<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > preface</h1>
In World War II, a little-known battle called the Winter War was fought between Finland and the Soviet Union, and the result was a shock. After the outbreak of the October Revolution of the Russian Empire. In order to compete for the legitimate inheritance rights of the Russian territory, there was a fierce civil war within the Soviet Union, which was based on the newborn Soviet Red regime and the White Army regime of the Russian Empire supported by the European and American powers. In this civil war, Finland, which had been snatched from Sweden by Russia, took the opportunity to declare independence. However, Finland's independence caused a pang of concern on the Part of the Soviet Union, as Finland occupied territory only 32 kilometers from Leningrad, the Second Largest City in the Soviet Union, which seriously affected the Soviet Union, which had since succeeded the Soviet regime. Because the Soviet Union itself expressed dissatisfaction with Finland's independence, and at the same time, during the Soviet-Russian Civil War, Finland had opened its port to the British and interfered in the internal affairs of The Soviet Union, so the Soviet Union naturally regarded Finland as a thorn in the eye and a thorn in the flesh.
The Soviet Union has been suspicious of Finland since its founding, not only geographically from Leningrad, the second largest city in the Soviet Union, but also because Finland maintained very close relations with Germany during its independence. In negotiations with the Finnish side, whether it was negotiations or threats, Finland was soft and hard, and the Soviet Union was determined to use military action to make Finland clear its position, solve the border problem, and if necessary, annex Finland through military action, so as to solve the threat that Finland posed to the Soviet Union. In November 1939, the Soviet Union claimed that the shelling of the village of Manilla by the Finnish army had caused the death of Soviet soldiers, and single-handedly created the Manilla Incident, using this as an excuse for the Soviet government to demand an apology from the Finnish government and lead Finland's own army to retreat 20-25 kilometers, but the Finnish government vetoed what had not been done. The Soviet Union took the opportunity to abrogate the Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact, and on November 30, the Soviet Union led 450,000 troops into the Finnish border and arrived at the Mannerheim Line, beginning the Winter War.
But this war was a humiliating war in Soviet history at the time of this war.
Comparing the total strength of the two sides, in this war, the Soviet army invested a total of 760,000 troops, more than 3,000 tanks, and more than 1,000 aircraft. Finland, on the other hand, has a strength of only 127,000 and 140 warplanes. At the same time, the Soviet army also occupied an absolute advantage in weapons and numbers. With such a disparity in strength, it was clear that the battle was a battle without suspense, and the Soviet Union would crush the Finnish defenses. But when the results of the battle were counted, it was really surprising: in this Winter War, the Finnish army suffered about 105,000 casualties, but annihilated several times the enemy. The Soviets suffered more than three times as many casualties as the Finnish army, reaching more than 375,000 men, the air force lost more than 540 aircraft, and 1,244 tanks. The most serious consequence was not only to expose the weakness of the Soviet Union at this time, but also to seriously damage the Soviet Union's own international image, and Finland stood closely with Germany for its own interests, and also laid the foundation for the German Army Group North to attack Leningrad, which also increased the difficulty of the Soviet army to a certain extent.
From the Soviet documents that have been declassified and published, we have found the reasons for the heavy losses of the Soviet army.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > the Soviet army's light enemy arrogance was a major reason</h1>
Before the battle, the Soviet side also attached great importance to this war, claiming to take Finland within two weeks, and at the same time invested several times the strength of Finland, coupled with its own equipment advantage, the superiority of troops gave the Soviet army a lot of self-confidence, so the Soviet Union was contemptuous of Finland's strength. This can be seen in the scale of the fortification of the Kareliati Gorge. In fact, at the beginning, the Soviet army still occupied a certain advantage, after all, the equipment was well-equipped and the individual combat ability was also strong. However, with the advancement of the war situation, the Soviet side did not have a full understanding of the Finnish defense zone, resulting in the Soviet army to the defense zone, suffered a serious resistance from the Finnish army, the Finnish side with the terrain advantage, caused great damage to the Soviet army. Due to the initial contempt, even if the Soviet side realized that it was necessary to concentrate superior forces to change this situation, it was difficult to effectively attack the Finnish army, the most prominent reason was that the railway transportation was not mobilized in time, resulting in the Soviet reinforcements and soldiers could not be delivered, and the various battle plans were delayed again and again. The Soviet Union, as an industrial power, invested a large number of heavy tanks on this battlefield, but there are many swamps and snowdrifts in the terrain of Finland, which makes a large number of heavy tanks stuck in place, heavy weapons lose their due role, and the Soviet Union itself does not carry too many light weapons, so that the Soviet side loses its own advantages and is still in prison. At the same time, Finnish soldiers will ski and be good at snow combat, while the Soviet army loses its weapon superiority and then loses mobility, resulting in the Unilateral Passive Beating of the Soviet Army.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" > Soviet commanders were unevenly capable of throwing pots at each other</h1>
Through consulting relevant materials, there is a report of Soviet Marshal Voroshilov on the soviet-Finnish war, which profoundly points out the shortcomings of the Soviet army in the quality of commanders, which is also a major reason for the difficulty of this operation. In this report, Marshal Voroshilov clearly pointed out that many commanders in the army, from the company headquarters to the division headquarters, lacked the qualifications to command the battle, so that the Soviet army fell into chaos during the battle, the orders were not accessible, the soldiers could not effectively carry out the orders, and the various theaters of operations were in disarray. This allowed the Finnish army to seize the opportunity to divide the battlefield with a very small number of people, and to use mobility and terrain advantages to divide and annihilate large soviet forces, typically the Soviet 44th and 18th divisions, which greatly affected the confidence and morale of the Soviet Union. In his report, the marshal seriously accused commanders at all levels of insufficient command ability and a negative attitude, which not only allowed the enemy to complete huge results with a small number of forces, but also seriously hit the morale of the Soviet army, and commanders at all levels would exaggerate the combat ability of the Finnish army after facing defeat, shirk responsibility, and find a reasonable excuse for their own command failure.
Marshal Voroshilov
Why is it that the large population congress, which has been so powerful in strength and has experienced the baptism of war, lacks generals with command ability? You know, the Soviet Union had the most famous Frunze Military Academy. This brings us to the purge that the Soviet Union experienced before the war. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin was elected as the supreme leader of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but Stalin's political position was unstable at that time, and there was an opposition force in the party led by Trotsky, Rikov, Kamenev, etc., which laid the groundwork for the subsequent purge. Stalin believed that only by controlling absolute political authority could the Soviet Union be brought to the road of heavy industry construction without restraint. The assassination of Kirov, the secretary of the Leningrad Provincial Party Committee, in 1934 provided Stalin with an excellent excuse, initially only within the government, but the vigorous purge gradually spread to the army. It is known that in 1937, two of the five marshals who had made great achievements in battle were secretly executed, namely Yegorov and Govorov, both at the upper and lower levels, and even more seriously affected by the middle and lower levels, in which more than 35,000 officers with command experience were executed.
In the 1930s, the modernization of the Soviet Union was precisely in a critical period, in the military, it is necessary to keep up with the world trend, vigorously develop the military, promote military mechanization, and form a perfect set of large-depth combat theory, which helped the Soviet Union strengthen the construction of the communist group and mechanized troops that were lacking before, the proposer and implementer of this theory is Tukhachevsky, if it can be sustained, the number of mechanized troops of the Soviet army will be greatly increased. At the same time, the army's rapid mobile combat capability will also be upgraded by a notch, even if there is a mistake of the light enemy, it will not lose so much. It was precisely this purge campaign that caused this military expert to die unjustly, and the military high-level who promoted the theory of large-depth operations was also marginalized, which were immeasurable losses caused by this purge and were also one of the important reasons for the heavy losses of the Soviet side in the Soviet-Finnish War.
Tukhachevsky
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > the Finnish army's tactics were appropriate</h1>
The Finnish army fought on the mainland, the familiarity with the environment is unmatched by the Soviet army, and at the same time exerted its own expertise in chemistry, greatly avoiding the opportunity to engage the Soviet army head-on, the Soviet army relied on its own army and strong firepower to support, but still slippery Finnish army could not do anything, like a black bear, fell into a muddy swamp, constantly attacked by bees, but could not get out. Although Finland inflicted small wounds on the Soviet Union, it could not stand much, and the Soviet Union suffered heavy losses. At the same time, the Finnish side sent a large number of regular snipers to carry out a campaign to shoot the Soviet army, the most famous of which was Simon Haye, who killed a total of 542 Soviet troops in this battle, which made the Soviet army feel frightened. The most terrifying thing was not the day, but the night in Finland, when, according to soviet soldiers, a group of Red Army soldiers were warming around the campfire, a living target in the dark, and the starving and frozen Red Army soldiers watched their comrades fall one by one in order, because they were desperate to see the sun of tomorrow alive.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > is helpless and helpful</h1>
The Finnish army was there to defend its homeland, while the Soviet Union was to invade and seize it. Morally, the Soviet Union showed an ugly face, although the two sides insisted on their own opinions, but the Soviet Union defended its own interests to the interests and strategies of Britain, France and Switzerland, so that the Soviet Union was simultaneously against many countries, in this war, Sweden sent more than 8,400 troops, Britain and France also intended to send a total of 130,000 troops to resist the attack of the Soviet army, and at the same time provided munitions support for Finland, Britain provided Finland with 144 aircraft, more than a hundred cannons, tens of thousands of grenades and mines. France not only provided aircraft and artillery, but also provided Finland with more than five thousand light machine guns, which greatly increased Finland's firepower. At the same time, the United States also provided low-interest loans to Finland and gave it the opportunity to buy, and the United States sold its advanced weapons to Finland, which to some extent made up for finland's lack of firepower. Germany also provided military guidance to Finland, which built strong fortifications in vulnerable areas, and laid trenches and barbed wire at many of the barriers, which were calculated and could be covered by Finnish artillery fire, greatly improving the defense and survivability of each defensive line. On the other hand, the Soviet Union, after all, was the party of aggression, received international condemnation, did not have any assistance, and supported itself on its own, naturally suffered heavy losses in the case of strategic mistakes and light enemies, and lack of commanders.
Although the War was won by the Soviet Union, the Soviet side paid a great price. Although it achieved some of the goals of the Soviet Union, it laid the foundation for Germany to attack the Soviet Union. Because of this war, the strength of the Soviet Union was completely exposed to the eyes of the world, even with mechanized troops, a large number of tanks and aircraft and other heavy firepower, but its poor performance made the world doubt the combat effectiveness of the Soviet Union. Perhaps it was precisely because of this that Germany strengthened its determination to attack the Soviet Union, which they believed was a mud-kneaded giant, seemingly powerful and imminently collapsible. This is also why Germany, after launching the Second World War, dared to attack the Soviet Union while attacking Western Europe, and had the courage to attack the Soviet Union.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" > conclusion</h1>
In fact, from the perspective of both sides, all parties have also promoted the occurrence of war for their own interests, there is no one side is wrong for which side, but from another point of view, war itself is unjust, unjust war brings about the loss of land, the loss of property, from a historical point of view, war has brought a deep impact on mankind since its emergence, causing heavy losses to people's lives and property. Especially with the development of science and technology, the damage of war will also be even greater. So we call for peace, and I don't know if this can really be done today, because there are still fierce wars in some parts of the world, but I still sincerely wish the conscience of mankind to awaken, stop the war, and achieve peace and development.