[Medic]

Okay, because there was a request for this, I'll give you guys a brief history of Finland, especially concerning the wars. Might expand this to the Twilight timeline as well - just tell me which one you'd like?

Alright. Because the early history of Finland made Finland the country it is now, I'll start there briefly. In the 12th century the Swedes invaded Finland, which was divided in to several tribal nations, as part of the Northern Crusades. The Swedes eventually conquered the whole country, losing it twice to the Russians, conquering it back the both times and holding it until 1809, when they lost it to the Russian Empire for the last time. As I've noted in some other thread, that also spelled the end of Swedish empire that had been a rather influential force around the Gulf of Finland - the Finns had fought quite a number of wars for the Swedes and gotten a reputation as hardy soldiers. Especially the Eastern Europe knew the Finnish cavalry, Hakkapeliitat (singular Hakkapeliitta), who got their name from their battlecry 'Hakkaa päälle!' (which translates best as 'Have at them!').

The Russian Tsar, Alexander I, gave Finland autonomy in 1811 and the country became the Autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, in to which the Russian province of Vyborg was incorporated. In 1860ies a strong Finnish nationalist movement, the Fennomen, begun to emerge and the nation in itself begun to form. In 1892 the Finnish language recieved an equal status with Swedish, which had been the official language until that and been spoken by the rich and educated, while commoners in especially southern and eastern parts of the country spoke Finnish.

The famine of 1866-1868 killed about 15% of the population, which led Russian Empire to ease financial regulation on the country which in turn led to the rapid development of economy and political culture. Russians soon begun restricting the autonomy with stern hand and the Finns begun to rebel covertly. On June 16th, 1904, the Finnish Senate clerk Eugen Schauman shot the Russian General-Governor of Finland, Nikolay Bobrikov, who died in the hospital later that night. After three shots at the General-Governor, Eugen Schauman shot himself twice and died.

Despite the assassination, the universal suffrage was adopted in 1906, but with further attempts by the Russians to restrict the Finnish autonomy the relations soured even further which led to the movement for independence gaining ground quickly. Many university students from Finland travelled covertly to Germany between 1915 and 1916, where they were formed in to the Royal Prussian 27th Jäger Battalion that fought the Russians as a part of the German Army in 1916. With the Russian February and October Revolutions in 1917, the Russian forces in Finland effectively got disbanded and the Finns begun forming para-military groups to preserve peace in the country, but eventually the groups split in to two factions, the White and the Red.

When the Civil War seemed very probable, the Finnish Jägers (Jääkärit) were released from German command and returned to Finland to fight on the White Guard's side against the Red Guard. Where the White Guard was aided by Swedes and Germans, the Red Guard recieved arms from the Russian garrisons in Finland. While Finland's right-wing government declared independent from Russia on December 6th, 1917 (which became the National Day in Finland), the newly founded Russian Council of People's Commissars recognized the declaration and the new nation in December 31st. On January 27th, 1918, the country ended up in a state of civil war.

The Finnish Civil War, as most civil wars, was rather bloody with atrocities commited on both sides. It has long been a very sore spot in the Finnish history and only recently people have begun to talk about it openly. After the war ended on May 15th the same year, the White Guard had emerged victorious, communism was banned as a political movement and a chasm between the sides of the war did not show any signs of closing until the beginning of Winter War in 1939.

On next post, I'll cover the years from the Civil War until the beginning of the Winter War.