[Teaser] Units of History: Finnish Soldiers of WWII

Coming soon to YouTube... the Finnish Soldiers of WWII. Here's a teaser of the script, enjoy!

Intro
It is November 1939, and Europe is consumed by war. Poland has fallen to the invading armies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. As the first snows begin to fall in the continent’s northeast, a sparsely populated, newly independent country stands isolated, at risk of being crushed in the titanic struggle. Caught in a deadly strategic dilemma, Finland faces invasion by the USSR. The Baltic nation of just 4 million people can never hope to defeat the Soviet Juggernaut. Yet, when the Winter War begins on November 30th, the world watches in awe as the Finnish military halts and severely bloodies the invading Soviet armies in a heroic act of resistance.

To understand how this extraordinary feat of arms was possible, we will explore the equipment… the organisation… and the tactics of the Finnish army on the eve of World War II.

Origins
Let’s take a step back and briefly examine the emergence of the state of Finland and its armed forces, to better understand how these two countries came to the precipice of war.

19th Century

We can begin by rewinding the clock to the 19th century. For many years, the territories of modern Finland were ruled by Sweden, and Finnish soldiers distinguished themselves in numerous wars in service of the Swedish crown - frequently against the Russian Empire. After Russia’s victory over Sweden in the Finnish War in 1809, Finland was annexed to the Tsar’s Empire as an autonomous Grand Duchy. Russian rule over Finland was marked by alternating waves of relative cultural autonomy and repressive Russification, subject to the whims and worries of the tsars and their advisors.

By the turn of the 20th Century, growing fears of Finnish nationalism spurred the government of Tsar Nicholas II to begin a brutal programme of repression against Finnish language and culture. Concerned that an autonomous Finland commanding its own military might seek independence, and frustrated by Finnish draft dodging, the so-called Oppression Years saw the disbanding of the Finnish military and the replacement of the draft in Finland with additional taxation. This Russification policy, hampered by Finnish resistance and interrupted by the outbreak of World War One, contributed greatly to seething resentment and organised opposition against Russian rule.

World War One

While some Finns such as the future Finnish Commander in Chief, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, saw service in the Imperial Russian Army during World War One, Finnish citizens were not subject to conscription, and Finland played little part in the conflict. Nevertheless, the events of 1914 to 1917 set the stage for Finnish independence, and for the bloody ideological struggles which followed it.

Anti-Russian sentiment decades in the making saw the rise in 1915 of the Jaeger Movement, a German-led clandestine programme to build the foundations of a new, sovereign Finnish Army, which saw 1,000-2,000 Finnish men secretly travel to Germany. Drawn primarily from the upper classes and driven by nationalist ideals, these men received extensive military training in the Kaiser’s army, and were organised and deployed as the elite 27th Jaeger Battalion. The Jaegers saw action against the Imperial Russian Army on the Eastern Front in 1917 in the Baltic. Upon their return to Finland, the Jaegers’ training and leadership proved decisive in the Finnish Civil War, and Jaeger veterans went on to form the foundation of the postwar Finnish military.