Those Burly Finns

7/29/2019 Those Burly Finns

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Those Burly Finns

Finland puts up a hell of a fight in the Russo-Finnish Winter War.

The year is 1939, and the nation of Finland has been independent of Russia for but twodecades, having escaped from the Empire as it was consumed by Lenin's October

revolution. A fledgling democracy, Finland has no love of Communism or Fascism. TheFascists in particular are failing to endear themselves to the locals due to their habit ofkidnapping leftists, driving them to the Russian border and heaving them over the fence.

The Commies are even more hated, thanks to their association with centuries of Russian

misrule, and in no part helped by the radio broadcasts of one "Moscow Titu". She plays

old Soviet favorites such as "Kalinka", "Ei Ukhnem", and "Beryozomka", plus some

Bach, interrupting the music to brand Finnish Prime Minister A.K. Cajander a "clown,

crowing rooster, squirming grass snake, marionette" and "small beast of prey without

sharp teeth and strength, but having a cunning lust." He is also accused of "standing onhis head, talking upside down, smearing crocodile tears over his dirty face and weeping

the repulsive tears of a clown imitating a crocodile." As William R. Totter puts it in his A

Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940, "The Finns found suchvituperation against their Prime Ministershocking and worrisome, but typical." Finland

would just as well be left alone. [Seethe full article from Pravda]

Unfortunately, in 1939, Stalin was eyeing Hitler in a most skeptical light. A cursory

examination of a map revealed Finland held strategic land crucial to the defense ofLeningrad. Suddenly, invading Finland and retaking that land seemed like ajolly goodidea. After some meetings with his People's Commissar of Defense, K. E. Voroshilov, he

figured they could knock out Finland in roughly twelve days. Just looking at the numbers,it seems reasonable: Russia had 171 million people to Finland's 3.5 (!). If Russia just

threw enough bodies at Finland, trained or no, it would fall.

Finland had other ideas. Her soldiers were spectacularly educated in winter fighting and

also how to make things posh (every company usually had a sauna nearby, and trenches

were lined with fur to keep in the warmth). Compare this to the Russians, many of

whom didn't have an hour of training before getting shipped off to fight in the coldestFinnish winter in over a hundred years.

Burly

The Finns, faced the inevitable Russian Armageddon with a grim optimism that must be

alien to anyone who has not themselves lived through a desperate land war for their

motherland. Of the upcoming casualties, they asked, "There are so many, and our countryso small, where will we find roomto bury them all?" Anticipating the harsh winter, theyspent much of the autumn of 1939 destroying bridges, roads, houses and barns that had

taken a generation to build so the Russians would have no shelter during their march.

Indeed, while much is made of Russia's love for the scorched earth policy, it appears the

scrappy Finns had a few things to teach them. Visiting this heartbreaking necessity,

British journalist John Langdon-Davies tells of an old peasant woman told her house is tobe burnt at day's end. She is given several hours to gather her belongings and prepare for
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evacuation. When the Finnish soldiers return some time later to burn the house, they find

it sparkling clean, floors scrubbed, walls whitewashed, and a fat pile of kindling,

gasoline, and matches with which to start the fire. Upon asking the woman why she'dgone to such trouble, the soldiers are told simply, "When one gives a gift to Finland, one

desires that it should be like new." Burly.

Another old man returned to the smoldering remains of his house, even while fighting

was within earshot, to poke through the ashes with a stick. "This farm was burned downtwice before on account of the Russians," he said, "once by my grandfather, and once by

my father. I don't reckon it'll kill me to do it either, but I'll be damned if I could drive

away without first making sure you'd done a proper job of it." Damn burly.

Honestly, Who Throws a Dead Chicken?

Trotter tells us, "The abandoned villages were not hospitable even in ruins... mines were

left in haystacks, under outhouse seats, ...underneath dead chickens and abandoned

sleds. The village wells were poisoned, or, if time and chemicals were lacking, fouledwith horse manure." Floating mines underneath newly-frozen lakes blasted ice from

under Russian ranks to sink them, and Finns covered frozen lakes with cellophane sothey looked liquid from the air.

Despite vastly superior man- and firepower, the Russians could not make inroads againstthis selfless defense. The Russians were getting spanked. However, this is the way of

life for a Russian soldiers: take a few hundred thousand fatalities, and prevail anyway.

The Finnish commander, Mannerheim, struggling to explain the determination on bothsides described the Russian soldiers as posessing "a fatalism incomprehensible to a

European." Some regiments would link arms and march in a line to clear minefields.

They sang "party war songs and [continued] to advance with the same steady, suicidal

rhythm even as the mines began to explode, ripping holes in their ranks and showering

the marchers with feet, legs, and intestines." As one Russian soldier put it, "Companycommanders... will shoot anyone who falls back or turns around... [but] one does not

have to be a psychologist to know that the new attack, in which the soldiers would haveto climb over the bodies of their own killed or wounded, would fail."

It's Not All Black and White

. The list of Soviet failings was long andcomprehensive. The troops wore olive drab or khakiuniforms, their tanks were painted black, and they

carried heavy field stoves that sent thick plumes of black

smoke visible for miles. Not a super idea for hiding inthe snow. The Russian field manual for snow combat

was probably written in the Mediterranean, because it

had a passage on bayoneting on skis (this won't work for

the same reason you can't bowl wearing rollerblades).While Finnish field doctors knew, for example, that

morphine would freeze in the cold unless stored in the mouth or armpit, their Russian

counterparts scratched their heads as their wounded howled in pain. So great were the

Don't forget your poles


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casualties that hospitals in Leningrad filled to capacity early in the invasion; soon after,

mile-long lengths of trains wound their way as far as Moscow, windows covered with

curtains to hide curious passersby from the hideous sight of the frostbitten, the bleeding,the wounded and the dying. Trotter sums up the situation endured by the hapless Soviets:

For many of the encircled Soviet troops,just staying alive, for one more hour or one

more day, was an ordeal comparable to combat. Freezing hungry, crusted with their own

filth (while the besieging Finns, a thousand meters away, might be enjoying a sauna-bath), for them the central forest was truly a snow-white hell... their despair was

recorded in the thousands of never-mailed letters to home they had scrawled before

dying, letters they had sealed, for lack of anything better, with bits of black bread thathad been chewed to a paste and dabbed onto the paper like blobs of rubber cement.

Who Could Hate Communists?

The Russians just had an awful time. One captured Soviet colonel offered some more

details during his interrogation: "I know that Stalin and Voroshilov are clever, sensible

men and I can't understand how they were led to this idiotic war. What do we need cold,

dark Finland for anyway?" He also talked about his time in the woods:

... Finns we couldn't see anywhere... When we sent our sentries out to take their positions

around the camp, we knew that within minutes they would be dead with a bullet hole to

the forehead or the throat slashed by a dagger... it was sheer madness... We Sovietsthought we were respected by other countries because ofour peace-loving ways, and the

entire civilized world was behind us since we were the cradle of all free workers. Now

we are hated and despised. You'd better bury all those soldiers before spring. Otherwiseyou'll have a plague.

Please Leave a Bomb at the Tone

Things were difficult. A division of Russian ground forces issued a communique so

desperate it took on comic overtones:

Please airdrop food and supplies, regardless of weather. Last drop did not include

ammunition. Please air drop ammunition. Two days without bullets. Food and fodder allgone. Try to send some today. Why do you let us suffer without food and fodder? Please

do something about it! Four aircraft did not drop any food at all. Generally we received

too little food. The greater portion landed on the Finnish side.

After hours with no response, they lamented, "Why don't you answer our messages?"

Long ago the Finns had figured out the Russian radio signals and had their transportsdropping supplies on Finnish positions. Of course, the Russians eventually got wise

and dropped a "supply" of bombs.

While we have made much of the Russians' difficulties, we should remind ourselves thatthe Finns were terribly short on ammunition, arms and other supplies -- many of their

artillery pieces were from the nineteenth century. Even with these shortcomings, they

managed to completely outmaneuver the Russians on nearly every front, including the art


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of gentlemanly war. Russian soldiers injured more seriously than Finns received medical

care first in Finnish field hospitals, and captured Russians were always treated to hot

meals, warm shelter and saunas. A Russian man who had hopped the Finnish borderto

buy some shoes for his wife was shanghaied by the Red Army and put into service

without a shred of training. He was captured by the Finns, still toting his wife's shoes.

"The Finns took pity on the wretch," Trotter writes, "gave him fresh socks, somecigarettes, and a turn in the sauna bath... he was retained at headquarters as a kind of

mascot for the rest of the campaign."

Finnished!

One exceptionally burly Finnish sergeant held off two Russian tanks with a 9mm pistol.Another took a bullet to the lung, and smiled in front of his commanding officer,

claiming it was far easier to breathe with this new hole in his chest. Finland's antitank

forces endured a 70% mortality rate, but had no shortage of volunteers. However, this is

not to say they were without their failings: Most of a division ran screaming from anarmored car that happened to be Finnish, having mistaken it for a Russian tank. Trotter

reports, "Most of the Fifth Division troops didn't stop running until they were back in

line, where officers who had witnessed the debacle cursed and punched and in somecases threatened to shoot them."Engle and Paananen describe a platoon commander who

went crazy during combat for the shortage of guns and ammunition:

He burst into the command dugout, and started raving: "My wife is coming here with

more machine guns. We're going to kill them all. Even the last one. My wife is comingwith more machine guns." Then he turned into the open without his weapon or hat and

screamed, "My wife is coming, my wife is coming, with

more weapons!" A piece of red-hot shrapnel stuck him,and he was quiet.

Nevertheless, Finland managed to inflict in between230,000 and 270,000 fatalities plus 200,000-300,000

injuries on Russia, while losing 48,745 troops andenduring 159,000 other casualties during the campaign.

It held on for as long as it could before succumbing on

March 13, 1940, but only after a two-week-longbombing and artillery effort by Russia, which threw

everything it had at poor Finland. Mannerheim's orders to his troops upon their surrender

survive as a piece of inspired patriotism.

While cleaning up, a Finnish officer muttered to a photojournalist, "The wolves will eat

well this year." After the "victory", a Russian officer muttered, "Well, we've won justenough land to bury our dead."

Burying the dead
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Those Burly Finns