sovietization" of the country.
The situation began to escalate rapidly when on August 23, 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed, in a secret addendum to which it was indicated that Finland was in the sphere of interests of the USSR. However, although the Finnish government did not have data regarding the secret protocol, this agreement made him seriously think about the future prospects of the country and relations with Germany and the Soviet Union.
Already in October 1939, the Soviet government put forward new proposals for Finland. They provided for the movement of the Soviet-Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus 90 km to the north. In return, Finland was supposed to receive about twice as much territory in Karelia, which would make it possible to significantly secure Leningrad. A number of historians also express the opinion that the Soviet leadership was interested in, if not Sovietizing Finland in 1939, then at least depriving it of protection in the form of a line of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus, already then called the "Mannerheim Line". This version is very consistent, since further events, as well as the development by the Soviet General Staff in 1940 of a plan for a new war against Finland, indirectly indicate precisely this. Thus, the defense of Leningrad, most likely, was just a pretext for turning Finland into a convenient Soviet foothold, like, for example, the Baltic countries.
However, the Finnish leadership rejected the Soviet demands and began to prepare for war. The Soviet Union was also preparing for war. In total, by mid-November 1939, 4 armies were deployed against Finland, which included 24 divisions with a total number of 425 thousand people, 2300 tanks and 2500 aircraft. Finland had only 14 divisions with a total strength of about 270 thousand people, 30 tanks and 270 aircraft.
In order to avoid provocations, the Finnish army in the second half of November received an order to withdraw from the state border on the Karelian Isthmus. However, on November 26, 1939, an incident occurred, for which both sides blame each other. Soviet territory was shelled, as a result of which several servicemen were killed and wounded. This incident occurred near the village of Mainila, from which it got its name. Clouds gathered between the USSR and Finland. Two days later, on November 28, the Soviet Union denounced the non-aggression pact with Finland, and two days later, Soviet troops were ordered to cross the border.
The beginning of the war (November 1939 - January 1940)
On November 30, 1939, Soviet troops went on the offensive in several directions. At the same time, the fighting immediately took on a fierce character.
On the Karelian Isthmus, where the 7th Army was advancing, on December 1, at the cost of heavy losses, Soviet troops managed to capture the city of Terijoki (now Zelenogorsk). Here the creation of the Finnish Democratic Republic was announced, headed by Otto Kuusinen, a prominent figure in the Comintern. It was with this new "government" of Finland that the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations. At the same time, in the first ten days of December, the 7th Army managed to quickly master the forefield and ran into the first echelon of the Mannerheim Line. Here, the Soviet troops suffered heavy losses, and their advance practically stopped for a long time.
To the north of Lake Ladoga, in the direction of Sortavala, the 8th Soviet Army advanced. As a result of the first days of fighting, she managed to advance 80 kilometers in a fairly short time. However, the Finnish troops that opposed her managed to carry out a lightning operation, the purpose of which was to encircle part of the Soviet forces. The fact that the Red Army was very strongly tied to the roads played into the hands of the Finns, which allowed the Finnish troops to quickly cut off its communications. As a result, the 8th Army, having suffered serious losses, was forced to retreat, but until the end of the war held part of the Finnish territory.
The least successful were the actions of the Red Army in central Karelia, where the 9th Army was advancing. The task of the army was to conduct an offensive in the direction of the city of Oulu, with the aim of "cutting" Finland in half and thereby disorganizing the Finnish troops in the north of the country. On December 7, the forces of the 163rd Infantry Division occupied the small Finnish village of Suomussalmi. However, the Finnish troops, having superiority in mobility and knowledge of the area, immediately surrounded the division. As a result, Soviet troops were forced to take up all-round defense and repulse sudden attacks by Finnish ski units, as well as suffer significant losses from sniper fire. The 44th Infantry Division was advanced to help the encircled, which soon also found itself surrounded.
Having assessed the situation, the command of the 163rd Infantry Division decided to fight back. At the same time, the division suffered losses of approximately 30% of its personnel, and also abandoned almost all equipment. After its breakthrough, the Finns managed to destroy the 44th Infantry Division and practically restore the state border in this direction, paralyzing the actions of the Red Army here. This battle, known as the Battle of Suomussalmi, resulted in rich booty taken by the Finnish army, as well as an increase in the general morale of the Finnish army. At the same time, the leadership of two divisions of the Red Army was subjected to repression.
And if the actions of the 9th Army were unsuccessful, then the troops of the 14th Soviet Army, advancing on the Rybachy Peninsula, acted most successfully. They managed to capture the city of Petsamo (Pechenga) and large nickel deposits in the area, as well as reach the Norwegian border. Thus, Finland lost access to the Barents Sea for the duration of the war.
In January 1940, the drama also played out south of Suomussalmi, where the scenario of that recent battle was repeated in general terms. The 54th Rifle Division of the Red Army was surrounded here. At the same time, the Finns did not have enough forces to destroy it, so the division was surrounded until the end of the war. A similar fate awaited the 168th Rifle Division, which was surrounded in the Sortavala region. Another division and a tank brigade were surrounded in the Lemetti-Yuzhny area and, having suffered huge losses and lost almost all materiel, nevertheless made their way out of the encirclement.
On the Karelian Isthmus, by the end of December, the fighting to break through the Finnish fortified line subsided. This was explained by the fact that the command of the Red Army was well aware of the futility of continuing further attempts to strike at the Finnish troops, which brought only serious losses with minimal results. The Finnish command, understanding the essence of the lull at the front, launched a series of attacks in order to disrupt the offensive of the Soviet troops. However, these attempts were failed with heavy losses for the Finnish troops.
However, in general, the situation remained not very favorable for the Red Army. Its troops were drawn into battles on foreign and poorly explored territory, in addition, in adverse weather conditions. The Finns did not have superiority in numbers and equipment, but they had a well-established and well-established tactics of guerrilla warfare, which allowed them, acting with relatively small forces, to inflict significant losses on the advancing Soviet troops.
The February offensive of the Red Army and the end of the war (February-March 1940)
On February 1, 1940, a powerful Soviet artillery preparation began on the Karelian Isthmus, which lasted 10 days. The purpose of this preparation was to inflict maximum damage on the Mannerheim Line and the Finnish troops and wear them down. On February 11, the troops of the 7th and 13th armies moved forward.
Fierce battles unfolded along the entire front on the Karelian Isthmus. The Soviet troops delivered the main blow to the settlement of Summa, which was located in the Vyborg direction. However, here, as well as two months ago, the Red Army again began to get bogged down in battles, so the direction of the main attack was soon changed to Lyakhda. Here, the Finnish troops could not hold back the Red Army, and their defenses were broken through, and a few days later - the first strip of the Mannerheim Line. The Finnish command was forced to begin to withdraw troops.
On February 21, Soviet troops approached the second line of Finnish defense. Fierce fighting again unfolded here, which, however, ended by the end of the month with a breakthrough of the Mannerheim Line in several places. Thus, the Finnish defense collapsed.
At the beginning of March 1940, the Finnish army was in a critical situation. The Mannerheim Line was broken through, the reserves were practically depleted, while the Red Army developed a successful offensive and had practically inexhaustible reserves. The morale of the Soviet troops was also high. At the beginning of the month, the troops of the 7th Army rushed to Vyborg, the fighting for which continued until the ceasefire on March 13, 1940. This city was one of the largest in Finland, and its loss could be very painful for the country. In addition, in this way, the Soviet troops opened the way to Helsinki, which threatened Finland with the loss of independence.
Considering all these factors, the Finnish government set a course for the beginning of peace negotiations with the Soviet Union. On March 7, 1940, peace negotiations began in Moscow. As a result, it was decided to cease fire from 12 noon on March 13, 1940. Territories on the Karelian Isthmus and in Lapland (the cities of Vyborg, Sortavala and Salla) departed to the USSR, and the Hanko Peninsula was also leased.
Results of the Winter War
Estimates of the losses of the USSR in the Soviet-Finnish war vary significantly and, according to the data of the Soviet Ministry of Defense, they amount to approximately 87.5 thousand people killed and died from wounds and frostbite, as well as about 40 thousand missing. 160 thousand people were injured. Finland's losses were significantly smaller - about 26 thousand dead and 40 thousand wounded.
As a result of the war with Finland, the Soviet Union managed to ensure the security of Leningrad, as well as strengthen its position in the Baltic. First of all, this concerns the city of Vyborg and the Hanko Peninsula, on which Soviet troops began to be based. At the same time, the Red Army gained combat experience in breaking through the enemy’s fortified line in difficult weather conditions (the air temperature in February 1940 reached -40 degrees), which no other army in the world had at that time.
However, at the same time, the USSR received in the north-west, albeit not a powerful, but an enemy who, already in 1941, let German troops into its territory and contributed to the blockade of Leningrad. As a result of Finland's intervention in June 1941 on the side of the Axis, the Soviet Union received an additional front with a fairly large extent, diverting from 20 to 50 Soviet divisions in the period from 1941 to 1944.
Britain and France also kept a close eye on the conflict and even had plans to attack the USSR and its Caucasian fields. At present, there is no complete data on the seriousness of these intentions, but it is likely that in the spring of 1940 the Soviet Union could simply “quarrel” with its future allies and even get involved in a military conflict with them.
There are also a number of versions that the war in Finland indirectly influenced the German attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941. Soviet troops broke through the Mannerheim Line and practically left Finland defenseless in March 1940. Any new invasion of the Red Army into the country could well be fatal for it. After defeating Finland, the Soviet Union would have come dangerously close to the Swedish mines at Kiruna, one of Germany's few sources of metal. Such a scenario would have brought the Third Reich to the brink of disaster.
Finally, the not very successful offensive of the Red Army in December-January strengthened the belief in Germany that the Soviet troops were essentially incompetent and did not have good command staff. This delusion continued to grow and reached its peak in June 1941, when the Wehrmacht attacked the USSR.
As a conclusion, it can be pointed out that as a result of the Winter War, the Soviet Union nevertheless acquired more problems than victories, which was confirmed in the next few years.
If you have any questions - leave them in the comments below the article. We or our visitors will be happy to answer them.
Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–40 (another name is winter war) took place from November 30, 1939 to March 12, 1940.
The formal reason for the hostilities was the so-called Mainil incident - shelling from the Finnish territory of the Soviet border guards in the village of Mainila on the Karelian Isthmus, which occurred, according to the Soviet side, on November 26, 1939. The Finnish side categorically denied any involvement in the shelling. Two days later, on November 28, the USSR denounced the Soviet-Finnish non-aggression pact, concluded in 1932, and on November 30 began hostilities.
The underlying causes of the conflict were based on a number of factors, not the least of which was the fact that in 1918-22 Finland twice attacked the territory of the RSFSR. According to the results of the Tartu Peace Treaty of 1920 and the Moscow Agreement on the adoption of measures to ensure the inviolability of the Soviet-Finnish border of 1922 between the governments of the RSFSR and Finland, the primordially Russian Pecheneg region (Petsamo) and part of the Sredny and Rybachy peninsulas were transferred to Finland.
Despite the fact that in 1932 a non-aggression pact was signed between Finland and the USSR, relations between the two countries were rather tense. In Finland, they feared that sooner or later the Soviet Union, which had strengthened many times since 1922, would want to return its territories, and in the USSR they were afraid that Finland, as in 1919 (when British torpedo boats attacked Kronstadt from Finnish ports), could provide its territory to another hostile country to attack. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the second most important city in the USSR - Leningrad - was only 32 kilometers from the Soviet-Finnish border.
During this period, the activities of the Communist Party were banned in Finland and secret consultations were held with the governments of Poland and the Baltic countries on joint actions in the event of a war with the USSR. In 1939, the USSR signed the Non-Aggression Pact with Germany, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In accordance with the secret protocols to it, Finland retreats to the zone of interests of the Soviet Union.
In 1938-39, during lengthy negotiations with Finland, the USSR tried to achieve an exchange of part of the Karelian Isthmus for twice the area, but less suitable for agricultural use, in Karelia, as well as the transfer of the USSR to lease several islands and part of the Hanko Peninsula for military bases. Finland, firstly, did not agree with the size of the territories given to it (not least because of the unwillingness to part with the line of defensive fortifications built in the 30s, also known as the Mannerheim Line (see Fig. and ), and secondly, she tried to achieve the conclusion of a Soviet-Finnish trade agreement and the right to arm the demilitarized Aland Islands.
The negotiations were very difficult and were accompanied by mutual reproaches and accusations (see: ). The last attempt was the proposal of the USSR on October 5, 1939 to conclude a Mutual Assistance Pact with Finland.
Negotiations dragged on and reached an impasse. The parties began to prepare for war.
On October 13-14, 1939, general mobilization was announced in Finland. And two weeks later, on November 3, the troops of the Leningrad Military District and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet received directives to start preparing for hostilities. Newspaper article "Truth" on the same day reported that the Soviet Union intended to ensure its security at any cost. A massive anti-Finnish campaign began in the Soviet press, to which the opposite side immediately responded.
Less than a month remained before the Mainilsky incident, which served as a formal pretext for war.
Most Western and a number of Russian researchers believe that the shelling was a fiction - either it did not exist at all, and there were only allegations of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, or the shelling was a provocation. Documents confirming this or that version have not been preserved. Finland proposed a joint investigation of the incident, but the Soviet side firmly rejected the proposal.
Immediately after the start of the war, official relations with the Ryti government were terminated, and on December 2, 1939, the USSR signed an agreement on mutual assistance and friendship with the so-called "People's Government of Finland", formed from communists and led by Otto Kuusinen. At the same time, in the USSR, on the basis of the 106th Mountain Rifle Division, began to form "Finnish People's Army" from Finns and Karelians. However, she did not take part in the hostilities and was eventually disbanded, like the Kuusinen government.
The Soviet Union planned to deploy military operations in two main directions - the Karelian Isthmus and north of Lake Ladoga. After a successful breakthrough (or bypassing the line of fortifications from the north), the Red Army got the opportunity to make the most of the advantage in manpower and the overwhelming advantage in technology. In terms of time, the operation had to meet the period from two weeks to a month. The Finnish command, in turn, counted on the stabilization of the front on the Karelian Isthmus and active containment in the northern sector, believing that the army would be able to independently hold the enemy up to six months and then wait for help from Western countries. Both plans turned out to be an illusion: the Soviet Union underestimated the strength of Finland, while Finland placed too much stake on the help of foreign powers and on the reliability of its fortifications.
As already mentioned, by the beginning of hostilities in Finland, general mobilization took place. The USSR, however, decided to confine itself to parts of the LenVO, believing that additional involvement of forces would not be required. At the start of the war, the USSR concentrated 425,640 personnel, 2,876 guns and mortars, 2,289 tanks, and 2,446 aircraft for the operation. They were opposed by 265,000 people, 834 guns, 64 tanks and 270 aircraft.
As part of the Red Army, units of the 7th, 8th, 9th and 14th armies advanced on Finland. The 7th army advanced on the Karelian Isthmus, the 8th - north of Lake Ladoga, the 9th - in Karelia, the 14th - in the Arctic.
The most favorable situation for the USSR developed on the front of the 14th Army, which, interacting with the Northern Fleet, occupied the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas, the city of Petsamo (Pechenga) and closed Finland's access to the Barents Sea. The 9th Army penetrated the Finnish defenses to a depth of 35-45 km and was stopped (see. ). The 8th Army initially began to successfully move forward, but was also stopped, and part of its forces were surrounded and forced to withdraw. The most difficult and bloody battles unfolded in the sector of the 7th Army, advancing on the Karelian Isthmus. The army was to storm the Mannerheim Line.
As it turned out later, the Soviet side had fragmentary and extremely scarce data about the enemy opposing it on the Karelian Isthmus, and, most importantly, about the line of fortifications. The underestimation of the enemy immediately affected the course of hostilities. The forces allocated to break through the Finnish defenses in this area turned out to be insufficient. By December 12, units of the Red Army, with losses, were able to overcome only the support strip of the Mannerheim Line and stopped. Until the end of December, several desperate attempts to break through were made, but they were not crowned with success. By the end of December, it became obvious that it was pointless to attempt an offensive in this style. There was a relative calm at the front.
Having understood and studied the reasons for the failure in the first period of the war, the Soviet command undertook a serious reorganization of forces and means. Throughout January and early February, there was a significant strengthening of the troops, their saturation with large-caliber artillery capable of fighting fortifications, replenishment of material reserves, and reorganization of units and formations. Methods were developed to deal with defensive structures, mass exercises and training of personnel were carried out, assault groups and detachments were formed, work was carried out to improve the interaction of military branches, to raise morale (see. ).
The USSR learned quickly. To break through the fortified area, the North-Western Front was created under the command of the commander of the 1st rank Timoshenko and a member of the military council of the LenVO Zhdanov. The front included the 7th and 13th armies.
Finland at that moment also carried out measures to increase the combat capability of its own troops. Both captured in battles and new equipment and weapons delivered from abroad, the units received the necessary replenishment.
Both sides were ready for the second round of the fight.
At the same time, fighting in Karelia did not stop.
The most famous in the historiography of the Soviet-Finnish war during that period was the encirclement of the 163rd and 44th rifle divisions of the 9th army near Suomussalmi. From mid-December, the 44th division advanced to help the encircled 163rd division. In the period from January 3 to January 7, 1940, its units were repeatedly surrounded, but, despite the difficult situation, they continued to fight, having superiority in technical equipment over the Finns. In conditions of constant fighting, in a rapidly changing situation, the division command misjudged the current situation and gave the order to leave the encirclement in groups, leaving behind heavy equipment. This only made the situation worse. Parts of the division still managed to break out of the encirclement, but with heavy losses ... Subsequently, the division commander Vinogradov, the regimental commissar Pakhomenko and the chief of staff Volkov, who left the division at the most difficult moment, were sentenced by a military tribunal to capital punishment and shot in front of the ranks.
It is also worth noting that since the end of December, the Finns have been trying to counterattack on the Karelian Isthmus in order to disrupt the preparations for a new Soviet offensive. Counterattacks were not successful and were repulsed.
On February 11, 1940, after a massive multi-day artillery preparation, the Red Army, together with units of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga military flotilla, launched a new offensive. The main blow fell on the Karelian Isthmus. Within three days, the troops of the 7th Army broke through the first line of defense of the Finns and introduced tank formations into the breakthrough. On February 17, Finnish troops, by order of the command, retreated to the second lane due to the threat of encirclement.
On February 21, the 7th Army reached the second line of defense, and the 13th Army - to the main line north of Muolaa. On February 28, both armies of the Northwestern Front launched an offensive along the entire length of the Karelian Isthmus. Finnish troops retreated, putting up fierce resistance. In an attempt to stop the advancing units of the Red Army, the Finns opened the floodgates of the Saimaa Canal, but this did not help either: on March 13, Soviet troops entered Vyborg.
Parallel to the fighting, there were also battles on the diplomatic front. After the breakthrough of the Mannerheim Line and the entry of Soviet troops into the operational space, the Finnish government understood that there was no chance of continuing the struggle. Therefore, it turned to the USSR with a proposal to start peace negotiations. On March 7, a Finnish delegation arrived in Moscow, and on March 12 a peace treaty was signed.
As a result of the war, the Karelian Isthmus and the large cities of Vyborg and Sortavala, a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, part of the Finnish territory with the city of Kuolajärvi, part of the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas went to the USSR. Lake Ladoga became an inland lake of the USSR. The Petsamo (Pechenga) region captured during the fighting was returned to Finland. The USSR leased part of the Khanko (Gangut) peninsula for a period of 30 years to equip a naval base there.
At the same time, the reputation of the Soviet state in the international arena suffered: the USSR was declared an aggressor and expelled from the League of Nations. Mutual distrust between the Western countries and the USSR reached a critical point.
Recommended literature:
1. Irincheev Bair. Forgotten front of Stalin. M.: Yauza, Eksmo, 2008. (Series: Unknown Wars of the XX century.)
2. Soviet-Finnish war 1939-1940 / Comp. P. Petrov, V. Stepakov. SP b .: Polygon, 2003. In 2 volumes.
3. Tanner Väinö. Winter war. Diplomatic confrontation between the Soviet Union and Finland, 1939-1940. Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2003.
4. "Winter War": work on the mistakes (April-May 1940). Materials of the commissions of the Main Military Council of the Red Army on the generalization of the experience of the Finnish campaign / Ed. comp. N. S. Tarkhova. SP b., Summer Garden, 2003.
Tatiana Vorontsova
The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940 (Soviet-Finnish War, known in Finland as the Winter War) is an armed conflict between the USSR and Finland 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 large area of Soviet territory in Karelia, with the subsequent conclusion of a mutual assistance agreement.
The Finnish government believed that the acceptance of Soviet demands would weaken the strategic positions of the state, lead to the loss of neutrality by Finland 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) was only 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 Mainil 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 Infantry Regiment on Soviet territory. Allegedly, three Red Army soldiers and one junior commander were killed. On the same day, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR addressed a note of protest to the government of Finland 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 not feasible, because then the Soviet troops would have to be withdrawn from Leningrad.
On November 29, 1939, the Finnish envoy in Moscow was presented with a note about the severance of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Finland. On November 30, at 8 o'clock in the morning, the troops of the Leningrad Front received an order to cross the border with Finland. On the same day, Finnish President Kyösti Kallio declared war on the USSR.
During the "perestroika" several versions of the Mainilsky incident became known. According to one of them, the shelling of the positions of the 68th regiment was carried out by a secret NKVD unit. 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 advantage in 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, 1476 tanks and about 1200 aircraft) near the border with Finland. To support the ground forces, it was planned to attract about 500 aircraft and more than 200 ships from the Northern and Baltic fleets. 40% of Soviet forces were deployed on the Karelian Isthmus.
The grouping 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 rest of the troops covered separate areas from the Barents Sea to Lake Ladoga.
The main frontier of Finland's defense was the "Mannerheim Line" - unique, impregnable fortifications. The main architect of the Mannerheim line was nature itself. Its flanks rested on the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. The coast of the Gulf of Finland was covered by large-caliber coastal batteries, and in the Taipale region on the shores of Lake Ladoga, reinforced concrete forts with eight 120- and 152-mm coastal guns were created.
The "Mannerheim Line" had a frontal 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 away from the main one, and the rear (Vyborg) line of defense. Over two thousand long-term firing structures (DOS) and wood-earth firing structures (DZOS) were erected, which were combined into strong points of 2-3 DOS and 3-5 DZOS each, and the latter - into resistance nodes (3-4 point). The main line of defense consisted of 25 nodes of resistance, numbering 280 DOS and 800 DZOS. The strongholds were defended by permanent garrisons (from a company to a battalion in each). Between the strongholds and nodes of resistance were positions for field troops. The strongholds and positions of the field troops were covered by anti-tank and anti-personnel barriers. Only in the security zone, 220 kilometers of wire barriers in 15-45 rows, 200 kilometers of forest debris, 80 kilometers of granite gouges 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, underground passages and were supplied with food and ammunition necessary for a long-term autonomous battle.
On November 30, 1939, after a long artillery preparation, Soviet troops crossed the border with Finland and launched an offensive on the front from the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Finland. In 10-13 days, they overcame the zone of operational barriers in certain directions and reached the main strip of the Mannerheim Line. For more than two weeks, unsuccessful attempts to break through it continued.
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. Troops have been replenished. As a result, the Soviet troops deployed against Finland numbered more than 1.3 million people, 1.5 thousand tanks, 3.5 thousand guns, and three thousand aircraft. The Finnish side by the beginning of February 1940 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, on February 28, Soviet troops reached the third. They broke the resistance of the enemy, forced him to start a retreat along the entire front and, developing the offensive, captured the Vyborg grouping of Finnish troops from the northeast, captured most of Vyborg, crossed the Vyborg Bay, bypassed the Vyborg fortified area from the northwest, cut the highway to Helsinki.
The fall of the "Mannerheim Line" and the defeat of the main grouping of Finnish troops put the enemy in a difficult position. Under these conditions, Finland turned to the Soviet government with a request 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 shores of Lake Ladoga, a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, part of the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas went to the Soviet Union. The Hanko Peninsula and the sea area around it were leased by 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 became aggravated, and an anti-Soviet campaign was launched in the West.
The losses of the Soviet troops in the war amounted to: irretrievable - about 130 thousand people, sanitary - about 265 thousand people. Irretrievable losses of the Finnish troops - about 23 thousand people, sanitary - over 43 thousand people.
WINTER WAR. HOW IT WAS
1. Evacuation in October 1939 of the inhabitants of the border areas deep into Finland.
2. Delegation of Finland at the talks in Moscow. October 1939 “We will not make any concessions to the USSR and will fight at all costs, as England, America and Sweden promised to support us” - Errko, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
3. The engineering unit of the White Finns is sent to the installation of gouges. Karelian isthmus. Autumn 1939.
4. Junior sergeant of the Finnish army. October - November 1939. Karelian isthmus. The countdown to the last days of the world has begun.
5.Tank BT-5 on one of the streets of Leningrad. Finland Station area
6. Official announcement of the start of hostilities.
6. The first day of the war: the 20th heavy tank brigade receives a combat mission.
8. American volunteers sail from New York on December 12, 1939 to fight in Finland with the Russians.
9. The Suomi submachine gun is the Finnish miracle weapon of Aimo Lahti, a self-taught engineer. one of the best gunsmiths of his time. Trophy "Suomi" was very much appreciated.
10. Rally of conscripts in Naryan-Mar.
11. Getmanenko Mikhail Nikitich. Captain. Died of wounds 12/13/1939 Karelian Isthmus
12. The Mannerheim line began to be built in 1918, with Finland gaining independence.
13. The Mannerheim Line crossed the entire Karelian Isthmus.
14. View of the bunker of the Mannerheim Line from the side of the advancing Soviet troops.
15. The losses of the dashing Finnish tank destroyers reached 70%, but they also burned the tanks in order.
16. A subversive anti-tank charge and a Molotov cocktail.
Assembly at the front.
19. Soviet armored cars on the march. Karelian isthmus.
13. White Finns at the captured flamethrower tank. January 1940
14. Karelian Isthmus. January 1940 Red Army units move to the front.
Intelligence service. Three left, two returned. Artist Aukusti Tukhka.
15. Spruce spread wide In the snow, as in dressing gowns, stand.
Sat down on the edge of the deep In the snow White Finns detachment.
Finnish pilots and aircraft technicians near the French Moran-Saulnier MS.406 fighter. During December 1939 - April 1940, the Finnish Air Force received: from England - 22 of the most modern twin-engine Bristol-Blenheim bombers, 42 Gloucester Gladiators and 10 Hurricanes; from the USA - 38 "Brewster-B-239"; from France - 30 Moran-Saulnier; from Italy - 32 Fiats. The newest Soviet fighter of that period, the I-16, lost to them at a speed of about 100 km, and they easily overtook and burned the main SB bomber.
Dinner of the Red Army soldiers in a front-line situation.
View from the bunker to the barbed wire and minefields, 1940
Acoustic air defense locator of the White Finns.
Snowmobiles of the White Finns. The swastika has been used by them to designate military equipment since 1918.
From a letter found on a dead Red Army soldier. “... You write to me if I need some kind of package or money order. To be frank, money is useless here, you can’t buy anything here with it, and parcels go too slowly. We live here in snow and cold, around only swamps and lakes. You also wrote that you started selling my stuff - for obvious reasons. But it still hurt me, as if I no longer exist. You probably have the feeling that we are not destined to see each other again, or you will only see me as a cripple ... "
In total, during the 105 days of the war, "poor" white-Finland issued more than two hundred (!) Various leaflets. There were leaflets addressed specifically to Ukrainians and the peoples of the Caucasus.
Leaflet addressed to Soviet pilots.
English volunteers came to fight the Russians.
The feat of the head of the outpost Shmagrin, 12/27/1939 Artist V.A. Tokarev.
Heroic defense of the garrison. Artist V.E. Pamfilov.
The battle of thirteen border guards with a sabotage detachment of the White Finns on the night of January 24-25 at the border in the Murmansk region. The last message of the signalman Alexander Spekov, who blew himself up with a grenade along with the enemies: “I am fighting alone, the cartridges are running out.”
The tank fires at a long-term firing point.
Road to Raate. January 1940
Frozen Red Army soldiers. Road to Raate. December 1939
White Finns pose with a frozen Red Army soldier.
Downed bomber DB-2. The war in the air, having dispelled blissful illusions, was extremely difficult for the Red Army Air Force. Short daylight hours, difficult weather conditions, poor training of the bulk of the flight crew leveled the number of Soviet aircraft.
Finnish wolves from Russian bears. Stalin's sledgehammer "B-4" against the Mannerheim Line.
View of the height 38.2 taken from the Finns, on which the pillbox was located. Photo by Petrov RGAKFD
The White Finns fought hard, stubbornly and skillfully. In conditions of complete hopelessness to the last bullet. Breaking such an army is EXPENSIVE.
Red Army soldiers inspect the armored dome on the pillbox taken.
The Red Army soldiers inspect the taken bunker.
Commander of the 20th heavy tank brigade Borzilov (left) congratulates the soldiers and commanders who were awarded orders and medals. January 1940.
The attack of the sabotage detachment of the White Finns on the rear warehouse of the Red Army.
"The bombardment of the White Finnish station". Artist Alexander Mizin, 1940
The only tank battle on February 26, when the White Finns tried to recapture the Honkaniemi stop. Despite the presence of brand new British Vickers tanks and numerical superiority, they eventually lost 14 vehicles and retreated. There were no losses on the Soviet side.
Ski detachment of the Red Army.
Ski horse. Horse skiers.
“We used Finnish pillboxes to go to hell!” Soldiers of the special purpose engineering detachment on the roof of the Ink6 bunker.
"The Capture of Vyborg by the Red Army", A.A. Blinkov
"Storm of Vyborg", P.P. Sokolov-Skalya
Kuhmo. March 13. The first clock of the world. Meeting recent enemies. In Kuhmo, the White Finns in recent days and even hours of hostilities tried to destroy the encircled Soviet units.
Kuhmo.Saunajärvi. Venal.motti. (3)
12. Residents of Helsinki at the map of the territories that went to the Soviet Union.
In Finnish captivity in 4 camps there were from 5546 to 6116 people. The conditions of their detention were extremely cruel. 39,369 missing points to the scale of executions by the White Finns of seriously wounded, sick and frostbitten Red Army soldiers.
H. Akhmetov: “... I personally saw five cases when in the hospital the seriously wounded were taken out into the corridor behind the screen and they were given a fatal injection. One of the wounded shouted: "Don't carry me, I don't want to die." In the hospital, the killing of wounded Red Army soldiers by infusion of morphine was repeatedly used, so the prisoners of war Terentyev and Blinov were killed. The Finns especially hated the Soviet pilots and mocked them, the seriously wounded were kept without any medical care, which is why many died.- “Soviet-Finnish captivity”, Frolov, p.48.
March 1940 Gryazovets camp of the NKVD (Vologda region). Politruk talks with a group of Finnish prisoners of war. The vast majority of Finnish prisoners of war were kept in the camp (according to various sources, from 883 to 1100). “We would have work and bread, and who will rule the country, it doesn’t matter. Since the government orders to fight, that's why we fight.", - such was the mood of the bulk. And yet twenty people wished to voluntarily remain in the USSR.
April 20, 1940 Leningraders greet the Soviet soldiers who defeated the Finnish White Guard.
A group of soldiers and commanders of the 210th separate chemical tank battalion awarded orders and medals, March 1940
Such people were in that war. Technicians and pilots of the 13th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet. Kingisepp, Kotly airfield, 1939-1940
They died so that we may live...
