Thursday Things of Interest goes Forth

Last week I told how Finland got the independence, today we focus on the first war Finland encountered. World War 2 started in September and 30th November 1939 Soviet Union attacked Finland without declaring war and after faking the so called "shots of Mainila", which gave them an excuse for war. As you might remember, Finland was quite divided before, during and after the independence, which reflected to foreign relationships. Germany had trained lots of Finnish soldiers during WW1 and there was sympathy there, but Soviet Union was a close friend to others. Soviets were expecting an easy victory, but the coldest winter of 20th century, Soviet arrogance and Finnish tactics and spirits gave a hard response.

Winter War lasted for 105 days, "105 days of glory" as it is often called. Finland lost the war, but kept the independence. 10% of the area was lost and roughly 26 000 lives were lost in addition of resources. The Soviets had poor motivation, lack of proper equipment even for a normal winter and in general they were poorly led. Soviets lost 126 000 lives, lots more than Finns. They had about three times more soldiers than Finland, thousands of tanks and planes were Finland had 32 and 114.

Motti tactics was one of the key, where both ends of the attacking column were destroyed and the rest were trapped between them and surrounded by meter or two of snow. Thousands of soldiers were trapped by a much smaller force of Finns who constantly harassed the trapped soldiers and kept moving (with skis) giving the impression of a much larger force. Molotov's cocktail was another important factor, named after the the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, who claimed Soviets were not bombing Finnish cities, just dropping food supplies. In response the Finns gave Molotov's cockatails to the tanks.

Finland lost the war and it was a tragic war, but Finland kept the independence, when Soviets were forced to admit the harsh conditions of the winter and they needed to focus their war efforts to other parts of Europe. Finland and Soviets made peace, but it didn't last long. Next week we take a look at the Continuation War.

Here's the official lyric video of a Swedish band Sabaton, which specializes in "war music", here's their take on Winter War. If you are interested in Finnish production, you should consider the movie "Talvisota" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098437/.

--- In other news ---

We have about a dozen of posts for today, there's couple of centimeters of snow here in Finland the temperature is roughly +2 degrees Celcius, so it is rather wet...