Part 10 Peace Feelers and the Big Battle

Peace feelers

Already in December 1941 there started to arise grave doubts in leading Finnish political and military circles about Germany’s chances of winning the war with Russia. Contact was taken with Russia, through US channels, to sound out the possibility of a separate Finnish-Russian peace settlement. The Russian attitude was very uncompromising, back to the borders of the 1940 Moscow peace or no deal… Obviously the Russian thinking was along the lines that either they are going to win the war and then be able to dictate the settlement conditions or if they loose the war any separate agreement with Finland now is anyway worthless. And just now mastering the German onslaught was the only thing that mattered, and in that context Finland or the Finnish army didn’t really matter one way or another. Finland was of course taken aback by the negative Russian attitude and the subject was dropped for the time being.
When in January 1943 it started to become obvious which way the war would go contact was re-established. There was no change in the Russian attitude. News of the negotiations was leaked and quickly used by as well Russians as Germans. Stalin utilized the rumour of a separate settlement with Finland, that could be followed by others, maybe even with Germany, as a way to put pressure on the western allies to become more active in the war against Germany and Hitler utilized it to warn Finland that Germany too might consider a separate settlement with Russia, in which case Finland could be left to fight on all alone… After the Teheran conference in December 1943 Finland was informed by the US that no help, diplomatic or otherwise, was to be expected from the Western powers, Finland had allied it with Hitler’s Germany and would now have to bear the consequences and handle its relationship with Stalin’s Russia all by itself. In February 1944 Russia tried to put pressure on Finland by three very heavy bombing attacks on Helsinki, performed by altogether 2100 bombers. The results achieved were minimal in relation to the resources allocated but the message was clear. The situation started to look rather desperate and Finland decided to send its emissary to Moscow to see if something reasonable could be negotiated, even if it was to be based on the 1940 borders. There were two big stumbling blocks, a war indemnification payment of 600 million dollars (defined as 1938 gold dollars, equals approx. 8.2 billion at 2005 values) and a complete break with Germany and disarmament within two weeks of all German forces in Finland. In particular the last condition seemed to be designed to be impossible to fulfil. It was however possible to get it modified to read that the German forces should either be disarmed within the time given or failing that, Finland should expel the Germans using military means. The Finnish government again decided, against the wish of Marshal Mannerheim, to refuse the offered terms, mainly because of the clause concerning the Germans. These negotiations and the eventual refusal managed to enrage as well the Russians as the Germans. The Russians blasted Finland for having become a spineless follower of Hitler and Hitler in his anger forbade all deliveries of food and weapons to Finland until written guarantees of no separate settlements with Russia had been delivered by the Finns. Marshal Mannerheim in a personal letter to Hitler asked for the embargo to be rescinded, to no avail. Hitler’s polite reply the 4th of June said that Germany was hard pressed for weapons itself and could not abstain from any if it couldn’t be certain the weapons were to be used against the Russians. On the 9th of June the Russians started their big offensive and quickly broke through the Finnish defence lines. The future of Finland started to look not only very bleak; the big question was: is there a future.

The big battle

With Finland facing total disaster on the battlefield Mannerheim contacted Hitler again and now the German dictator relented and on the 12th made the decision that Finland would be provided with arms as long as the country continued to fight and six days later more than 10 000 sorely needed anti-tank weapons had been delivered. Even more important was the arrival of the powerful and very professional “Kuhlmey”-unit of Luftwaffe. Its Stukas, FW190 Fighter-bombers and fighters at one stroke more than doubled the air power available to the defenders. In addition a German assault-gun battalion and an infantry division were deployed to southern Finland. The Russian advance however just rolled on. After penetrating the first defence line on the 10th, the second line (the VT-line) was broken on the17th and on the 20th Vyborg fell after a more or less token defence. The Finnish army seemed quite unable even to delay the Russian advance. But then things started to change. Further advance westwards from Vyborg was thwarted at Tienhaara around midsummer and then an initially successful new Russian breakthrough at Tali, north of Vyborg, resulted in a pitched battle, the largest ever fought in any of the Nordic countries, lasting for days after which the front was re-established just a bit further to the northwest, level with the Ihantala village. All further Russian attempts to advance in that direction were thwarted. Having now failed for the second time the Russians moved their attempts to Suvanto (Äyräpää) for a third, and as later became apparent, final, attempt when they tried to cross the Vuoksi River in order to roll up the flank of the defenders at Ihantala. The intensity of the ensuing battle of the bridgehead are best described by a couple of utterances by the commander on the Finnish side, lieutenant colonel, (later General of the Infantry) Adolf Ehrnrooth, one of the truly great leaders of the war, “In the evening we were eight regimental commanders on the north shore of the river, I and seven Russian. Next morning I was the only one still alive” and “I had a full time job in finding new company commanders. Their average lifespan was two hours.” After a week of fighting like that the Russians gave up. They had their bridgehead but couldn’t get out of it. In the Winter War the defenders had been worn out first, this time it was the attacker that gave up. The Finnish army had lost the war but saved the country. Again.

jcl