Part 4 Winter War and International Military Aid

International military aid

Leaving the curious “Rescue plan” aside, Finland received help, support and aid from numerous countries. The show of “The little peaceful country pluckily standing up against its big evil neighbour” of course had all the ingredients necessary to inspire all forms of actions of sympathy in most of the western world. Germany alone, with an official policy that at best could be described as hands-off and as at worst as outright hostile was an exception.
Humanitarian aid organizations sprang up in many countries and often with high-powered sponsorship, ex-president Hoover in the US leading “Finnish relief” just to pick an example, quickly started a flow of non-military aid.
But the directly military aid was another matter. Weapons and ammunition could not be raised through popular subscriptions but had to be bought from or through governments. Governments that mostly were far better at producing sympathetic words than in taking supporting action. The shining exception was Sweden where although the government tried to thread the narrow path between active support and non-intervention (note) at least did not actively hinder the voluntary military support organizations and in some case really made exceptional concessions. Foremost here springs to mind the creation of F19, Wing 19 of the Royal Swedish Air Force, which despite its designation and the source of its planes and personnel was sent to be a part of the Finnish armed forces, forming a mini “Second Finnish Air Force”. The fact that it was equipped with obsolescent planes does not detract from the tremendous show of good will it was when one realizes that at that point of time Sweden didn’t have anything better! Furthermore there were some 9 000 Swedish and 1 000 Norwegian volunteers forming an army unit that took over responsibility for part of the northern Russo-Finnish front and so released Finnish troops for deployment in the south, where the outcome of the war was to be decided. These Swedish troops were equipped and supported from Sweden and they were numerous enough to really have a material impact. There were volunteers from many other countries too but in far smaller numbers. Their use was mostly severely hampered by lack of any organization in Finland were they could have been put to effective use. Exceptions were some Danish fighter pilots that, already trained in their home country on the same types of planes that Finland used, could be put directly into the Finnish organization.
Finland tried desperately to by planes, guns and ammunition from abroad but as there was very limited amounts of cash available it usually meant first getting some line of credit guaranteed by the government in the seller’s country. Fighter planes were bought from Italy, France, Britain and the US. The Italians were quick in delivering but the delivery then ran into trouble when Germany denied trans-shipment by rail. The planes had to be taken back to Italy and loaded on ships to be taken around all of Europe to be eventually delivered to Sweden were they were put in flying condition and flown to Finland. The Italian, as well as all the others, with only a few exceptions all arrived too late to see active service during the Winter War. The same happened with most of the other type of equipment that finally could be bought. The by far largest direct aid in guns and ammunition came from a somewhat unexpected, and rather unwilling, source. As the Finnish prime minister rather bitingly remarked to the American ambassador in Helsinki: “During the first months of fighting we took more arms from the Russians as war booty than we received from all friendly powers put together”.

Note:
Sweden was torn between on one hand the wish to help and on the other hand the realization that in the end even Sweden’s full intervention as a co-belligerent side-by-side with Finland would not change the eventual outcome, only prolong the fighting. Combined with this was a realization that Sweden, true to its more than a hundred year long tradition as a neutral best served Finland’s case by staying neutral and offering its services as a mediator. This stance was probably very realistic and wise but it didn’t buy any friends. In Finland there grew a feeling of: “You left us to fight our common enemy alone; don’t you realize that your turn will be next?” This combined with the Swedish “no” to the infamous allied rescue plan created a lot of negative feelings that persists to this day. All the 9 000 volunteers, many of which with their lives paid for their conviction in the wartime slogan “Finland’s case is our case”, having been being most thanklessly forgotten in the process.