Medic's ramblings about Finland

[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.

[Tegyrius]

Good stuff, Medic. Thanks for putting this together!

Other than polite avoidance of the topic, does the Finnish Civil War have any lingering effects on modern Finnish culture or politics?

- C.

[Medic]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

Good stuff, Medic. Thanks for putting this together!

Other than polite avoidance of the topic, does the Finnish Civil War have any lingering effects on modern Finnish culture or politics?

- C.

Unless you count the right-wing hardliners, no. Some of the Finnish rednecks tend to call everyone on the left a commie still, but after the WW2, communism is not banned anymore. Too bad, that applies to nazism - just before the previous parliamentary elections in Finland some people tried to form the Finnish National-Socialist Worker's Party, but as far as I recall, they didn't get the 5000 signatures required for forming a political party in Finland.

Most of my relatives were Reds, though more of the social democrat lines than hard-line communists. There is more to the matter in the later posts, but I can say that even though the nation pulled together regardless of political beliefs during the WW2, there are known cases of people having borne grudge towards those who fought on the other side in the Civil War even until the WW2 and acted upon those grudges when opportunity came. One such case was my maternal grandmother's brother, having been a Red in the Civil War, vanished during the war. as far as we know from the war records and some unofficial statements by men from his company, he was killed by an officer, ex-White, from the neighbouring municipality.

My generation of Finns are pretty open about the matter, but had you asked my grandmother when she was still alive, she would probably thrown you out.

Actually, after the Civil War, a huge number of Reds were interned at several garrisons (and some of them were executed), including that of Hennala in Lahti, which is in Southern Finland about 100km from the capital, Helsinki. A relative of mine, who had been Red in the war, was taken there after the fighting was over and he had surrendered, and they stood the prisoners on the field outside the old Russian-built barracks. My relative saw Whites erecting tables at the edge of the field so he went and asked if they were serving food. The reply was curt, 'No, we're cataloquing the prisoners. You are prisoner number one. Name?'. Eventually released from the prison camp, he also became the first member of the sports club 'Leppävaaran Sisu', which was a covert organization for the leftists.

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

Other than polite avoidance of the topic, does the Finnish Civil War have any lingering effects on modern Finnish culture or politics?

Relating to that, were the pro-Soviet Reds who created the puppet government-in-exile during the Winter War allowed into Finland after the war?

[Medic]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

Relating to that, were the pro-Soviet Reds who created the puppet government-in-exile during the Winter War allowed into Finland after the war?

The Terijoki Government, for those who don't know what it was, was a Soviet created puppet regime headed by Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen, formed on November 30th, 1939. Kuusinen had fled Finland himself after the defeat in Civil War, during which he had created the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic.

The whole Terijoki Government scheme was built on the hypothesis by Stalin and other Soviet leaders, the Finnish working class would welcome the Soviets as liberators from capitalist oppression, but the scheme failed as the working class Finns stood very much united behind the legal government. The name, Terijoki Government comes from the first Finnish town the Soviets captured during the war.

As to reply to the question, the men behind the Terijoki Government exiled themselves in to Soviet Union rather than returning to Finland, where they would have been put to trial on the charges of treason. While the Finnish law does not allow death penalty, it can be argued, having taken place during war time, the military law might have been used, which in turn allowed people, at the time, to be shot.

As for the Terijoki Government, it never recieved much support among even the most hardliner leftists. Soviets did create The Army of Terijoki, which was supposed to include only Finnish speaking and Finnish looking troops, but since they were in short supply and generally unwilling, the Soviets added troops from even as far as Ukraine in to the Army. The Army of Terijoki had very little success in achieving anything.

[ShadoWarrior]

All of this history is fascinating. Please keep going. And thank you.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by ShadoWarrior

All of this history is fascinating. Please keep going. And thank you.

Agreed. Would also love to hear your thoughts on Finland in the Twilight War.

[Medic]

With the civil war in the past, Finland begun to construct itself as an independent nation. The atrocities during the Civil War on both sides, were still in fresh memory.

In the war and its aftermath, over 1% of the population died. The death toll was around 37,000 of which only about 10,000 died in actual combat. The Whites gathered around 80,000 Reds and people affiliated with the Reds, including women and children in to prison camps after their victory and while a few thousands of them were released rather soon, many died of starvation and poor conditions. Slowly released from prisons, the last 50 Reds were released from prison as late as 1927.

With the Civil War out of the way, there was a momentary political struggle about whether the nation should become a monarchy or a republic - under pressure from Germany, the senate opted for a king, but with Germany becoming a republic at the end of World War I, the would-be king renounced The throne and a republican constitution was ratified on July 17th, 1919.

Once the republic was ratified, the nation begun to rearrange the infrastructure. Agrarian reforms broke up the large estates owned by the nobility and sold them to the ambitious peasants.

The military formed up partially on the basis of the Jägers trained in Germany prior to the Civil War and several units today consider the 27th Jäger Battalion as an important part of their inheritance. A para-military militia, Suojeluskunta (=Protection/Defense Corps), provided also great deals of military education for its members. They were given an official status of auxiliary troops of about 100,000 troops.

The Finnish Military Academy, originally formed by the Russians during their rule, was reinstated in 1919 and reserve officer education started during the early 1920ies together with NCO and branch schools. A conscript service of one year was introduced and the reservists were required to take part in refresher training every once in a while.

When the Winter War begun, the Finns fielded about 135,000 troops organized in nine divisions, increasing to about 340,000 by the end of the war. The country fielded 32 tanks and 114 aircraft, many of which were practically obsolete.

What led to the Winter War - to that we will find the answer in my next post.