These types of against-all-odds stories resonate and thrill us, touching the strings of hope and bravery in our soul—hope that maybe the evil giants of our day, too, can be beaten, in the end, or at least weakened, by the efforts of a few courageous people.
Prelude to War
During the Russian Civil War, anti-communist forces known as “Whites” fought against the “Reds,” the Bolsheviks who had seized power in the Russian Revolution of 1917. As Winter War historian William Trotter explains in “A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940,” Stalin came to power with a bitter taste in his mouth regarding Finland because the White government of Finland had allowed Whites and the British Navy to use Finnish territory as launching pads for attacks against the communists.In addition, the Karelian Isthmus, partly controlled by Finland, was a highly strategic land bridge between Russia and the Scandinavian peninsula that formed a doorway to the West. Moreover, it led to Leningrad (formerly St. Petersburg), just over the Russian border, making this important Russian city and birthplace of the communist revolution highly vulnerable to an invading army coming over the isthmus.
The upshot was that the Soviet Union demanded Finland cede territory to create a larger buffer between Finland and Leningrad and abandon its main line of fortifications while allowing the Russians to build a military base on a leased peninsula.
Despite being outmanned and outgunned to an almost laughable degree, Finland refused these demands of its powerful neighbor, who possessed the largest army in the world at the time.
Nikita Khrushchev recalled that the Soviet brass arrogantly believed, “All we had to do was raise our voices a little bit and the Finns would obey. If that didn’t work, we could fire one shot and the Finns would put up their hands and surrender.”
Indeed, most military analysts, both Soviet and non-Soviet, estimated that the Finns would be defeated within a week or two.
Outmanned and Outgunned
As Trotter tells us, in the spring of 1939, the Finnish Army did not possess a single working antitank gun (though they received a small supply from Sweden by the start of the war). They had only a dozen modern fighter planes in their small air force, which was mostly composed of outdated craft. Ammunition stockpiles were severely limited. Many soldiers drilled with either wooden or extremely antique rifles. Many of the artillery pieces were over 30 years old, with limited stocks of shells.What the Finns did have was “sisu”—their word for grit, determination, and courage. With this, and mostly just this, they faced the Soviet war machine as it rolled inexorably toward them in November of 1939.
Heroic (and Clever) Resistance
The Russian battle plan was to use a conventional, frontal assault with heavy firepower and tanks, somewhat in imitation of Hitler’s successful Blitzkrieg tactic in his early European campaigns. But in addition to underestimating the Finnish will and ability to fight, the Russians quickly learned that they were trying to apply a good strategy in the wrong situation: Finland in 1939 was nothing like central Europe with its network of modern roads, familiar landmarks, and easily discernible targets, where Hitler’s “lightning war” approach worked so well.The Finnish strategy was the one used by so many underdog armies throughout history: guerilla warfare. Guerilla forces are, of course, unconventional troops who refuse to “fight fair,” so to speak. Since they know they can’t win a conventional pitched battle, they use hit-and-run tactics, and rely on sabotage and subterfuge to keep the fight going and minimize casualties. They take advantage of their knowledge of their native terrain and the element of surprise to terrorize and confuse their enemy, with the hope that, even if they can’t defeat the more powerful enemy, they can make life so uncertain and miserable that the attackers’ morale collapses and they decide it’s not worth it to continue the fight. According to Max Boot, who compiled a database of conflicts involving guerilla warfare for his book “Invisible Armies,” insurgent forces succeed in a surprising 25.5 to 40.3 percent of conflicts, despite being, as a rule, greatly overmatched.
As the massive, cumbersome columns of Soviet men, trucks, tanks, and equipment wound their way through the frosty landscape of Finland on primitive roads, they became easy targets for highly mobile Finnish squadrons who would launch surprise attacks and then vanish just as quickly into the whitened wilderness swirling with snow.
What would at first appear to be an advantage of the Soviet military giant—a huge number of troops and equipment—in this case became a liability. The large force was more easily bogged down; it was slow, inflexible, and hesitant in comparison with its Finnish foes, many of whom wore white to match the snow and operated on skis that allowed them to pass swiftly through forest and over hill like wintry wraiths.
The Finns also placed mines in lakes to blow up sections of ice, making the lake impassable by tanks. Fear of these ice-obliterating mines eventually forced the Russians to stick to the strips of land between, which is what the Finns intended. Barbed wire tangles and naturally occurring boulders and logs also served as obstacles to Russian forces. Finns used precise artillery fire and other tactics to separate and divide enemy units, breaking the enemy into “bite-sized” chunks that the outnumbered Finns could more easily deal with.
Victory in Defeat
In the end, against the overwhelming resources the Russians could keep pouring into the fight even in the face of massive losses, the Finns had to sue for peace. But their resistance had made its mark on the course of world events. Because of a relatively small group of men’s stoic grit and heroic efforts, the Finns were able to evade the iron umbrella that overshadowed most of Eastern Europe. As Capt. Cherslica writes, “While Finland would eventually concede to harsh Russian demands, the time that was afforded to the diplomatic proceedings resulted in Finland retaining its independence.”The unbreakable spirit and endless inventiveness of the Finnish warriors allowed them to buy their government time and, ultimately, ward off the communist shadow. They may have surrendered, but from a bird’s-eye perspective, they achieved their most important objective while inspiring countless onlookers down to our own day. Their incredible sacrifices were not for nothing.
