Victory is not a victory
"Let the hand that signed this terrible treaty wither!" – Kasti Kallio, President of Finland
The uneven progress of the war, especially the failure of the three strong attacks in the direction of the Karelian Isthmus, made Stalin extremely dissatisfied, and while ordering the suspension of the offensive, he relieved the command of the front-line commander-in-chief Meretskov, and the National Defense Commission directly commanded the Soviet-Finnish operation. The General Staff of the Soviet Army summarized and reviewed the operation situation in December, and found that the Leningrad Military District did not have a detailed grasp of the situation of the "Mannerheim Line", the command of the troops was loose and lacked training in multi-service joint operations, and the front of the offensive was too wide and the front line was too long, resulting in the dispersion of troops, it was difficult to exert numerical superiority, and there were many problems in logistics, communications, air-ground coordination, etc.
Stalin, the supreme leader of the Soviet Union (left), talks with Shaposhnikov, chief of the General Staff of the Red Army (right).
After study, the National Defense Committee decided to adopt the operational plan drawn up by the Chief of the General Staff, Shaposhnikov, concentrate his forces in the direction of the Karelian Isthmus, adopt the tactics of narrow frontal force with overwhelming firepower and kill and injure the Finnish army, and establish a unified command of the Northwest Front.
■ During the Soviet-Finnish War, the Soviet armored vehicle column that marched to the front line noted that the hull was painted with white camouflage.
In order to complete the battle, the Soviet army drew more fresh troops from the rear, concentrated on strengthening the 7th and 13th Armies in the direction of Karelia, and the front-line troops also carried out targeted pre-war training, mobilized more winter equipment, improved the production capacity and transportation efficiency of the Leningrad region through in-depth mobilization, and improved the logistics supply situation, including the daily rationing of vodka recommended by Voroshilov to help officers and soldiers resist the cold and improve morale.
In January 1940, the Soviet army was busy reorganizing and preparing for the war, and there was basically no major offensive action, but artillery and aviation carried out continuous attacks on Finnish positions to maintain pressure and effectively grasp the Finnish positions through extensive reconnaissance. After some operations, the Soviet army on the Karelian front increased from 10 to 25 to 26 divisions, with another 6 to 7 tank brigades to provide support, and the strength of the Soviet army increased to 600,000 people, and the total strength of the Soviet army in the Soviet-Finnish battlefield has reached 990,000 people, 6500 tanks, 3200 aircraft!
■ A Finnish machine gun group hidden in a position in a white camouflage suit.
The temporary stagnation of the front did not make the Finns feel at ease, and although the Soviet offensive was blocked in the first months of the war, the pressure on Finland was approaching its limit. The impact of the war on Finland was much greater than that of the Soviet Union, with 340,000 men in the country and 84,000 women mobilized to support the war, with a total population of 3.7 million, the mobilization rate has exceeded 10%, economic activity has basically stagnated, the supply of materials has become increasingly tight, especially the lack of shells, in one month mortar shells consumed 67% of the pre-war reserves, 76 mm shells consumed 52%, and other shells were also consumed between 25% and 32%. Finland, seeking aid from the outside world, secretly proposed to the Soviet Union to renegotiate, but received no response.
During the Soviet-Finnish War, Finnish women were mobilized to prepare war materials for the front.
On February 1, 1940, the thunderous sound of artillery resounded throughout the Karelian Isthmus, thousands of Soviet artillery opened the curtain of the new offensive with intensive barrage shooting, the artillery preparation lasted for a day and a night, consuming up to 300,000 shells, not only seriously damaged the Finnish fortifications, but also the almost non-stop shelling made it impossible for the Finnish army to repair, affecting the strength of the subsequent defensive operations, and also caused heavy casualties to the defenders.
After the artillery preparation, the Soviet army launched a full line of attack, the coordination between the branches of the army was greatly improved, the tanks and infantry worked closely together, making it difficult for the Finnish army's previous anti-tank tactics to work, but in many areas the Soviet infantry still used the dense charging tactics, and suffered heavy casualties under the fire of the Finnish army.
■ Soviet 203 mm heavy artillery deployed on the Karelian front in the Soviet-Finnish War.
Despite this, the Soviet army's tidal offensive gradually destroyed the Finnish embankment, and after 10 days of fierce fighting, the Soviet army finally opened a breakthrough. On February 11, the Soviets put in 460,000 men, 3,350 artillery pieces, 3,000 tanks and 1,300 aircraft to launch a new offensive to expand the results, and the 8 Finnish divisions in front of them were about 150,000 people were crushed by the superior strength and firepower of the Soviet army, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army, Mannerheim, was forced to order a full retreat on February 15!
■ Soviet soldiers display captured Finnish flags between battles.
In the face of an absolute power gap, Finland could no longer support it, and its war power was rapidly drying up. On 5 March, the Soviets crossed the Mannerheim Line, and the Finnish forces were in tatters, nearly exhausted, and heavily damaged. Sweden publicly stated that it would not aid Finland, Norway and Sweden were intimidated by the threat of Nazi Germany, and refused to open the channel to the British and French troops to support Finland, and the isolated Finnish government had no choice but to accept the Soviet Union's terms.
The Soviets also wanted to end the war quickly, on the one hand, the Soviet army had already paid a high casualty price, and as spring came, the snow and ice melted, the mud and swamps would cause greater difficulties, and Germany and Britain and France could intervene at any time.
■ The territories ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union after the end of the war are marked in red.
In mid-February 1940, the Soviet union and Finland made contact through Sweden, began peace negotiations, and after some bargaining, signed the Moscow Peace Treaty on March 12, and the two armies ceased fire on the same day.
Under the peace treaty, Finland ceded part of Karelia, the entire Karelian Isthmus and land north of Lake Ladoga, including Vyborg, Finland's fourth largest city, equivalent to 8% of its territory, and Finland lost 30% of its economic assets, forcing some 450,000 people to move from the land it had ceded.
In addition, Finland ceded part of the Sala region, the Rebach Peninsula in the Barents Sea and four islands in the Gulf of Finland, which was leased to the Soviet Union as a military base for 30 years. The Area of Pesamo, occupied by the Soviets during the war, was returned to Finland.
Success or failure
"We just kick open the door and the whole decaying structure will go to waste." — Adolf Hitler's declaration at the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
The outcome of the Soviet-Finnish War for the Soviet Union can only be described as a "crushing victory". According to different sources, the Soviet army killed 50,000 to 150,000 people in the war, the total number of losses was between 270,000 and 400,000, 1200 to 3500 tanks were destroyed, and about 1,000 aircraft were lost, of which less than half were combat losses.
On the Finnish side, 25,904 people were killed or missing, 43,557 were injured, soviet airstrikes killed 957 civilians, 20 to 30 tanks were destroyed, and 62 aircraft were lost. In terms of the gap in strength between the two sides, this battle loss-for-exchange ratio was too ugly for the Soviet Union.
■ After the end of the Soviet-Finnish War, the Finnish people held funerals for the fallen.
The Soviet-Finnish war had far-reaching implications in all its aspects. The Soviets had reformed the organization, equipment, and tactics of the army based on war experience, but by the time Germany launched Operation Barbarossa 15 months later, these tasks had not been fully completed. The Soviet-Finnish War was a political success for the Germans, the Soviet Union and the League of Nations were humiliated, and the Anglo-French Supreme War Council exposed its confusion and powerlessness.
More importantly, the Soviet army's very poor performance in the war convinced Hitler that the attack on the Soviet Union would be successful, which strongly affected the course of World War II. The slow and clumsy performance of Britain and France in the war proved that their organizational structure was simply unable to develop a workable plan, and it also showed that it was not suitable for effective war mobilization in England or France.
This defeat led to the collapse of the Dalardi government in France, and the crumbling cabinet of Chamberlain in Britain, who soon announced his resignation on May 10, 1940. The war brought Finland into close ties with Germany and later prompted Finland to join the Axis powers in order to take revenge on the Soviet Union.
■ On June 22, 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa to invade the Soviet Union.
Compared with the Soviet Union, Finland was undoubtedly a very weak country, not only was the number of troops far inferior, but also the war materials were extremely scarce: the stock of bullets, shells and fuel could only last for 19 to 60 days. The shortage of ammunition meant that the Finns had little ability to carry out counter-artillery or saturation shooting, no decent tank troops, anti-tank equipment could only rely on a small amount of external assistance, and the air force was better than nothing. Despite such a serious asymmetry of strength, the Soviets fought extremely hard and at great cost, mainly because of the light enemy and the serious underestimation of the Finns' will to resist.
■ In the Soviet-Finnish War, Finnish soldiers made their own large slingshots to throw ammunition at Soviet positions.
Before the war, the Soviets agreed that Finland could be taken within a few weeks, so they were not prepared for the coming winter: the tanks were painted olive green, the soldiers' uniforms were also khaki, and there were no field tents suitable for winter combat. The winters of 1939-1940 were unusually cold, the Karelian Isthmus recorded a minimum temperature of -43°C on January 16, 1940, tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers died of frostbite, and some Soviet troops suffered up to 10% frostbite casualties even before crossing the Finnish border. The Soviets also lacked skiing skills, so soldiers were forced to march in long columns on the road. It was not until late January 1940 that the Soviets painted their equipment white for winter combat and issued snow camouflage suits to their infantry.
■ Soviet soldiers who were captured by the Finnish army at the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish war also wore conspicuous dark uniforms, while the Finnish army wore white camouflage suits.
In addition, during the domestic political struggles of the 1930s, the Soviet army was severely affected - most of the officers of the army were replaced by inexperienced personnel, resulting in a great decline in the tactical quality of the Soviet army, and the chain of command became very complex and bloated. At the same time, Zhukov's successful experience in the combined operations of tanks, artillery and aircraft in the Battle of Suzhnomenkhan in the Far East was not given due attention, and in the Soviet-Finnish War, the Soviet army took three months and 1 million people to complete the task that Zhukov completed in ten days of the Battle of Nomonhan.
■ Finnish ski troops patrol the snow and use reindeer sleighs to transport supplies.
The Finnish army, on the other hand, is good at cross-country skiing. Cold, snow, forests and polar nights have all become friends with Finns. The Finns were dressed thickly, and the skiers wore light white snow capes, which made the snow camouflage almost invisible, making it easier for them to guerrilla attack the Soviet column. Although the Finns were more tactically flexible, their tactical success could not be fully exploited due to a lack of heavy equipment and limited troops. The encircled Soviets were hard to eat easily, and they built field fortifications on the spot, buried tanks in the ground, used them as fixed batteries, and used airdrops to supply them, which could last for weeks or even months, pinning down many Finnish troops.
■ Finnish ski troops ambush in the snow, they are very good at guerrilla warfare.
All in all, this unexpected encounter between the Soviet and Finnish armies at the beginning of World War II broke the seemingly powerful aura of the Soviet army, made the Third Reich think that it had seen the Bottom card of the Soviet Union, once again committed the mistake of the French Emperor Napoleon in 1812, and eventually led to its own demise.
Link to the previous issue: World War II version of "special military operations", the Soviet army attacked Finland in the cold winter, which was even worse than today's Russian army