COUNTERING THE SOVIET GREAT OFFENSIVE ON THE IN 1944 – THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EUROPEAN THEATRE OF WAR IN CONTEXT Adj. Prof. Lasse Laaksonen ()

With German support, the had been able to retake areas lost during the fought against the . They had advanced to the Olonets Isthmus in East and stopped at the Svir River line. Despite German demands, President and Supreme Commander Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland, refused to launch an offensive against Leningrad. A political union with Germany was also declined. By 1944, the political situation concerning the war had become unfavourable for Finland. The Soviet Union had grown stronger after the Soviets had seized the initiative from Germany on the Eastern Front, and this had had an effect on the Finnish position. Tentative plans for peace had failed after the great power had stepped up its demands. Finland was also all but dependent on the munitions aid and grain deliveries provided by Germany. When the crumbled in January 1944, the Soviets began to pay more attention to the Finnish battlefront. It had long remained quiet, as no notable battles had been fought for some years. Irritated by Finland’s attempts to achieve a in April, Germany had cut off aid deliveries. This had a detrimental effect on the small Finnish army’s defence capacity. The Soviets had already attempted to break the Finnish backbone by bombing heavily on three separate occasions in February. The consensus in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union (the so-called Stavka) was that defeating Finland would further the efforts to drive Germany out of the Baltics. Stalin approved the Stavka’s plan to launch a great offensive against Finland in late spring. The focus was on the Karelian Isthmus, the so-called Gate of Finland. The Soviet objective was to advance down the Valkeasaari- - line, destroy Finland’s main army forces and create favourable conditions for invading inland. The battle in the great offensive’s second theatre of war, the Olonets Isthmus, was set to begin after seizing Vyborg. Unlike on the narrow Karelian Isthmus, the battleground in East Karelia consisted of wild, uncultivated terrain. The Soviet troops had to first advance to Ladoga Karelia and the border drawn up in the Treaty of the Winter War (1940). Then they would head behind the troops defending the Karelian Isthmus and to the rear of the Finnish troops. The great offensive on the Karelian Isthmus was launched on th9 June 1944. Three days had passed since the Invasion of Normandy, and the two events were connected. In the Tehran Conference held in late 1943, Stalin had pledged to support the Allied invasion by launching a simultaneous offensive on the Eastern Front. Stalin saw the strategic offensive against Finland as fulfilling his promise to Roosevelt and Churchill. The Finnish political leadership and General Headquarters were completely blindsided. They had assumed that the Soviets were more interested in the “Race to Berlin” and that

144 their forces were focused on the German front. Finland was not yet considered a likely target of a great offensive. Soviet troop movements in the spring were not unusual, and the diversions created in the Baltics helped keep the preparations secret. The additional troops and equipment were transported to the Karelian Isthmus at a very late stage, a mere 1–2 weeks prior to launching the offensive. The “Maskirovka” deception was a success, and Mannerheim had been more concerned with the concentrations of Soviet troops in Eastern Karelia. In preparation for possible peace negotiations, he opted to maintain possession of large areas of land. Eastern Karelia was a suitable “object of compensation” when determining the state border of Finland. In the great offensive, the Soviets took advantage of the experience they had gained while battling the Germans on the Eastern Front. The Finnish defensive positions were first pulverised by a massive preparatory barrage, which shook the troops’ morale. The Soviet aerial offensive was also active, and consisted of both bomb runs and airstrikes by attack aircraft. Afterwards, the armoured infantry began their advance and broke the defender’s resistance. In the Valkeasaari () main break point, a single Finnish regiment was pitted against an entire corps. The Soviet artillery strength was at least sixteen times that of the Finnish force, and for every battlefront kilometre there were approximately 200 artillery weapons. During the attack, the Soviet troops also deployed about 500 tanks, while the Finnish troops had none to defend themselves. The Finnish defence in Valkeasaari was broken on 10th June 1944. The upper command had no time to react to the rapid mobilisation of the Soviet troops, and Mannerheim’s headquarters had a difficult time trying to stay abreast of the situation on the battlefront. The lines of communication were continually broken by the aggressor’s drumfire, and the situation remained unclear for a long time. President Ryti felt that putting out peace feelers was essential, and believed this would also require forming a new government. The Soviet Union would refuse to negotiate with the same ministers who had previously rebuffed their terms. Ryti initially offered the task of reforming the government to Mannerheim who, however, refused the position of prime minister. Mannerheim also refused the position of president, even though Ryti was willing to abdicate in his favour. The Marshal of Finland wished to focus on leading the military, and avoided taking on a politically responsible role in the predicament. However, he was not averse to pressuring politicians into resolutions he favoured. When a second defensive position on the Karelian Isthmus, the Vammelsuu-Taipale position, faltered, Mannerheim regarded requesting military aid from Germany as a necessity. The was not as well-connected to foreign military forces as Marshal Mannerheim. In addition, General Headquarters was apt to make wilful decisions. Hitler consented to Mannerheim’s request on 13th June. The munitions aid ban was completely lifted. Finland soon received planes, assault guns, anti-tank guns and ammunition. Grain deliveries had already been resumed a day earlier. The leader of the German Reich’s stance concerning Finland was categorical. Hitler said: “As long as the Finnish man fights, he will receive assistance; as soon as he begins to negotiate, the deliveries will be discontinued.” On 14th June, the Marshal of Finland was forced to establish a new level of

145 command (Headquarters of the Command of Troops on the Karelian Isthmus) between General Headquarters and the corps. He was unable to lead the defensive battle efficiently enough from the rear. Lieutenant-general Oesch was tasked with stopping the Soviet troops at a strategic battlefront. Mannerheim focused his attention on leading the war effort. The very next day, Oesch withdrew the troops to Finland’s third and final defensive position on the Karelian Isthmus, the Viipuri-Kuparsaari-Taipale (VKT) position. The munitions aid from Germany began to impact the course of the battles but the defence at the VKT position soon faltered. To say that losing Vyborg on 20thJune was a shock for the Finns is something of an understatement. It had an effect on the mentality of the entire nation. In Germany, the possibility of Finland’s collapse was already being noted. Pre- parations to occupy Åland and Gogland were made. Mannerheim requested further military aid, and Hitler was amenable. However, the prerequisite for this aid was that the last defensive position on the Karelian Isthmus was to be held. The Soviet advancement into continental Finland was to be prevented at all costs. The Finnish government balanced between putting out peace feelers and requesting munitions aid. Mannerheim felt that seeking military aid from Germany was a necessity for the battlefront on the Karelian Isthmus to hold for any length of time. In turn, the government as a whole leaned towards inquiring about peace conditions, although opinions within varied. The Finnish military high command dreaded that Germany would learn of the plans for a separate peace. Were that to happen, Finland would be left totally isolated, without further munitions aid. Germany might also undertake actions to punish Finland, as it had done in the case of Hungary in spring 1944. Finnish Lapland was occupied by German troops, and naval offensive actions on the southern coast were also a possibility – a powerful German naval detachment was on the move in the . The arrival of the German Foreign Minister, , in Helsinki on 22nd June, was an unpleasant surprise for the Finnish government. Ribbentrop had previously been forced to submit in his Finnish policy as he had been unable to wangle the Finnish government into signing a political union with Germany. Neither Ryti nor Mannerheim was willing to give up the idea of a separate war. The German Foreign Minister berated the . He accused the Finns of duplicity: of sucking up to the United States, of putting out peace feelers, and of questioning the inevitability of a German victory. Ribbentrop demanded that Finland commit politically to Germany, and delivered threats along with Hitler. Military support would be cut, and aid already delivered would be reclaimed and transported back to Germany. The Finnish political leadership received further shock treatment later that day. The Soviet response to the Finnish peace feelers was startling: Finland was demanded to announce its willingness to surrender and plead for peace from the Soviet leadership. Mannerheim warned President Ryti and Prime Minister Linkomies not to put the country at the mercy of the Red Army. The latest studies have shown that Ribbentrop’s threats to the Finnish government were pure bluff. Cutting off military support to Finland would have been detrimental

146 in terms of the overall progression planned for Germany’s eastern battlefront, and transporting materials back to Germany virtually impossible. Ribbentrop had personal reasons for pursuing a political union during his Helsinki visit – his standing with Hitler had weakened. The Foreign Minister of the Reich was striving to impress Der Führer by blackmailing President Ryti into committing to the union. The Finnish political leadership had looked into the juridical validity of the different agreement drafts. Ribbentrop was fooled into settling for President Ryti’s personal agreement not to form a separate peace with the Soviet Union without Germany’s consent. The Finnish government did not process or ratify the paperwork. Were the position of president to change hands, the successor would be absolved from honouring Ryti’s agreement. As the Soviet troops had been unable to continue their advance from Vyborg to continental Finland through the inlet, the main point of the offensive was shifted to the north-east side of the . The Soviet army was able to break through the VKT position in Tali on the 22nd of June. Lieutenant-general Oesch reacted quickly by strengthening the line’s defence. He assigned more troops and an arsenal to the faltering battlefront – including the Armoured Division. Regardless of their initial failures, this highly trained and well-equipped detachment helped halt the Red Army’s advance near the village of Ihantala. The Finnish army managed to stabilise the situation on the Karelian Isthmus by mid-July. Their defensive victory in Tali-Ihantala was mainly thanks to skilled artillery focusing their fire on a concentrated area. The Red Army was unable to take advantage of their material superiority due to the unfavourable terrain. The German Detachment Kulmey (Gefechtsverban Kuhlmey) was effective in breaking up the Soviet troop formations. The Finnish army also had the use of efficient German Sturmgeschüttz 40 assault guns and close-combat anti-tank guns, hampering the assault power of Soviet tanks. Because of this, the aggressor’s infantry found it hard to move, let alone advance to the defender’s positions. In all, the great battles of Tali-Ihantala raged on for several weeks. Approximately 50 000 Finnish and 150 000 Soviet soldiers clashed on a narrow and constricted area consisting of a mere 180 square kilometres. Simultaneously, the Soviet troops also attempted to break through at the more eastern village of Vuosalmi, located at the narrowest point of the River. The final assaults launched in that location were repelled some days after the battles of Tali-Ihantala. The Finnish defensive victories on the Karelian Isthmus were instrumental in deciding the country’s fate. Stalin was quick to set his troops against Germany on the Eastern Front. The strategic assault against Finland was halted by mid-July. The great battle of Tali-Ihantala remains the largest ever fought in the Nordic countries. On a European scale, it ranks among the six largest battles fought during the summer of 1944. The Soviet Union gave up its demands for unconditional surrender. After President Ryti resigned from his position in early August, the elected Mannerheim, who once again put out peace feelers. Finland severed ties with Germany and committed to ejecting German troops from Lapland. An armistice was signed between Finland and the Soviet Union on 19th September 1944.

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