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De-Escalation Amid a Total War?

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De-Escalation Amid a Total War? De-escalation amid a Total War? An interpretivist-constructivist analysis of Finland´s involvement (or lack thereof) in the Siege of Leningrad and Murmansk during the Continuation War 1941-1944 Margarita Sallinen Thesis, 15 ECTS (hp) War Studies Master’s Programme in Politics and War Spring 2020 Supervisor: Ilmari Käihkö Word count: 15940 1 Abstract At the beginning of the Continuation War in 1941, Finnish and German troops commenced a gradual escalation which resulted in swift successive victories against the Soviets. Yet, Finland´s Field Marshal Mannerheim unexpectedly turned his back on military rationality at Leningrad and Murmansk despite his knowledge of how vitally strategic the locations were to the Soviet war effort. Leningrad was encircled by German and Finnish forces and a successful siege was achievable, yet Mannerheim abruptly discontinued the offensive and chose to assume a stale war lasting until 1944. Likewise, Mannerheim withheld his troops from cutting off Murmansk Railway. These events beckon important inquiries regarding Mannerheim´s decision to de-escalate during successful offensives in a total war and presents a conundrum that few have to date examined holistically. As such, this thesis offers an alternative perspective to the current rational explanations of Finnish warfare in the Continuation War. This thesis discusses specific social processes of Finnish society that rationalist explanations overlook and applies the theory of constructivism to identify that normative factors can complement the prevailing rationalist explanations. This thesis further identifies how the social concepts of identity, shared culture and knowledge, and the norms of the Finnish people, and its leadership, contributed to Mannerheim’s decision to disregard military rationality and de-escalate. Lastly, this thesis determines that norms and ideas matter in war studies and future research should incorporate an interpretivist approach which contemplates social constructions and norms as alternative explanations in complex, multi-casual social phenomena like war. Key words: Constructivism, Continuation War, de-escalation, escalation, Finland, interpretivism, Mannerheim, total war 2 Acknowledgements I wish to express my utmost gratitude to my supervisor Associate Professor Ilmari Käihkö for the time he gave me during the planning and writing of this thesis. Without his patience, guidance and encouragement this thesis would not have been accomplished. I also wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my supportive and loving fiancé, Michael Daw, for always standing by my side. Finally, I want to dedicate this thesis in honour of my late father, Tauno Sallinen who was born in Finland. Dad, this is for you. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 6 1.1. Research question ............................................................................................................ 7 1.2. Previous research ............................................................................................................ 8 2. Theory .................................................................................................................................. 10 2.1. Constructivism .............................................................................................................. 10 2.1.1. Key principles of constructivism ............................................................................ 11 2.1.2. Key concepts of constructivism ............................................................................. 11 2.2. Limitations – constructivism ......................................................................................... 12 2.3. Escalation and Total War .............................................................................................. 13 3. Methodological considerations ............................................................................................ 14 3.1. Interpretivism ................................................................................................................ 14 3.2. Limitations – methodology ........................................................................................... 15 3.3. Method .......................................................................................................................... 16 3.4. Limitations – method .................................................................................................... 17 3.5. Ethics ............................................................................................................................. 17 4. Empirical results ................................................................................................................... 18 4.1. Background ................................................................................................................... 18 4.2. The escalation begins – 15 months of “peace” ............................................................. 19 4.3. Finland joins the Continuation War .............................................................................. 20 4.4. Leningrad ...................................................................................................................... 22 4.5. Murmansk ...................................................................................................................... 22 4.6. Germany’s war aims ...................................................................................................... 25 4.7. Finland’s war aims ........................................................................................................ 26 5. Analysis ................................................................................................................................ 27 5.1. Shared knowledge, ideas and culture ............................................................................ 27 5.2. Norms ............................................................................................................................ 28 5.2.1. The lack of shared political norms with Nazi Germany ......................................... 28 5.2.2. Lack of common war aims ..................................................................................... 30 5.2.3. Values – public opinion on the war changed ......................................................... 31 5.2.4. Moral norms ........................................................................................................... 32 5.2.5. Battle fatigue .......................................................................................................... 32 5.3. Identity .......................................................................................................................... 34 5.4. Marshal Gustav Mannerheim and the Finnish leadership ............................................. 35 4 6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 39 7. Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 41 8. Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 43 9. Appendices ........................................................................................................................... 46 9.1. Appendix A ................................................................................................................... 46 9.2. Appendix B ................................................................................................................... 47 9.3. Appendix C ................................................................................................................... 48 9.4. Appendix D ................................................................................................................... 49 9.5. Appendix E .................................................................................................................... 50 5 1. Introduction Finland fought as co-belligerent with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union shortly after the Continuation War broke out on 22 June 1941. What began as a German invasion of the Soviet Union – dubbed Operation Barbarossa – saw its forces pursue two major objectives: (1) occupy and demolish Leningrad, and (2); cut off the Murmansk Railway and isolate the port city which possessed great symbolic and strategic importance to the Soviets (Forczyk, 2009, p. 91; Lunde, 2011, p. 62). However, when the Nazis advanced towards Leningrad, Finland’s Field Marshal Mannerheim ordered Finnish troops to cease their attack, thereby removing them from directly participating in the Siege of Leningrad. The decision was made to neither bomb Leningrad nor cut off the Murmansk Railway. Once the Finnish troops had reclaimed the territory lost to the Soviets during the Winter War – the Winter War was fought 15 months prior to the Continuation War commencing – Finland’s participation as co- belligerents with Nazi Germany slowly preceded to a “dead end” in 1941-1942. Over the next one and a half to two years, Finland’s military refrained from engaging in an offensive strategy and did little to assist the German forces’ attack on the strategically important locations of Leningrad and Murmansk (Ekberg,
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