The biggest Bad A** on the Eastern Front

[wolf66]

Well you wouldn't mistake him for Audie Murphy, that's for sure ....

[Bartokomus]

We used to have Finn's on this board, are they all gone now? i am curious about their perspective of *both* the SU and Germany. It always seemed to me they must have felt like piggy-in-the-middle with two agressive, psychotic regimes surrounding them. It must have seemed like a bad choice no matter what.

[Temee]

Bigduke6: well if I remember right the aftermath of ww2 at finnish perspective is taught something like this: Peace with soviets, kind a draw (trendemous losses both men and land but big success stopping the soviet assaults of sum -44, theres concepts like "torjuntavoitto"=defendedwin and "ihantalan ihme"= The miracle of Ihantala) and right after that war new one against the germans in lapland(northern Finland), not much of fighting but germans (who occupied lapland together with finnish forces something like 41-44) burned numerous villages and towns, laid mines and blow up bridges when retreating so more griff for the people. Hope this lights the issue a bit

and back to CM, theres been lots of speculation about the eastern front CM and operation bagration, but I for one would rather have the operation barbarossa till the retreat of moscow early -42, anyone with me? I remember CMBB campaing called Ghosts of Napoleon, that one is still my absolute favorite of whole CM scale.

[JRMC1879]

Because he usually is a very sensible and very intelligent member of this forum. Kiev ain't Russia btw. It is Ukraine. But let's not insult Bigduke. He usually knows more than I will ever learn and his judgement is usually very sound too.

Well the comment was lighthearted ... I think you will find it wasnt at the time finland was invaded and ukrainian soldiers fought the finns in that war - although admittedly it likely wasnt by choice and if I recall correctly - there was actually a unit of ukrainian volunteers fighting for the finns.

[Temee]

and bartokomus:about perspectives of SU and Germany, at the time of ww1 in finland was fought independencewar(civilwar) between "white and red" white fighting for democracy supported by germans and red fighting for communism, supported by soviets. White side won, which is important when thinking ww2. First the russians attacking Finland winter 39-40(they though the common fin would accept communism) and contunation war 41-44(germans supporting finland again against communism) so it felt kind natural to "turn on axis side" and fight against SU(someway new independence war) nothing to do with nazis (for example finland didn't turn any Finnish citizen with jude backround to germans even though germany insisted)

[Bigduke6]

Well, I figured if a Finnish individual soldier and his achievements fighting Soviets was fair fodder for a CMN thread, then talking about how much effect that soldier had on the Finnish-Soviet confict was germane as well.

In general, in my personal opinion, most wars that seem a good idea at the time usually turn out not to have been. That's a conclusion drawn from study, discussion and personal experience.

From what I can tell there are very few good wars and a whole lot of wars that get advertised as good, and actually weren't. Thus, I am suspicious when I come across an arguement, anywhere, that a particular war made good sense.

Part of the advertising is almost always packaged in the form of "our heroic indivudual fighters against their clumsy semi-civilized masses." All of which made me wonder about the Continuation War, and whether or not it fighting it actually made good strategic sense for Finland.

To me, the question at the very least seems debatable. Looking at the conflict from the Soviet POV, the whole Continuation War was a campaign by Moscow to "recover" what the Soviets had taken from the Finns by force in 1941. This is not to justify Soviet motives, Heaven forbid, but just to understand them.

Another factor in my thinking in this is, had the Soviets really wanted to occupy Finland, it seems to me that they could have. They had the force and if necessary the will to expend lives and treasure, look at how much they sacrificed to erase a war-capable Germany from the map of Europe. Is it really credible that the Soviets cut a deal with the Finns in October 1944 because the Soviets were so battered by the Finns they decided they couldn't overrun the country? Me, I would guess "no", I would say that if Stalin had decided the Soviet Union needed control of Finland more than say the Balkans then that would have been that.

I would say a more probable estimate of Soviet motivation to settle with Finland was, they were at war with the Germans to the death and for the Kremlin Finland was a sideshow. Certainly, the Soviets were not happy the Finns had this idea they might take back Finnish territory the Soviets stole from them but, from the Soviet POV, but at a guess I'd say "punishing" the Finns wasn't nearly so important for the Soviets as utterly destroying the German military, and then taking over the most valuable parts of Eastern Europe.

If one was a Soviet strategist at the time, and resources are limited, and you're picking and choosing which parts of Europe you want to make part of your sphere of influence, well, places like Poland and Hungary have far more resources and population than Finland; and Finland - unlike East Europe - cannot act as a buffer zone between Russia and Germany. So did the Continuation War really keep Finland free? Or does Finland owes at least some of its independence simply to its location, which is not strategically vital to the SU/Russia.

(As opposed, say, the land approaches to Leningrad, one of the SU's most critical centres of production. This, the Soviets as we have seen made sure they kept, which is why people speak Russian not Finnish in Karelia today.)

Which begs the question, if the location of Finland and its strategic importance to Moscow wasn't going to change, then why should Finland fight a war against the Soviets to convince them not to overrun Finland, when as it turned out the Soviets had the opportunity and they didn't?

Which makes me wonder all the more how wise it was for Finland to throw in on the German side in 1941. Maybe it made sense in Finland, but if the Soviet Union was not going to collapse then it was inevitable they would do what it took to re-establish what they considered their lawful borders.

If the Finnish logic was that, ok, we will re-occupy Karelia since the Soviets just took it from us, and since the Soviets know grabbing other people's territory is bad they will accept Finnish re-occupation of Karlelia, then that obviously was a bad, bad calculation. That would not have been consistent with historical Soviet behavior, the Soviets were obscessive about their borders since day one, and the Russians still are.

And since intelligent people like pretty much the western military establishment were of the opinion the Soviet Union could not resist a German attack for more than three or four months, as of late June 1941, I think it is reasonable to ask whether the Finnish decision to intervene on the German side was influenced, at least in part, by that same faulty estimate?

Is it really credible that the German General Staff could consider defeat of the Soviet Union a probable matter of months because they were basically uninformed and stupid, but the Finns wound up in the same war on the same side, against the same opponent, because the Finns were clever? I guess it's possible, but to me it seems doubtful.

If the modern Finnish historical evaluation of the Continuation War is, it was an informed strategic choice, then I would be curious to know what was the reasoning.

I would be very interested to know what the historians have concluded about the the Finnish view of the Soviet Union's capacity in June 1941 to resist the Germans.

As to the rest, and this is really just for the sake of debate:

You didn't give an offense so much as wander into an already off-topic and misinformed thread (what does Häyhä have to do with CMBN? And why is it that people admire killers so much, whereas no one ever mentions the medics, surgeons and others who saved so many lives, including Häyhä after he got shot?), then throw it even further off-topic with comments having nothing to do with either Häyhä or CMBN.

And the whole case of Finland's involvement with Germany is simply too nuanced and complex to really get into here. It's certainly correct that Finnish government could have chosen to keep a distance to Germany after Winter War. But, that's where everything becomes harder. With Finland maintaining neutrality, would Germany have rejected Soviet's plan to finish Finland off a year later?

The Soviets had plans to finish off every one, more or less. The question was which was important. Germany always came first, that was the priority, everything else was subordinate to that. All Finland needed to avoid Soviet conquest, was a viable military and more important strategic goals for the Kremlin than owning Finland.

You're right there can be no sure conclusions here, but it seems to me attacking the Soviets so that somewhere down the line they will be so convinced Finns are such tough fighters, that it's not worth trying to conquer Finland, is not a great idea. Memory of the Winter War was fresh. Indeed, I've just thought of another point: All things being equal the Soviets probably were more likely to consider a major attack against Finland after 2-3 years of static war following a Finnish invasion of Karelia, rather than if the Finns hadn't. Why? Because the Soviets knew 2-3 years of static war against Finland was long-term attrition warfare that favoured the Soviets.

Would Finland have been able to get grain from Germany?

I dunno, did Finland have anything wartime Germany needed? Or for that matter the SU, the Russians have a long history of starving their own population to get spiffy western stuff. In any case if I hold up the balance, and ask, which is worse, grain shortages, or the Karelian and Leningrad Fronts firing 100 guns per kilometre in the breakthrough sector, well...

Would Finland have been able to maintain neutrality in Lapland and Petsamo (which was still Finnish territory after WW2) with Germans in Norway and Soviets in Murmansk, or would either side invaded the neutral territory anyway?

Well, if the Finns were willing just to cede the territories instead of fighting for them, then obviously yes. All a question of how hard the Finns were willing to fight and whether or not that was enough to get the Soviets to conform to the Finnish goal.

What would the Soviet naval base in Hanko have meant? It's impossible to tell without a crystal ball.

Indeed. But absence of a crystal ball does not preclude discussing history, in an attempt to learn from it.

But one thing is sure: Finland was not in a situation comparable to Sweden. Not that Sweden had it completely cushy with Germany invading Norway and Denmark and Soviets invading Finland and Brits and French wanting to stop ore shipments from Kiruna to Germany and submarines and mines in the Baltic Sea etc.

Well, that's where we disagree. As I see it, there indeed was a parallel: Both were relatively developed Scandinavian countries, both had big dangerous superpower neighbors, both had to try and maintain their independence while the rest of the continent was going nuts with the worst war it's ever seen.

To answer the question about the topic in schools, it is used to illustrate how historians work: at first after the wars the 'we were drawn into Continuation War without any choice' was seen as the correct version but later on new interpretations came forward, showing it as an intentional strategic choice.

As noted, I'd be very interested to know what the logic and strategic outlook that went into that choice.

This is nothing personal, I'm not fully convinced the US made absolutely the right move in putting so much effort into defeating Germany, for instance.

[Karabekian]

To me, the question at the very least seems debatable. Looking at the conflict from the Soviet POV, the whole Continuation War was a campaign by Moscow to "recover" what the Soviets had taken from the Finns by force in 1941. This is not to justify Soviet motives, Heaven forbid, but just to understand them.

Yet it was absolutely clear in Finland at the time that an occupation was imminent in the near future. Continuous demands from the USSR constantly pushed Finland closer to Germany that had already in 1940 given indications that an offensive in the East was planned. Atleast by then it was clear that when the war would begin the Soviets, or the Germans, would need to secure Finland strategically. Germany due to Norway and Sweden and their resources. The Soviets would attempt to cut these, or secure the Leningrad area. Not to mention the Soviet need of satellite nations on all its borders.

Another factor in my thinking in this is, had the Soviets really wanted to occupy Finland, it seems to me that they could have. They had the force and if necessary the will to expend lives and treasure, look at how much they sacrificed to erase a war-capable Germany from the map of Europe.

They did not have the capability or will to defeat Finland quickly once Bagration was fully underway - and succesful. By the time Germany was out of the war the pre war situation was gone, they had already secured the entire Southern side of the Finnish gulf and could be satisfied with a base in Porkkala.

Is it really credible that the Soviets cut a deal with the Finns in October 1944 because the Soviets were so battered by the Finns they decided they couldn't overrun the country? Me, I would guess "no", I would say that if Stalin had decided the Soviet Union needed control of Finland more than say the Balkans then that would have been that.

The Soviets that were spared to the Finnish front were battered and low on materiel and men. In 1946 Stalin comlained that he did not occupy Finland - because "We paid way too much consideration to the Americans, they would not have lifted a finger!". Then again Molotov said during the 80s, that had they occupied Finland it might have become a "deep wound in the belly of the Soviet Union". To him it was certain that a long guerilla war would have ensued. Against the Finns.

Sure the geography of Finland was of huge importance to maintain its independence, but decades later, a guerilla war in a backwater country, greatly added to the collapse of the entire USSR.

[Apa]

If the soviets had taken Finland during Stalin's reign there would not have been an effective guerrilla war. Most finns would have been moved to concentration camps, moved to some distant part of Soviet Union or simply killed.

It is incredibly naive to think that Finnish people had the option of giving soviets the lands they wanted and then just lived on. Read anything about Stalin and you know this is true. That man could not be trusted at all. He would have taken the land, thanked the fools and after that conquer the rest of the country.

I would say Finland won the winter war. Finland survived, that is a victory in and of itself. Finland also survived the continuation war, but I would classify that still as a defeat. Because surviving a war you started isn't exactly a great outcome. Finland's independence wasn't strong during the immediate years after the war.

Of course Soviet Union could have conquered Finland. Luckily Stalin had bigger games to play, and thus Finland survived.

[Bigduke6]

Well I wonder.

I can see the Soviet logic in kicking off the Winter War, standard Total War strategy, find the wealthiest adjacent neutral province that no one big can interfere with, and annex it. Repeat until you reach a larger empire you DO have to worry about, and hope by that time you've gathered up enough provinces (i.e., population, production capacity, transportation bottlenecks, what have you) that you are now bigger and badder than your real strategic enemy, who hopefully hasn't gathered in as many neutral bits of terrain as you have.

In the pre-Great Patriotic War period, when you stop and think about it, the Soviets were giving the Germans a good run for their money in terms of grabbing terrain. It wasn't just Karelia and Pentsamo. The Soviets one way or another grabbed Bukovina, Chernovtsi province, Moldavia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, western Ukraine, and a sizable chunk of eastern Poland.

Plus, in that same time period, the Soviets established whether or not the Japanese would stay on the right bank of the Amur (most emphatically they would as Zhukov stomped the Japanese at Nomonhan) and who gets all the sheep in Mongolia? (Again Moscow).

If one is willing to extend that window of concerted Soviet expansion just a bit beyond the beginning of Barbarossa, then the Soviets had overrun something like 1/4 to 1/3 of Iran by September 1941 as well.

To me, if nothing else, all that is proof that Stalin in no way was picking particularly on the Finns. Finland got the same treatment as pretty much every other state actually bordering the Soviet Union in the 1938 - 1941 period. It is true the Finns made a better fight of it when it came their turn to cough up terrain to the bear than say the Lithuanians or the Romanians, but the end result seems to have been the same. Until the Germans invaded Stalin chose to expand the Soviet perimeter frequently, and he did.

Likewise, it was not just the Finns that teamed up with the Nazis when it seemed like there was an opportunity to get that stolen land back. The Romanians and the Hungarians as we all know are Axis troops in CMBB, and who hasn't heard of the SS units of ethnic Estonians or Ukrainians?

And we all know the Soviets overran all the other Axis minor allies, but then, and this is my point, all of East Europe was inbetween the Soviet heartland and Germany. The Red Army was never a surgical tool, it just flattened what was in its path. The best way to avoid being flattened, was arranging things so that it never came at you in the first place.

Finland was not inherently in the Red Army's path to Germany. Nor was (roughly speaking) Kurdish Iran, nor was Manchukuo and all its industrial potential.

Since the Soviets left Iran without a fight, and indeed left Manchuria after a fight, I wonder, how valid is the arguement that the Soviets would have attacked the Finns during the Continuation War period, had the Finns not attacked (with perfectly good grounds, at least from the Finnish POV) the Soviets first?

From a Soviet POV I don't see a compelling reason. In May 1941 Leningrad has a nice deep hinterland, the Leningrad-Murmask RR is now fairly deep in Soviet territory, Pentsamo is now Pechenga leaving the Finns with no outlet on the Arctic. Finland from the Soviet POV is already pretty well emasculated as a potential springboard for German agression, and until the Baltic states are properly built into the Soviet economy what possible point could there be in grabbing more of south Finland?

If the Swedish comparison isn't fair, okay, let's think about Turkey. True the Turks didn't have a common border with Germany, but they certainly did and do with Soviet Armenia and Georgia, and the Black Sea coast road south from Batumi is a great corridor for a mechanized offensive.

Unlike the Finns, and like the Swedes, the Turks stayed neutral during Soviet-German war. True there were no real territorial disputes between Turkey and the SU at the time, but in an era where almost every European state seems to have caught the invasion bug at one time or another, it is a little wierd that the Turks of all people turned out to be peacable neighbours.

Be that as it may, the end result the Turks achieved was the same, practically speaking, as what the Finns obtained. The June 1941 border with the Soviet Union was the same as the June 1945 border. The difference was the Finns fought a pretty bloody war against the Soviets, and the Turks, staying neutral, did not.

And for the rest of the Soviet period the Soviets, arguably, simply had bigger problems than figuring out whether it made sense to invade peripheral states like Turkey and Finland.

I have no doubt the difficulties the Soviets had in organizing force in the Continuation War to break Finnish defenses, although they figured it out eventually, was a factor in the Soviet decision to leave Finland alone after the war.

But personally, I suspect a much bigger factor was simply, the Soviets by 1940 had grabbed as much of Finland as they felt that they needed.

[Sergei]

But personally, I suspect a much bigger factor was simply, the Soviets by 1940 had grabbed as much of Finland as they felt that they needed.

Good god, you don't get it, do you? You just don't know jack about Finnish or Soviet history. Hence you should not be 'suspecting' anything about it. So why do you keep on arguing your opinions in the CMBN forum? What does any of this have to do with Normandy???

What the heck does Turkey have to do with Finland, either? Did USSR request Turkey to hand over areas in 1939? Was Turkey invaded by USSR in 1939? No?

You really just want to troll the forums. Please stop! Go away!

[JonS]

Please stop! Go away!

Please don't.

[Canada Guy]

Who would have thought that one little article about a little known Finn soldier would cause so much controversy.

Having looked at BigDukes arguments, I have to agree with some of them. Sergei, you may be a little too close to the subject matter and may have some strongly held opinions (as I probably have about Canada) that would likewise also make it difficult for me to separate the Canadian interpretation from objective reality.

The Finns were in a bad spot in 1940-45 but who is to say that Stalin would not have thrown greater weight against it if it thought it could get away with it. I have always been surprised that the West was so happy to cozy up to the USSR after what it had done to the Baltic countries and Finland. Who but Germany, did the Finns have to turn to for assistance, even if they were not supporters of the Nazi cause?

Turkey is relevant in that it was in a similar situation as Finland. Bordering the USSR. USSR taking countries around it. But in Finland's case, the Soviets had already attacked it once. What would stop them from attacking again? Finland probably weighed the pros and cons and decided to try to preempt yet another attack on its soil.

The Turks either received assurances from the West for the integrity of its borders to ensure its neutrality or the Turks did not want to jump on the wrong bandwagon until it was evident who would win.

The Soviets acted just as badly as the Nazis did in many cases. (Substitute Ukrainian kulaks for Jews). Eastern Europe had very limited options especially after the West (Britain and France) let them down and the USA was in an isolationist period and they were exactly between 2 superpowers. At that time, the Soviets appeared worse than the Germans looking at 1930-1939. If you are going to be conquered, and you had no other allies, you picked the one that appeared to give you the best opportunity to survive. Germany looked like the better bet in 1939-40. By 1945 the Soviet Union looked like the best of all worst choices. What other choice does Romania, Hungary or Finland have in 1940-41?

[Karabekian]

If the soviets had taken Finland during Stalin's reign there would not have been an effective guerrilla war. Most finns would have been moved to concentration camps, moved to some distant part of Soviet Union or simply killed.

Exactly how was this going to happen? If you live anywhere outside Helsinki, look out of the window and tell me how someone is going to collect you in a truck and drive you away. With the army now dispersed to continue the fighting, weapons readily available and thousands of finnish forrest roads to drive trough.. Not very easy to achieve any kind of large scale "evacuation".

No doubt this was the goal of the SU, but just how it would have happened is another guestion.

[Apa]

Maybe this thread has already served its purpose (if there ever was any...) but I can't resist replying.

My opinion is that Stalin could have cleared the country. If you don't consider human rights at all clearing the country is suddenly a lot easier. The Germans managed to pretty successfully fight the guerrillas in multiple large countries while fighting a war on two fronts.

Remember that Stalin had _millions_ of soldiers on his disposal. If you consider something like Vietnam war, the end result would have been pretty different if the US would have systematically destroyed every village there was in the country. And maybe 5-folded their troop count.

OK, I do admit it could have been somewhat bloody to the Soviets. But then again, that guy did kill millions of his own people. So, if they would have lost even a hundred thousand men it would just have been statistics to Soviets.

In general I think there are two approaches to conquering a country: be so nice to them that they stop revolting, or be so hard to them that they stop revolting. Divide and conquer, I guess. When you are in-between you are asking for trouble.

[Canada Guy]

There was never a specific point when I started this thread. I just thought it interesting that one Finn seems to have taken out an entire battalion of Soviet soldiers.

For this group, just an interesting side note. Just as it is interesting to note that Audie Murphy went to bed in pajamas with fuzzy bunnies on them. Just a note on the oddities of war

[Apa]

Sorry, the remark wasn't actually about your first post, but the discussion that followed. It seems to be a little of topic, and a little heated, too. In other words, all you expect from a good forum discussion

I guess next we will be discussing Vietnam war...

[Bigduke6]

Soviets didn't have to collect people in trucks. They could just level the buildings and burn the fields, and make the only place with food the concentration camps. That would bring in at least women, children and non-military age men - who would of course become hostages. That would compensate for a great many super-skilled Finnish partisans in the woods.

But even though the Soviets were first-class land-grabbers, I think it is worth bearing in mind they didn't do it because they thought it was fun. They already owned the biggest land mass in the world.

Rather, the Soviet strategic problem always was that they had this giant periphery and all along it were territories that could either be a threat or an opportunity, and it wasn't always obvious which place should be a priority and which should be back-burnered.

Unless there was a real reason to focus, if you look at how the Soviets behaved in most times, they sort of lurched from one policy to another for any given border region, and it wasn't uncommon that domestic issues would influence whether it was time, say, to be agressive in Central Asia or to play for stability on the Manuchurian frontier or try and cut trade deals with the Romanians or the Americans.

The German attack created a rare exception to that rule, where the Soviet government and people became (almsot) absolutely united on pushing towards a single clear strategic goal, that being the obliteration of Germany as a potential military threat, forever.

When it became clear that goal was going to be reached, the Soviet Union's leaders suddenly had to deal with not just becoming a major political player in Central Europe - the Tsars had done that in their day - but figuring out how to be a global power. Stalin and his advisers first began grappling with that seriously in late Summer/Autumn 1944, when it was clear the Axis no longer could halt a deliberate Red offensive, it was only a question of how long it took to concentrate the forces.

Finland historically was one small but important piece of the Soviet strategic puzzle, primarily because of its proximity to the Leningrad industrial region, but also because Finland arguably could interfere with Soviet domination of the Baltic region or rail links to the North Cape.

By the latter stages of the Continuation War, all these Soviet objectives had been reached. This was also the status quo at the end of the Winter War, and also the status quo for the entire post-WW2 period. It may not have been the view of the Finnish leadership, but clearly the Soviet view was this Finnish-Soviet balance was stable and most desirable.

To me, and yes this is hindsight, the Finnish leadership made a strategic blunder of the first order by signing on to the German attack on the Soviet Union, and so challenging that Soviet view of the proper Finnish-Soviet balance. Just like the Germans, the Finns underestimated how hard the Soviets would be willing to fight, and the Soviets' capacity to organize people and resources, if necessary ruthlessly.

Also in hindsight, it seems like the Finns made an extremely intelligent move in making clear their war aims were not Nazi war aims, and at the same time making sure that they treated Soviet POWs and ethnic Russians under Finnish control more or less responsibly, at least as compared to what the Germans did in the Soviet Union. This meant that when the Red steamroller came back in the opposite direction, it was just looking for victory, and not vengeance. Personally, I think this more than anything else is why Finland did not share the fate of the rest of East Europe.

The German conquests of France, (most of) Scandinavia and the Balkans were spectacular but it only took a look at the map to see that France is a lot smaller than Russia, and the Finns of all people should have known what kind of weather Russia can see in the Fall and early Winter, and how crappy the roads can be. None of this was a secret in May 1941, and if the German leadership can be pardoned somewhat for not knowing Russian history, can we say the same of the Finnish leadership?

So why did Mannerheim (if it was indeed he that did it) commit to joining the Germans? Certainly there were good moral grounds, the Soviets had shamelessly stolen Finnish territory and if the Germans did their part there was every chance the Finns would get the stolen territory back. But was it a smart, well-informed decision as well?

Here's on possibility: Mannerheim served - with great distinction - in the Tsarist army for 30 years, and he saw it come apart at the seams in 1917. He knew how bad morale and diorganization could get in the Russian military, first hand. The incompetence, corruption, waste of life, alcohism and laziness that is often the standard in any Russian organization lacking dicipline, Mannerheim had spent an entire career watching, if not trying to prevent.

A conviction the Soviets were rotten soldiers and their officers were worse, had that been Mannerheim's conviction, could only have been reinforced by the Winter War.

Could Mannerheim's deep knowledge of the Russian military and its failings have deluded him into thinking the Soviets could not resist the Germans? Could his personal experience leading forces in Finland have misled him into thinking that, there was no way the Soviets could invade Finland so that the Finns could not just halt them, but punish them?

If in fact that was the case, then at bottom the reason the Finns intervened on the German side was because Mannerheim made the military calculation the Soviets could not resist effectively. That was of course the same strategic error made by Hitler and the German General Staff. The difference is, of course, neither Hitler nor the German General Staff knew the Russian military from the inside.

The thing is, Mannerheim was no dictator, as I understand it he wasn't even an elected official. But at minimum he was a highly respected figure and Finland's top military man. His opinion was critical. It is very hard to conceive of a way Finland could have begun the Continuation War, without Mannerheim's direct approval.

So what happened when the Finnish leadership began contemplating the Continuation War? Did Mannerheim recommend an attempt to recapture territories lost in the Winter War? Or did he caution the politicans saying "Hey, it would not be a great idea to make the Russians mad, that can end badly."

Which makes me wonder even more: if not Mannerheim, then who was it in Finland that made the decision to launch the Continuation War? What was their logic? How much deliberation went into the decision?

Even if it was Mannerheim (which, frankly, is the most likely scenario) did any subordinate stand up and say "Er, getting Karelia back is great if it works, but what if the Soviets manage to hold the Germans? Maybe we should keep in mind Soviets may have to fight their way across half of Europe to get to Berlin, and defeat the entire Wehrmacht in the process, while for us Helsinki is about a six-hour auto drive from Leningrad?"

Sergei, you are welcome to challenge what I've said or just not participate in the discussion.

If you think this is mindless trolling, you can report me to BFI.

Exactly how was this going to happen? If you live anywhere outside Helsinki, look out of the window and tell me how someone is going to collect you in a truck and drive you away. With the army now dispersed to continue the fighting, weapons readily available and thousands of finnish forrest roads to drive trough.. Not very easy to achieve any kind of large scale "evacuation".

No doubt this was the goal of the SU, but just how it would have happened is another guestion.

[Erwin]

I also wonder what pressure Hitler could put on the Finns - they saw what happened to Norway. At that time, there may have been a credible threat to Finland since Germany wanted to open up that Front and capture the northern ports, Archangel, Murmansk etc.

[Spinoza]

I love You guys.