WASHINGTON -- As usual, it was a white Christmas in Helsinki 60 years ago. But 1939 was anything but usual. Even the war was unusual, already being dubbed the "Phony War" because all had been mostly quiet on the Western Front since "hostilities" broke out in Europe that September.
The Eastern Front, though it had yet to be so called, had exploded and subsided when Germany and the Soviet Union overran Poland. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were then gobbled up by Stalin, and the Finns agreed to all of his territorial demands except the Soviet garrisoning of the port city of Hango. A Soviet attack, devoid of a formal declaration of war, was the result on Nov. 30.What followed was neither a phony war nor a blitzkrieg. Rather, the Winter War became a military classic, a model of man's finest qualities and a beacon to a wavering world then facing the terrible onslaught of totalitarianism.
Finland had been a part of the Russian Empire for more than 100 years when it broke away during the Russian Revolution of 1917. By 1939, freedom was still 22 years young, but the thirst for freedom spanned dozens of generations and was given voice by Jean Sibelius, whose "Finlandia," written in 1900 during Russian occupation, captured the hearts of his countrymen and the enmity of the czar.
Symphonic, nationalistic and colored with musical images of the ponderous, massive Russian bear, swirling clashes and victorious gaiety, the piece so touched the Finnish people that Czar Nicholas II forbade its playing during political crises. "Finlandia" and Finnish independence melded into one.
In 1939, logic was not on Finland's side. Stalin and Hitler were allies, and Europe was fast falling to them. Finland was not allied with France and Britain, and Poland, which had been allied with them, benefited not at all from the association. Finland's army of only 200,000 men, backed up by 100,000 national guardsmen, was arrayed against a million Soviet soldiers, backed up by millions more.
And worst of all, the Finnish lines of supply were blocked by fellow Scandinavian countries, Norway and Sweden, which clung desperately to neutrality. In 1939, the evil grip of totalitarianism was choking the world, and on the Eastern Front, Finland was facing it alone. But the strains of Sibelius played to emotions not predicated on logic.
Stalin's attack was massive and simultaneous along the 1,000-mile Soviet-Finnish border. The only Finnish advantages were skis, warm clothing and patriotic fervor, which proved enough -- initially. These meager advantages allowed the Finnish commanders to break up their forces into small units, that could be relied upon to act aggressively against much larger Soviet formations.
Soviet columns were harassed, stopped, pierced and, in many instances, annihilated -- the Battle of Suomussalmi being a classic in which the Finns, outnumbered three to one, destroyed two Soviet divisions during that year's Christmas season.
Stalin's troops were stopped all along the line. The Soviets stopped, regrouped, brought up large numbers of reinforcements and launched "human sea" assaults on the Karelian Isthmus in February and March of 1940. But by then the Finns had won the admiration of the world -- including that of the German General Staff -- while Stalin's armies won only their disdain. As a result, Stalin's demands for peace were no harsher than his prewar demands.
Even more significant was the German view of the Soviets. It was widely believed that Stalin's purge of his officer corps during the '30s had mortally crippled his army, and the Soviet performance during the Winter War seemed to support that conclusion. Certainly it convinced Hitler not to worry about a back-stabbing while he was dealing with the French and British.
And later, after being unable to invade Britain after losing the supremacy of the skies in the Battle of Britain that followed the fall of France, Hitler was enticed -- as was Napoleon in somewhat similar circumstances more than a century earlier -- to turn on Russia. So, on June 22, 1941, with Finland as a single-opponent ally, Hitler attacked Stalin.
United Feature Syndicate