THE FINNISH CIVIL WAR of 1918 by Brian Train Subsequent to Military Defeat and Revolution in 1917, the Russian Empire Colla
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THE FINNISH CIVIL WAR OF 1918 by Brian Train Subsequent to military defeat and revolution in 1917, the Russian Empire collapsed into its component nations. As one of these components, Finland had first to endure a short but wrenching episode of civil warbefore it could seek its own independence as a coherent political entity. Background to 1918 Finland became part of the Russian Empire in 1809, after centuries of domination by Sweden. The new Grand Duchy of Finland enjoyed considerable autonomy within the Empire but throughout the 19th century Finnish nationalism grew. It was opposed on the one hand to Russian influence, which was considered Asiatic and oppressive, and on the other to Swedish influence, as Finland’s own upper class clung to the language and culture of the former ruling kingdom as a sign of sophistication. In 1905 when rebellion swept the Russian Empire, there was a general strike in Finland and the Russian garrisons there mutinied. The government offered to support volunteer militia units as a national guard to maintain law and order, as many soldiers and police had deserted their posts. In southern Finland there emerged two factions, drawn apart by class, linguistic and political lines. On the one side was the working class, Finnish‐speaking and leftist Red Guard, and on the other the upper class/ bourgeois, Swedish‐speaking and conservative Home Guard. As part of the general suppression of leftist radicals in 1906, there were brief battles by opposing Guard units in Helsinki. The few men killed in these skirmishes should be considered the first casualties of the Civil War. When the First World War broke out in 1914, hundreds of nationalist Finns joined the German Army voluntarily to get training against the day when they felt the Russian Empire would collapse and Finland would finally gain complete independence. The Germans concentrated these volunteers into the Prussian Army’s 27th Jager (light infantry) Battalion, established in August 1915. In March 1917 Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and a Provisional Government was formed in Petrograd (formerly, and now, St. Petersburg). Directed by the Provisional Government to form a new government by themselves, the politicians of the Finnish government drafted and discussed while law and order in the country continued to break down. In the cities and the larger towns, workers organized militia patrols, assisted by small detachments of Russian soldiers and sailors from nearby garrisons. These patrols were usually formed of the more radical and Bolshevik‐influenced members of the soviets and were called Red Guards. A series of strikes in the late spring and summer made order degenerate further, and in the smaller towns and rural areas so‐called “fire brigades”, “Home Guard”, or “Protective Corps” units began to form. These units tended to attract conservative and right‐wing members, and while these groups were ostensibly formed to keep order and protect property against “hooliganism”, their leadership and organization was dominated by men dedicated to rapid and complete Finnish independence from Russia, and who were willing to accept German connivance and aid to do it. Besides their support of the 27th Jager Battalion, the Germans delivered weapons and ammunition to these units in hopes of pinning down Russian garrisons.By the end of October two large and hostile paramilitary groups faced each other in otwns and villages across the country, while hopes for a political solution steadily receded. On November 7 the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd in a coup d’etat. The following three weeks saw complete chaos in Finland, concluded by a unilateral declaration of Finnish independence on December 6. General Baron Carl Gustaf von Mannerheim left his post as a Russian cavalry corps commander in southern Russiaand assumed command of the various Protective Corps units (later referred to as the White Guard, in contrast to the Red Guard) as a national force for law and order, and ultimately a force to be used to expel the Russian troops who remained in Finland. The units of the Red Guard were not included in this force, and they began to operate openly as local authorities, with the participation of units of radicalized Russian troops. On January 26 the Red Guard Executive Committee declared a complete mobilization and Red Guard units took over critical points in the major cities of Turku, Helsinki and Viipuri. The “Socialist Workers Republic of Finland” was declared on January 28. Within days the legally elected Finnish government was re‐established in Vaasa, on the north side of a line that divided the country into White and Red zones. The north side contained 80% of Finland’s land area and about half of the population; the south side contained the majority of Finland’s industry, major ports, and railroads. Civil war The first two weeks of the Civil War saw much confused action behind both sides of the solidifying front line. Members of White and Red Guard units caught on the wrong side of the line who did not surrender or go into hiding went guerrilla, moving overland to disrupt railway movements and prevent reinforcements from reaching critical points. The Red Finns, who in January had over 30,000 men under arms and the potential support of another 30,000 Russian troops in garrisons scattered across southern Finland, seemed to have an advantage. But the complete lack of competence, cohesion or direction at the senior levels of Red leadership, and the poor state of training and leadership at the unit level, assured that they were unable to exploit any temporary opportunities that presented themselves. Meanwhile, the great majority of the Russian garrison troops were demoralized and of no help, except to continue selling their weapons to both sides. In a series of surprise raids throughout central and northern Finland,Mannerheim used the better White Guard units to surround and disarm the smaller garrisons there, capturing large numbers of rifles and crew‐served weapons. In one stroke, this cleared the White rear areas of potential trouble and eased some of his problems in arming the regular battalions and Guard units then forming. The deep snow and lack of good roads forced both sides to rely primarily on Finland’s simple rail net. There were only three viable routes into and out of central Finland: the western route through Tampere and Haapamaki, the central through Mikkeli and Pieksamaki, and the eastern through Kakisalmi and Elisenvaara. An east‐west railroad connecting these three routes had opened only recently. Early Red attempts to takeHaapamaki, the western terminus of this line, stalled out by February 14‐15, as had their advances on Mikkeli. In turn the Reds realized that the main danger to their own communications was the White threat to cut the railway lines on either side of Viipuri. Therefore, from February 26 to mid‐March, they expended a great deal of effort to push the Whites back, or at least to hold them along the line of the Vuoksi River. While the White Guard companies continued to hold the front line, Mannerheim set about organizing and training a dependable regular force of Jager battalions using the leader cadres of the German‐trained 27th Jager Battalion, volunteers from the White Guard units, and conscripts. The first six battalions were ready by March 10. On March 15 and 16 Mannerheim opened his own offensive from Haapamaki, with the immediate objective of Tampere, Finland’s largest industrial town and then home to about 45,000 people. The Jager battalions, brigaded with the better White Guard units, managed to outflank the tired Red Guards, who fell back and kept falling back. Tampere was successfully isolated on March 25. Mannerheim’s first attacks on the built‐up areas on March 28 were made with tired troops and defeated, but he entered reinforcements and renewed the attack on April 3. The morale of the Red Guard units trapped in the city cracked and Tampere finally fell on April 6. This was the largest single battle of the war. Mannerheim inflicted over 2,000 casualties on the Red forces, at the cost of 650 dead, and captured 11,000 prisoners. The defeat and capture of so many Reds, as well as the German landings at Hanko on April 3, passed the initiative firmly to the White forces. The German Ostsee (Baltic) Division, about 9,500 strong, had landed at Hanko against no resistance. The Russian government, cowed by the signing of the Treaty of Brest‐Litovsk and occupied in evacuating its forces from Finland as directed by the Treaty, had decided not to take any chances of provoking the Germans and prompted the Red government to abandon southwestern Finland. The Red government transferred itself to Viipuri on April 4‐6, in advance of the retreating Red Guard units, who now resembled a fleeing mob. The Ostsee Division advanced steadily towards Helsinki, capturing it completely by April 14. Meanwhile, on April 7 the Brandenstein Detachment of about 3,000 German troops had landed at Lovisa, again meeting no resistance. Once his entire command had landed, Colonel Brandenstein moved north to threaten the east‐west railroad running through Lahti, capturing it on April 19. In between the two German units there were about 20,000 Red Guards and thousands more civilian refugees and dependents fleeing the vengeance of the Whites; when they realized the railroad had been cut their morale collapsed and by May 3 almost all the militia had surrendered. In the space of one month the Whites had destroyed or captured half of the remaining Red Guard forces. Mannerheim, who had judged correctly that the Germans would be able to contain or destroy the Reds in the western areas, had begun to shift his Jager battalions by rail to the east and Karelia within days of the fall of Tampere.