In the course of their own civil war, on April 29, 1918, the White Finns capture Vyborg, arrange the genocide of all people who do not speak Finnish (retired military, schoolboys in Russian uniforms, even Poles). Three thousand people die.
On May 15, 1918, the Finnish government declared war on Soviet Russia. Its troops occupy, in particular, the Russian, from the 16th century, Pechenga, rename the name of this village in “Petsamo”. Later, large deposits of nickel ore will be explored here, since 1935 their industrial development by Anglo-American corporations will begin.
The Finnish military partially block Petrograd, contributing to the first great famine in this city (according to averaged data, one hundred and fifty thousand people become victims of it, as well as “red” terror). At the rate of Mannerheim, a plan for “national uprisings” is being developed, Finnish instructors are being allocated to create centers of insurgency. However, the plans of the Field Marshal to conquer East Karelia, the Kola Peninsula, the offensive against Petrograd, Germany does not support. After the Vyborg tragedy, any joint operations to overthrow the Bolshevik government along with the Finns, the White Army refuses to conduct either.
By May 1920, parts of the Red Army were eliminating the puppet North-Karelian state. In October of the same year, Finland and the USSR signed the Tartous Peace Treaty, according to which Russia was losing part of its territories. However, in 1921 Helsinki unleashed the second Soviet-Finnish war, by forces of “forest partisans” committing acts of sabotage and killing of supporters of Soviet power. The fighting ends in March 1922, a document is signed to ensure the inviolability of the Soviet-Finnish border. About 30,000 people dissatisfied with the new order go to Finland and, up to the end of the 1920s, armed groups formed from them, make raids on Soviet territory.
Whatever it was, the mood in Finland does not seem friendly to the Soviet government. His proposal – the removal of the border from Leningrad at the expense of Finland, in exchange for twice the size of the areas of East Karelia. Rent of the island of Hanko to create a Soviet military base. Disarmament and demolition of the “Mannerheim Line” on the Karelian Isthmus. Finland rejects these conditions. On the map – the state of things before and after the Soviet-Finnish war
“Freedom to the oppressed” – such a slogan was put on board the I-16 fighter during the Soviet-Finnish war. Many citizens, soldiers of the Soviet Union really consider the Finnish workers and peasants an oppressed class. Otherwise, they would hardly have been able to fight against the Finns and under the threat of severe reprisals. It seems that even Stalin himself, who, it must be supposed, suffers from a complex split of consciousness, thinks that in the USSR, under his personal rule, the people of Suomi would live much better. A reconnaissance network, adjusted to the needs of I. Dzhugashvili, is helpful in confirming such a distorted picture of what is happening. A more plausible option is that the dictator, as it is customary for all dictators, simply collects more and more new territories
Dot line Mannerheim 2nd generation, “millionaire” (name of the amount in the Finnish stamps expended for the erection). The thickness of reinforced concrete walls is 2 m, the length of the structure is 30—40 m. Conventional armament is two 76 mm. guns, antitank 37 mm. guns, machine guns. Addition – ditch, mines, barbed wire, concrete bungs. In total, the second generation of bunkers was built 7. Probably, the spring of 1940
Military operations begin after the delivery of an ultimatum, on November 30, 1939, from shelling (ships of the Baltic Fleet) and bombing of Helsinki. The Soviet Union is excluded from the League of Nations. European countries supply Suomi with weapons, including free of charge (350 aircraft, 500 guns) and volunteers. For two months the columns of Soviet troops advancing along the forest roads are being cut by Finnish skiers, surrounded and destroyed. This is no longer the Halkin Gol. Photo – the Soviet armored convoy, defeated in the Karelian forests. Finnish soldiers inspect the frozen Soviet tanks T-26. Probably, December 1939
In February, having saturated the troops with heavy artillery and tanks, having increased the norms of food allowance, the USSR is making progress in the breakthrough of the Mannerheim Line; On March 13, Soviet troops enter Vyborg. The world lies. Irrevocable, severe losses of the USSR – 130 000 people, 650 tanks, 640 aircraft; Finns – 26 000 people, with 450 000 refugees, 62 aircraft. From the Finnish captivity, 4,354 people return, and are being filtered by the NKGB GUGB. 450 of them are released, the rest receive from 5 to 8 years of camps. In the photo there is a Soviet armored column, cut by Finnish skiers into several parts, and destroyed. In the foreground is a truck with an anti-aircraft installation. December 1939
This military operation could have a special meaning if the USSR kept Petsamo (Pechenga) with nickel ore stocks, much needed by Germany’s military industry. However, the international community, including, above all, the UK, is strongly opposed. The area Petsamo returns to the Finns, and they organize a large-scale supply of nickel to the Axis countries. Pechenga will join the Russian Federation only in 1944. The photo shows the Soviet howitzer B-4. The caliber is 203 mm. (although it seems that much more). The main hero of the Finnish war. The surname “Stalin’s Sledgehammer”, or “Karelian Sculptor”, for the fact that this instrument turns Finnish dots into a kind of avant-garde statues. The result of action B-4 – if not the penetration of the walls, then the psychological impact on the defenders of the DOTs. Many of them, after a long bombardment of the B-4 went crazy. Karelian Isthmus, February 1940
Among the advantages in the combat training of troops, after such a harsh school, is the abolition of the institution of political commissars, the experience of breaking through long-term fortifications, the winter war as a whole, and the return to production of a submachine gun (PAP). Cons, in addition to the hardest losses – the German government understands that, in principle, is able to achieve all-round success in the war against the “colossus on clay feet.” … A view of the surviving Soviet soldier in the camera. On the ruins of the Finnish pillbox, the spring of 1940.
Soviet officers are posing against the backdrop of “Karelian sculpture”. March-April 1940
…Denmark and Norway are threatened with the capture of two centers of power: England and Germany. Denmark tends to the protectorate of Germany, the leaders of the country (ethnic Germans, as a rule) give the order not to resist the invasion; which took place in March 1940, and cost the life of thirteen Danish and two German soldiers. The Reich acquires a good supplier of agricultural products, a dozen of warships, as well as a 6,000-strong voluntary corps, which fought on the Eastern Front until its disbandment in 1943. Photo – German tanks T-2 on the streets of Copenhagen (Denmark)
In April 1940, German warships attacked the British-assisted Norway and, by June 16 of the same year, with the support of airborne assault forces, seized it. The irrevocable human losses of the opponents are approximately equal: the Norwegians have 1,400 men, and also 60,000 prisoners, the British 1800, French and Polish 500, Germans about 4000. Allied forces are deprived of a total of 15 warships, including the aircraft carrier, Germany – 34 large and 10 small; these losses make the landing operation in the UK questionable. As a result of the submarine war, England is losing 485 ships, which is one