Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

On October 14th the Soviet Union demanded that the Finnish frontier north of Leningrad be pushed back along the shore of the gulf so that the frontier would run westward from Lake Ladoga instead of southward as formerly. This would put the Finnish frontier about 50 miles from Leningrad, leaving Finland about half of the Karelian Isthmus. In addition, the Bolsheviks demanded a 30-year lease on the Finnish naval base at Hangö at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, a strip about 100 miles long and 10 miles wide in central Finland (where the Finnish frontier came closest to the railroad line between Leningrad and Russia’s ice-free port of Murmansk on the Arctic Sea), and a small area of about 25 square miles where the Finnish frontier reached the Arctic Ocean west of Murmansk. In return for these concessions Moscow offered a nonaggression pact, about 2,100 square miles of wooded area in central Finland, and permission to Finland to fortify the Aaland Islands between Finland and Sweden, something which had been forbidden since 1921.

It is not yet clear why Finland rejected the Russian demands of October 1939. The Germans and Russians believed that it was done under British influence, but the evidence is not available. At any rate, the Finns asked for German support and were rebuffed as early as October 6-7, 1939 (before the Russian demands were received); they ordered mobilization of their armed forces against the Soviet Union on October 9th, and were reported by the German minister to be “completely mobilized” ten days later. In the negotiations Stalin abandoned the Soviet demand for hangö if he could get the Island of Russarö nearby and the island of Suursaari farther up the gulf, but insisted on most of the Karelian demand; the Finns offered about a third of the Karelian demand but refused to grant any naval bases in the gulf. On November 9th the discussions broke down; four days later the Finnish negotiators went home. For some unexplained reason, the Finns seem to have felt that the Russians would not attack their country, but the Soviets attacked at several points on November 29th.

If the Finns had misinterpreted the Soviet determination to attack, the Soviets misinterpreted the Finnish determination to resist. Although attacked at five major points by large forces with heavy equipment, the Finns made very skillful use of the terrain and the winter weather. In the first two months (December-January) a half-dozen or more Soviet divisions were torn to pieces. Only in February 1940 did the Soviet offensive begin to move, and by the end of the month Finland’s forces were so exhausted by superior numbers that they accepted the Soviet terms. Peace was signed on March 12, 1940.

As soon as Finland realized that Russia seriously intended to attack, it set up a new Cabinet under Risto Ryti to wage the war and simultaneously seek peace by negotiation. This latter proved to be difficult because on December 2nd, Moscow set up a puppet Finnish government under a minor and discredited Finnish Communist in exile, V. Kuusinen; a mutual-aid pact was signed with this puppet state at once. The existence of this regime discouraged Germany from offering any mediation seeking peace, in spite of its eagerness to see the end of the fighting in Finland, but on March 12th, when peace was made with the authentic Finnish government, Kuusinen was simply left in the lurch by Moscow.

The Soviet attack on Finland provided the leaders in the Entente countries with a heaven-sent opportunity to change the declared but unfought war with Germany, which they did not want, into an undeclared but fighting war against the Soviet Union. The fact that a Russian war would be hundreds of miles away, while the war with Germany was on their doorstep, was an added advantage, especially in Paris, which had been steadily resisting British suggestions for any unfriendly action against Germany along the Rhine. Accordingly, Britain and France resurrected the moribund League of Nations, violated the Covenant to put Finland, Egypt, and South Africa on the Council, and illegally (according to the American Journal of International Law ) expelled Russia from the League as an aggressor.

That Russia was an unprovoked aggressor is beyond question, but there was at least a surface inconsistency between the violence of the Anglo-French reaction against Russian aggression in 1939 and the complacency with which they had viewed other aggressions in 1931-1939. This last act of the League of Nations was its most efficient. Although the League’s consideration of the Japanese aggression in China had required fifteen months and resulted in no punishment, Russia was condemned in eleven days in December 1939. The German aggressions of 1936-1939 had not even been submitted to the League of Nations, and the Italian seizure of Albania had been recognized by Britain with unseemly haste earlier in 1939, but the Anglo-French leaders now prepared to attack the Soviet Union both from Finland and from Syria.

In the north, every effort was made by France and Britain to turn the Soviet attack on Finland into a general war against Russia. On December 19, 1939, the Supreme War Council decided to provide Finland with “all indirect assistance in their power” and to use diplomatic pressure on Norway and Sweden to aid Finland against Russia. The Scandinavian countries were informed of this on December 27th. On February 5, 1940, the Supreme War Council decided to send to Finland an expeditionary force of 100,000 heavily armed troops to fight the Soviet hordes. Germany at once warned Norway and Sweden that it would take action against them if the two Scandinavian countries permitted passage of this force.

Germany and Russia were both eager to end the Finnish fighting before any Anglo-French intervention could begin, the former because it feared that Anglo-French forces in Scandinavia would be able to stop shipments of Swedish iron ore across Norway to Germany through the seaport of Narvik, the Russians because they were convinced of an Anglo-French desire to attack them. The evidence supports both of these fears.

Because of its very high quality, Swedish iron ore was essential to the German steel industry. In 1938 Germany imported almost 22 million tons of ore, of which almost nine million tons came from Sweden and over five million came from France. A German-Swedish trade agreement of December 22, 1939, promised that Sweden would ship ten million tons of ore in 1940, of which two or three million would go by way of Narvik. As early as September 1939, the British were discussing a project to interrupt the Narvik shipments either by an invasion of Norway or by mining Norwegian territorial waters. When Germany heard of the Anglo-French expeditionary force being prepared to cross Norway to Finland, it assumed that this was merely an excuse to cut off the ore shipments. Accordingly, Germany began to prepare its own plans to seize Norway first.

As a matter of fact, the Anglo-French expeditionary force was really intended to attack Russia, but it was unable to arrive on time, although Britain and France did all they could to force Finland to continue to fight until they could arrive on the scene. In February word was sent that if Finland made peace the two Western Powers would not be bound to support Finnish independence after the great war ended. On January 3rd the British ambassador was withdrawn from Moscow. On February 26th Lord Halifax rejected a Soviet request that Britain convey its peace terms to Finland; they had to be sent through Sweden instead. On March 4th Daladier and Lord Ironsides formally promised Finland an expeditionary force of 57,000 men. The Scandinavian countries put pressure on Finland not to ask for troops, and informed Britain that they would tear up their railroad tracks if the expeditionary force tried to cross.

When the request from the Finns did not arrive, Daladier, on March 8th, sent them a threatening message which said: “I assure you once more, we are ready to give our help immediately. The airplanes are ready to take off. The operational force is ready. If Finland does not now make her appeal to the Western Powers, it is obvious that at the end of the war the Western Powers cannot assume the slightest responsibility for the final settlement regarding Finnish territory.”