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The Winter War (also known as the Russo-Finnish War) broke out when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, three months after the start of World War II. As a consequence, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on December 14th. Stalin had expected to conquer the whole country by the end of 1939, but Finnish resistance frustrated the Soviet forces, which outnumbered them three to one. Finland held out until March 1940, when a peace treaty was signed ceding about 10% of Finland's territory, and 20% of her industrial capacity, to the Soviet Union.- "We gained 57,000 km² [22,000 square miles] of territory. Just enough to bury our dead." – a Soviet General
Franco-British preparations for support of Finland through northern Scandinavia (the Allied campaign in Norway), intended to occupy the Northern Scandinavia with its iron ore mines at the same time, became a strong reason for Nazi Germany's invasion of Denmark and Norway within a month after the war ( Operation WeserübungOperation Weserubung was the German codename for Nazi Germany's assault on Scandinavia during World War II. The name translates as "Weser Exercise", the Weser being a German river. On the early morning of 9 April, 1940 Wesertag ("Weser Day") — Germany inv). Furthermore, it has been persuasively argued that the poor showing of the Soviet forces had a significant effect on Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler ( April 20, 1889 April 30, 1945) was the Fuhrer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. In that capacity he was Chancellor of Germany, head of government, and head of state, ruling as a's decision to attack the Soviet Union in 19411941 is also the title of a Steven Spielberg movie made in 1979 see 1941 (film). Events January January 6 Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address. January 10 Lend-Lease is introduced into the United St ( Operation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa Unternehmen Barbarossa was the German codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which commenced on June 22, 1941. It was to be the turning point for the fortunes of Hitler's Third Reich, in that the).
1 Background
Finland had a long history of being a part of the Swedish kingdomThe Kingdom of Sweden Konungariket Sverige in Swedish) is a Nordic country in Scandinavia, in Northern Europe. It is bordered by Norway on the west, Finland on the northeast, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat on the southwest, and the Baltic Sea and the Gulf when it was conquered by RussiaThe Russian Empire ( Russian: also Imperial Russia covers the period of Russian history from the expansion of Russia under Peter the Great into the Russian Empire stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, to the deposition of Nicholas II of Russia, in 1808Events January 1 Importation of slaves into the United States is banned February 11 Anthracite coal first burned as fuel, experimentally. February Russia issues an ultimatum to Sweden, to join France, Denmark and Russia and attacks Finland. March 26 Charl. Following the end of World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of, and the revolution that brought Soviet power to government in Russia, Finland had declared itself independent on December 6, 1917. The German–Finnish ties remained close, although Finnish sympathy for the National Socialists was very sparse. These strong ties were founded when Finland's underground independence movement during the First World War was supported by Imperial Germany. In the subsequent Civil War Germany-trained Finnish Jaeger troops and regular German troops played a crucial role. Only Germany's defeat in World War I hindered the establishment of a Germany-dependent monarchy under Väinö I of Finland.
The relationship between the Soviet Union and Finland was tense and frosty—both the two periods of forced russification at the turn of the century, and the legacy of the failed socialist rebellion in Finland contributed to a strong mutual distrust. Josef Stalin feared that Nazi Germany would attack sooner or later, and was keen to avoid a German attack on Leningrad (now: Saint Petersburg) via Finnish territory. In 1932, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Finland. The agreement was reaffirmed in 1934 for ten years.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a mutual non-aggression pact, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, on August 23, 1939. The pact also included a secret clause allocating the countries of Eastern Europe between the two signatories. Finland was agreed to be in the Soviet " sphere of interest". The German attack on Poland, September 1st, was followed by a Soviet invasion from the east. In a few weeks they had divided the country between them. The countries in the neighbourhood realized their fate could be the same. During the fall of 1939 Stalin demanded that Finland and the Baltic countries allow the Soviet Union to set up military bases on their soil - supposedly for defensive purposes. The Finnish government felt it had little alternative but to refuse Stalin's demands; on November 30 the Soviets attacked with 23 divisions of 450,000 men who quickly reached the Mannerheim Line. The war was based on a bogus border incident - the so-called Shelling of Mainila where Soviet artillery fired on their own soldiers, blaming it on the Finns. While the claims have never been considered credible by the Finns, they were only recently proved false by formerly classified documents.
A puppet regime was created in the occupied Finnish border town of Terijoki (now Zelenogorsk) on December 1, 1939, under the auspices of the Finnish Democratic Republic and headed by Otto Ville Kuusinen for both diplomatic purposes (it immediately became the only government for Finland that was recognized by the Soviet Union) and for military ones (it was hoped to cause socialists in Finland's Army to defect). It was not particularly successful. This republic existed until March 12, 1940, and was eventually incorporated with the Russian Karelo-Finnish SSR.
