How Finland Survived a 1,000,000+ Soviet Invasion (1939-1940) FULL DOCUMENTARY
Documentary on Finnish tactics of the Winter War. Check out Last Train Home: thqn.net/48pkGIX Thanks to THQ Nordic for sponsoring this video!
In this history documentary we turn our attention to Winter War of 1939 which saw the Red Army invade Finland. While the conflict appeared one sided at the outset, the Finnish defenders stunned their world by holding the Soviet juggernaut at bay. In this Units of History series we will explore the soldiers who made this feat of arms possible in the face of the Russian Invasion of Finland.
We first explore the roots of the conflict between Finland and Russia and how this would inform the evolution of the Finnish Army in the lead up to the Winter War. We then cover the defensive doctrine which was to characterize the war and the nature of the soldiers who would conduct it. This includes a focus on the equipment of the Finnish Ski Troops responsible for manning the front lines and carrying out the defense in depth. In comparison Red Army troops had more numbers and equipment but lacked the specialized gear necessary to operate in winter conditions.
And finally we review the organization, tactics, and service history of these Finnish troops who were to hold the Red Army juggernaut at bay.
Sources:
Vesa Nenye, with Peter Munter and Toni Wirtanen: Finland at War: The Winter War 1939-40 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2015)
Pasi Tuunainen: Finnish MIlitary Effectiveness in the Winter War 1939-1940 (Helsinki: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016)
Philip Jowett, Brent Snodgrass, Raffaele Ruggeri: Finland at War 1939-45 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2006)
Credits:
Research = Mark Evans
Script = Mark Evans
Narration = Guy Michaels
Production = Penta Limited
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:44 Finnish-Soviet Geopolitics
06:40 Finnish Civil War
08:36 Interwar Period
12:17 Start of the Winter War
15:04 Equipment of Finnish Soldiers
20:54 Recap
22:54 Army Organization
30:07 Tactics & Training
31:28 Mobilization
34:05 Soviet Invasion
35:20 Karelian Front
36:31 Ladogo Front
37:28 Raate Front
41:36 Arctic Front
42:24 Last Stand of the Finns
43:55 End of the War
#history
#military
#documentary
What other topics from this era would you guys be interested in? Be sure to check out Last Train Home: thqn.net/48pkGIX Thanks to THQ Nordic for sponsoring this video!
Based whitewashing of Nazis dude.
Interwar Red Army moving on Poland.
Is this a Compilations of the First two videos or entirely separate
Soviet-Japanese Border clashes!
How about you make a video that doesn't side with rightwingers against the USSR?
The Soviets thought the cold was their ally. But they merely adopted the cold while the Finish were born in it, molded by it.
I don't like that you are so ukrainian fanatic. BUT I like the batman reference
@@MrCekey I like you.
@itica-Paraguay Ey, nobody cares what something was a part back in the year I don't give a shit.
@@vitorpereira9515 I was born in Moskau. We still could be friends
@@Gerpolitica-Paraguay the thing is, it's always the pro russian side that ends up being the degenerate, and talk like a monkey. (You.)
When I visited Saint Petersburg, I was shocked to see their museums still claim Finland did start this war by attacking an innocent USSR
Thats propaganda for you
Well according to the russian version of history, they have never started anything.. Infact they are always the victim. What are the odds..
@@jmirsp4z They do claim to be the last legitimate successor of Rome If that claim wasn't murdered by the jewi- I mean Bolsheviks and their genocidal regime. It would still make sense
After the dissolution of USSR there was a decade when Russia acknowledged the historical facts but later when Putin came to power they once again started to rewrite history while also whitewashing the crimes of Stalin and Soviet Union.
Russians are really fragile snowflakes when it comes to history. Always the victims if you ask them.
Thank you finally somebody got the fact that every soldier here in Finland even nowadays uses the skis. I hate the "special ski troops" myth that most KZheadrs spread about Winter war.
In that sense all infantry troops are ski troops to this day.
Speaking as a former American I sincerely apologize to you and all of Finland that we, as Patton stated, "Defeated the wrong enemy" handing over 1/2 of Europe to the brutal Soviet Union.
@@craigmartinj”Former American” lol then u have no business apologizing on “Our” behalf
@@herptek just means all Finish are special 🥹
@@daarom3472 It is pretty ordinary actually. It can help with the tactical mobility of motorized or even mechanized troops while dismounted. These days it is trained for most everyone but not greatly emphasized doctrinewise. It can be taken as a given that most people know how to ski, although it has been far less practiced skill in todays population in their civilian life than it used to be back in the day, when rural people relied on it for much of their day to day personal transportation.
Being so confident you only prepare 2 weeks of ammunition for the Red Army is a logistics strategy no-one should try to emulate 🤦🏻♀️
Can't believe the Russian federation had only supplies for 3 days in the Ukrainian war for independence
Germany later emulated the same, planning for 5-6 week campaign into the USSR.
@@capitan_gorgonzolazola "Ukranian war for independence", I'm sure NATO and its corporate backers agree 🤣
No way they or their successor state would make the same mistake again right????
@@yt_geezuz785 Thank god Putin and the austrian Painter are equally incompetent. Not surprising considering they used the same excuses to invade their neighbours.
Why Soviets failed: 1) Stalin had killed most able officers in his 30s purges. 2) Stalin expected the winter to be mild and many Soviet troops were in summer gear in -50° (quite many froze to death). General Winter worked for the Finns. 3) Terrain, terrain, terrain. Finns knew (and still know) how to defend their area best. The border between Russia and Finland is dense woods, lakes, bogs. The attacker needs much more than the usual advantage of 3:1 to make advance. The deadly guerilla warfare wears the invader down. 4) Soviets had no idea what they were fighting for. The Finns knew extremely well what was at stake.
Soviets didn't fail. It may be your interpretration but that doesn't align with the historical record. The Soviets achieved their goals which means they won and the Finns suffered defeat. You're listing the difficulties they faced, which is another facet altogether.
@@megabazus1775 Sureeeeee, but we can still consider that they did fail militarly since loosing hundreds of thousands of soldiers when your opponent is a much much smaller force is kind of humiliating and means that the only reason for success in soviets having way to many numbers - But i wouldn't call a "success" nor a "win" if the cost to victory is getting completely crushed by much smaller forces
@@megabazus1775 damn the cope
So much finnish cope. 😂😂😂😂
@@lexluger6904 hi im neither and i can confidently say you are both stupi_d. The fins lost and the soviets might have "technically" won but lost way too much in the process to call it a full victory. both of you failed in different aspects wich collectively makes up the whole war.
And this is why our war veterans told us to make sure that we don't end up alone again. We are not alone anymore we have 31 friends this time.
💪
💪
So when are we talking back the lands stolen from us in WW2?
Welcome aboard!
💪🇫🇮🇺🇸🇸🇪🇪🇺👍
There's a saying in finnish: "If the enemy attacks from the west, it must have snuck there from the east."
I've heard the opposite saying: "Enemy will always attack from the east, even if the enemy is sweden."
@@draelar6287 Said no-one, ever.
I've heard this as joke, going as private asking in military training seeing map with arrows indicating invading forces attack directions "Excuse me sir? Why in these scenarios enemy always comes from east?". Instructor watches private for moment, then to map and says "Damn good point Private Virtanen" draws arrow from russia, around northen Finland, through sweden and then to Finland from west direction and continues "Those Russians could go through Sweden and try to flank us from west!"
I grew up in northern Ontario, Canada. Every person/ family had an abundance of winter clothing. Snow shoes, skates and usually dad had an old Lee Enfield in the basement. As children we would play outside in the winter, snow and cold was nothing to us . I can just imagine the average Finlander had no problem finding enough wool socks and mitts to stay warm at -40 .
I've heard that there's especially large concentrations of Finnish heritage in Ontario specifically. Always wanted to visit, heard it's beautiful out there. I guess that Finns and North are just simply made for each other, I mean I can't bare +20 celsius without feeling like I'm dying of heat exposure but +5 to -15 is the sweet spot for normal clothing like hoodie. As kid when I grew up at Northern-Savonia at our family homestead where our family had lived since 1600's (at least that's as far as the records go) the temperatures dropped easily down to -35c and if you had to take a dump, it meant paddling in the snow to the outhouse. Living out there for prolonged periods (we of course had modern housing as well) while my grandma told me stories of how they blew the candles out on the same table we sat next to when the Soviet bombers flew ahead and just waited to hear if they had been spotted by waiting an explosions gave me the perspective and respect even as a youngling of the sacrifices of my grand- and grand grand parents. Similar stories are fairly common place in Finland, which I'd dare to claim is at least part of the reason for the national pride Finnish people exhibit.
Yes lots of Finns in Thunderbay area.
@@RAZR53-4 do you know if the Finns there still speak Finnish?
@@oraakkeliyes! Unfortunately I've heard much of the language is butchered and not original just like the difference between French between Quebec vs France proper. There are some old timers still there that speak Finn proper but they're dieting out. BUT there is a community there full of tradition flourishing in its 4th or 5th generation.
No suprise. After all Rusia is well known tropic land with temperatures go up to -70 celsius
While growing up in the '60s, my dad had a hunting rifle, which I was told, was an old Finnish Army rifle. I didn't think much of it at the time because even though we lived in the US, we had Finnish ancestry( both his, and Mom's, parents were born in Finland). It wasn't until recently, while watching a video on the Winter War, that I saw a picture of a Mosin-Nagant, and recognized it as being the same as my Dad's.
The moisin nagant is a russian rifle used by the finns
Are you 60 years old?
@@_Benryl_ And then some.
My grandfather and his brothers fought in this war, the stories they would tell us as kids when we visited will stay with me forever.
My step-grandfather was a colonel in Suojeluskunta. Wounded several times but always returned to the front. We had lots of Soviet and German weapons he'd captured to hand over to authorities after he died.
did those include numerous warcrimes thay had committed agaisnt red army?
@@dimas3829You misspelled ”committed by the red army”
@@SPQSpartacus like intentionally freezing enemy alive or injuring one soldier to kill everyone that goes to help him? Sorry, but those lessons later applied against Gremans were indeed learnt by Soviets from Finnish. They couldn't win fare and square so they went for some very dispicable shit, you could cope with that however you want, but majority of Soviet army's warcrimes were taught to them by Finland.
You need to write them down. So they are not lost
There is a large population of Finlanders on the north shore of Lake Superior. Fine citizens.
Yes there is, living in a harmony. cities like michigan, minnesota, ohio etc has some of finnish-americans :)
Dont you mean south shore?
@@TheNismo777 First pioneers in colonial America were Finns, particularly 'Forest Finns' who introduced log cabin designs from Tavastia, Savo, Karelia to the American frontier in the early 1600s along with other exhaustive uses of timber e.g. snake-rail fences. Finns built the oldest standing log house in America Nothnagle Log Cabin c. 1638, shortly after the _Kalmar Nyckel_ delivered the first Finnish 'New Swedes' to the colony along the Delaware, in the current states of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. Most permanent settlers of New Sweden, who continued to migrate thither under Dutch and English rule, were ethnic Finns, e.g. ancestors of American Founding Father John Morton (Johan Marttinen) who signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776. Morton's grandfather Morten Mortenson aka Mårten Mårtensson (Martti Marttinen) originated in Rautalampi, Savo, Finland (then Österland of the Swedish Realm), part of a large group of 'Forest Finns' resettled first in Värmland, Sweden, then migrated onward to Nya🇸🇪Sverige/Uusi-Ruotsi🇫🇮 in the mid-17th century.
@itorMagnvs Hold on, that's actually hilarious, if he was from Rautalampi then he was born like 50-70km from the place where the only Finnish person to be buried in the Kremlin wall was born in! History is funny...
@@InqvisitorMagnvsjust responding so I get a link to this afterwards 😅
The finns have a well earned reputation of being highly competent and courageous.
Seems like that reputation might not be as True today but it might be because the situation back then was difficult so they couldn't fall back.
Yeah, cowards most of us. Claiming Russia Will invade us Even though we already Lost twice and they didn't annex us...AND STALIN WAS LEADING THE PLAN THEN
@@Aapo_2011 mistä sä vittu puhut?
and warcriminals.
@@dimas3829 I know we did some things wrong, but at this point you're projecting on a national level.
Thank you so much for this Invicta ! This war and its outcome may never ever be forgotten. For our(native) finnish speakers here's a message; Kunnia marsalkka Mannerheimille, Suomelle ja sen kansalle ! Eläköön Suomi ! (I hope i spelled that right) Greetings from the Netherlands. ❤🇫🇮💪🏻🙏🏻
Funny fact first Mannerheim was a dutch mercant who came to Sweden and was later ennoble to lower nobility.
@@jukkakopol7355 Mannerheim was born in Sweden.
@@axelhvetlander2212 Jep if Askainen is in Sweden. Swede try always stole every finn with swedish name like Helene Schjerfbeck or even Jean Sibelius been swede. But we are used to it. Do you know that Jussi Bjökling born as finn in Finnskogen area but we don't try to stole him for that reason.
@@jukkakopol7355 Sorry, after checking , I saw that he was in fact Finnish.
Dankjewel meneer
I always thought Molotv Cocktails were a russian invention but the actual origin is way cooler: The name's origin came from the propaganda Molotov produced during the Winter War, mainly his declaration on Soviet state radio that incendiary bombing missions over Finland were actually "airborne humanitarian food deliveries" for their "starving" neighbours. As a result, the Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet incendiary cluster bombs "Molotov bread baskets" (Finnish: Molotovin leipäkori) in reference to Molotov's propaganda broadcasts. When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack and destroy Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the "Molotov cocktail", as "a drink to go with his food parcels"
The aspect in this video I most appreciate is the back ground music is at a very low decibel compared to the narration and the winter wind sound effect is a nice touch to the background music.
He still stubbornly calls Finland a Baltic nation, even after being corrected at least 1,000,000+ times. An epic victory in a titanic struggle 🙃
A more accurate description of Finland would be as a Nordic country (Pohjoinen maa).
*Pohjoismaa@@ilokivi
By calling it a "Baltic nation" i believe he refers to Finland as a nation by the Baltic sea. So while technically not a Baltic country, it is a nation in the Baltic sea region.
By the interwar definition a baltic country was any country which gained independance from the Russijan Empire and bordere the Baltic sea.
@@ilokivi No thats even more inacurate. Finland does lie in the Baltic basin but the finish people are not desendnats of the old norse.
"He thought of the might he posessed, but not of his foes" - Sabaton, *Talvisota*
As a Finn I'm flattered but as a Sabaton fan I have to correct "foe"* :D
Sabaton is swedish gaymetal!
@@revisionist8193 Russkie detected opinion invalidated
This is the first time that I heard Finland referred as baltic nation.
I can let it slide when I see Finland being called Scandinavian country but Baltic? 😅😅😅
@@dr.catherineelizabethhalse1820 das what im saying
After WW1 the new sovereign states that emerged on the east coast of the Baltic Sea, this include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland, became known as the Baltic states. It's only after ww2 that it comes to exclude Finland and it got grouped as a Nordic country.
Ireland and Finland, two nations who have taught empires a humbling lesson.
To this day, neither of those empires seem particularly humble.
cant forget afganistan
@@degubooi798 they fought the brits, soviets, and the usa
@@zarekbeck3358 i know
Russians found out General Winter works both sides.
yet finland still lost lol, and that is literally written on the CIA backed wiki, make up your mind wokie boy
@@PlayerAfricanChieftenare you Jewish?
@@PlayerAfricanChieften Take a map and look where Finland is located. Next, look where the Soviet Union is. Who ultimately lost?
You should end with a chart showing the casualties from each side.
 Kyösti Kallio  C.G.E. Mannerheim  Hugo Österman  Harald Öhquist  Erik Heinrichs  Woldemar Hägglund  Wiljo Tuompo  Joseph Stalin  Kliment Voroshilov  Semyon Timoshenko  Kirill Meretskov  Vladimir Grendal  Grigori Shtern  Mikhail Dukhanov  Valerian Frolov Strength300,000-340,000 soldiers[F 1] 32 tanks[F 2] 114 aircraft[F 3]425,000-760,000 soldiers[F 4] 2,514-6,541 tanks[F 5] 3,880 aircraft[10]Casualties and losses25,904 dead or missing[11] 43,557 wounded[12] 800-1,100 captured[13] 20-30 tanks 62 aircraft[14] 1 armed icebreaker damaged Finnish Ladoga Naval Detachment ceded to the Soviet Union 70,000 total casualties126,875-167,976 dead or missing[15][16][17][18] 188,671-207,538 wounded or sick[15][16] (including at least 61,506 sick or frostbitten[19]) 5,572 captured[20] 1,200-3,543 tanks[21][22][23] 261-515 aircraft[23][24] 321,000-381,000 total casualties
Finns 25,904 dead or missing 43,557 wounded 800-1,100 captured 20-30 tanks 62 aircraft 1 armed icebreaker damaged Soviet 70,000 total casualties 126,875-167,976 dead or missing 188,671-207,538 wounded or sick[(including at least 61,506 sick or frostbitten 5,572 captured 1,200-3,543 tanks 261-515 aircraft 321,000-381,000 total casualties
@@Habilis715the soviet numbers came from nikita khrushchev to destroy the stalincult, 53k-68k soviets died in the winterwar and sources for that are ohto manninem a fin,baryshikov or mikhail Semiryaga and the finish gouverment what claims they found the body and boney of 16k soviets what fits with the missing numbers of the historyans
@@Habilis715damn, really were ragdolled
Sweden helped Finland with weapons and supplies, also the Swedish Air Force and many volunteer soldiers fought at the Finnish front, many died
Yes that is true. But those were individual volunteers. Anyway glad we are all in Nato soon and ready to help each other officially so to speak
8260 Swedes volunteered, 33 lost their lives. Swedish troops served very far north, far from most heavy battles, as their own units.
@@RoyalMela I wonder how many Finnsih volunteers there are in Ukraine today? It is definately not 8000. For some reasons Finns still today have to somehow klanck down on the support that came from Sweden. I really feal ashemed by this idiotism. There were also Danish and Norwegian volunteers. Where they also equally cowards, hiding in the bushes? let’s assume that Finland and Sweden did not belong to Nato. If Russia attacked Gotland or Blekinge, would you concider volunteering in defending the region?
Sweden did help but not enough, they are a pussy nation now.
As a.Finn, my personal view, answer would be that yes. Obviously yes. I think that deep defence and military cooperation with Swe and Fin, even before Ukraine war was grrat. Now extended to "nordic af" etc. I think in Finland its a common knowledge how we should appreciate the very good relationship of our countries, to extent to an armed defence if needed. I have allways been pro that. You have an seed of truth in your claim about how we tend to overlook or downplay swedish and other nordic aid back in the war years. I can assure u that they are widely notified in our teaching etc. I think reason to downplay those are partly trauma of that feel anf disappointment to left alone. Still, for every critical thinking person, even if not so familiar about history of Sweden in that time, its obvious that there are reasons for Sweden and every other nordic country to be with that attitude in those days. I hope u have long nerve in this issue with us. That is needed in both sided. U r best neighbors country can have. Thank u. Lets protect our way of life in the future also.
Fun fact: The precision rifle manufacturer SAKO started as a weapons manufacturer for the paramilitary Suojeluskunta-organization. The name comes from "Suojeluskuntain Ase- ja KOnepaja," SAKO, which translates roughly as "the weapons and machine workshop of the Suojeluskunta-organization".
This is the best overview of the winter war I have seen on KZhead so far. I learned a lot. Thank you
Very thorough explanation of details that most channels leave unanswered.
Grit, determination, and defiance in the face of insurmountable odds, plus a little help from things like camouflage, enemy leadership purges, and knowledge of the landscape, that's how Finland, no Suomi survived. Amazing video here, Invicta, really enjoyed this one.
A little help from military advisors and equipment?
@@kevinlutz5994 Yep. Being allied with the Nazis certainly helped Finland.
@@DistrustHumanz That was continuation war, not winter war.
And recieveing 10.000 volounteer soldiers from sweden and a massive amount of materiel. :)
@@dsandstrom93 10 000 yeah right must be true because you say so, what a joke.. 🤣
The Finns did refine most of their Mosins, they gave them more accurate barrels for example...hell, Finnish snipers (including the famous Simo Haya - known as the White Death by Russians!) did use iron sights very proficiently and they prefered them to scopes which might give them away or fog up - and they'd force them to raise their heads higher so that they could be shot at easier!
Simo Häyhä*
A fascinating video, thank you 😊
The algorythm has blessed me with your discovery, great video!
Fantastic work! Great overview of one of histories greatest David vs Goliath stories. Well done
Dear finns, I am proud to have such badass neighbours -Norwegian
Really enjoyable documentary. Well researched and presented. Many thanks
15:00 This is false, the USSR never declared war on Finland. They attacked Finland without declaring war.
Isn't that how war starts? Did the U.S. call Sadam and say hey bro....Blackhawks coming tomorrow!!
Remember now and then Russia or USSR was and is such a large country they never knew where the borders are/were
@@tooshmart6669 US actually did declare war at least when they invaded Iraq.
Yes and no, 2 weeks before the invasion did the soviets made an statement to finland that they either give the stolen land back or the land around saintpetersburg, if they refuse they attack them, offcial they dont declare war on them because it was not necessary but inoffical they did
@@schokobar4133 🤣 "Stolen land back" - so, so funny!
A large bow to the Finnish army and society . With their steel (or should I say, ICE] balls, they stood against a traditional bad neighbor. I'm ashamed that us, the Romanians, didn't have your backbone when " presented " with the same type of ultimatum back in 1940. RESPECT TO YOU ❤
With the attitude of a lumberjack. When a lumberjack goes to cut down trees, he doesn't worry about the number of trees, but cuts them down one day and then another until the job is done. If the Finns had been frightened by the number of Soviet soldiers, then nothing would have come of the winter war. And many of Finland's soldiers were lumberjacks in civilian clothes.
"Soviet forces launch daily attacks against the line, suffering horrendous casualties (...) exhausting their (Finnish) ammunition, particularly for crucually needed artillery" Sounds oddly familiar
It`s been said: If Finland had triple mount more of artillery and shells, Soviet Union could have not been able to get anything at all.
Yep Moscals haven't changed...
@@PuppuPosti "If"
Funnily enough the only incorrect thing I saw on this vid was the graphic of the maxim machine gun rotating like a Gatling gun. The cylindrical portion didn’t move as depicted here
I was looking for a comment about this. It's an understandable mistake to make for someone inexperienced with military firearms but I first did a double-take and then laughed my head off upon realizing that I wasn't seeing things. :D
Definitely an oversight on me not flagging that to the animators
Cartoons be like that, I bet the animations of swords aren't even sharp either.
Also he called us baltic nation but not nordic
@@Juhani96 My understanding is that the term "Baltic country" was back then applied to the countries that had gotten independence towards the end of WWI. That included Finland back then. I also don't think Finland was called "Nordic" back then. I think that only happened after Finland joined the Nordic Council in 1955.
Good video, liked the organization charts for platoon & regiments. As a person from Finland really appreciate finally telling to non-finnish people that there were no "Special ski troops". Everyone in Finland's army knew how to skii that was same as nowadays almost everyone should know how to ride a bike. Of course the units that did attack on Raate road were more planned to use tactics to ambush from the wilderness so using skiis in knee/chest deep snow you need skiis to move fast for hit and run tactics.
Use of snowshoes?
@@kevindorland738 Possible, but still slower than using skiing.
Love all the amazing content
"Never tell me the odds." thanks again!
Love the narrator! Great vid guys!
Nordic. Finland is a Nordic country, not a Baltic one.
Located beside the baltic sea and with little linguistically in common with the other Nordic nations
@@eamonreidy9534cultural similarities far outweigh the difference in language. We have always felt "Nordic" ourselves.
Little in common huh? I wonder why they have Swedish as one of the official languages along with Finnish@@eamonreidy9534
Spoken like someone who's got zero clue what the term "Nordic" means. By your standards Sweden would be baltic as well then, since it's also on the baltic sea ffs. @@eamonreidy9534
@@eamonreidy9534 Nope.
The quality of this video is sooooo good!!! 😮😮
Love this channel
Every country on earth loves Finland. Well, everybody except one.
Turns out that below zero temperature hits everyone if they haven't the proper equipment.
Your sense of humor is brilliant
Temperature little bit "below zero" is not that bad. You can function very well with pants and jackets on but when Winter War happenened, the temperature was -20 - -30C degrees during the day and -30 - -40C during the night. If you don't have proper gear you won't be able to function at all. You're cold and freezing all the time and you start thinking death is better option than being like this. If you don't have proper gloves, you'll lose your fingers very fast. If you don't have proper boots, you'll lose your toes and even legs very fast. I'm from Finland and mother nature giving us a very cold winter during that war was one of the biggest reasons Finland fought so well because The Soviets were poorly equipped. They expected to win very fast.
Completely amazing overview! Your video's are amazing!
Wow! What a great video! Thank you.
44:25 - just a note here that the Soviets had hoped to incorporate some of the local population of these lands into its territories. The similar ethnic make-up of Northern Finland & the Kola peninsula of Russia and the Soviet’s presentation of a group of Soviet Finns, exiled in Moscow since the Civil War, as a civilian administration a brief effort was made to persuade these people stay and join the Soviet Union. All 400,000 of these people forced to make a choice, decided to stay in Finland and so left their homes and businesses to the Soviets to stay free of Moscow’s rule.
Its a bit hush-hush subject, but pretty considerable number of people of karelia decided to stick with ussr and actively fought against Finland ...to much bitterment of finns who saw them as their closest brothers and sisters. Why exactly that happened, i dont know for sure - but i could imagine the red speech rousing timing was such that alot of people really thought the soviets would create a heaven on earth. Those times were really the time of high ideals and its not like many people had really any chance to do some political cross-checking whom to believe. Later on the karelians who helped Russia or just didnt escape from there to Finland werent exactly thanked by Stalin. He didnt trust them one bit, saw them as finns (....) and those who didnt get executed he sent to distant parts of ussr and brought in russian from elsewhere to replace them and russify the conquered parts of karelia. Today karealians are a 5% or so minority in the republic of Karelia. This very unfortunate part of history is talked very little in Finland actually - for most people its more or less "Karjala was lost, people were evacuated" ....but beyond that they dont know and dont want to know ...even considering how many people were evacuated, some of my relatives included, many really never wanted to talk about those times and it was kinda silently agreed to shutup about. ...obviously it didnt help Finland had to live the following decades next to ussr and the finnish politician obviously werent exactly thrilled to even have the evacuated karelians make any scene about what happened to them and get pressured by Ussr.
This is so good!! Please more Finnish content 🙏🙏🙏 most inspirational people- honest too 🇫🇮
If you´re into this kind of stuff go and search for "Simo Häyhä". A truly remarkable story of an individual sniper with over 500 confirmed kills, using only his trusted iron sighted hunting rifle. That gives you an idea of the mentality of the Finnish people fighting the war against overwhelming odds. Or Sisu, as we Finns call it.
Suomi mentioned 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
As a Finn, I thank you for the praises but I would recommend not to expect too much honesty/trustworthiness from our people anymore. Globalization did it's job and we have been gradually losing those traits our veterans were known for. Some may disagree as the truth never is that popular.
@@ro--Mtrue, although i would still say (as a Finn, so not unbiased) that most Finns are more honest than the general populations of a lot of countries.
Very well researched and informative video. +1
The finns are a though people, i know this as a swede. I have nothing but respect for Finland.
Seemingly they did NOT survive!! According to genetic studies there is so much haplogroup N1c1, not just from the Sami people, but by a continuous genetic attack by russians and the global south :// Must be somehow their or the slavic peoples absolute goal to destroy the indigenous european population with abnormal crimes as murder and systematic interbreeding!! I would rather say, they were exterminated by the neanderthal bestiality °` I found out these Sami were also kinda russian eskimo people, they would already infiltrate into the north 4000 years ago!! At the same time when these haplogroup G criminals started their aggressions against them through the Balkans from there taking spain, france, and later as R1b, the roman empire, they then took the UK and its islands, from there until today infiltrating Iceland, so everywhere they went there is only R1b left and now it is already inside Iceland a lot, same with Norway and all other gemanic states where these criminal hybrid species invaded, if it is R1b or R1a, G, J, E, NO, Q, … etc… whatever, everyone is part of the total extermination of the germanic people until the Germanoid / Cro-Magnon hominids are completely neanderthaled and denisovaned or whatever creature these abnormal criminal roman rapist legions bring with them in their continuous aggressions of rape and enslavement :// Lucky for them it was the Russian side, cause at the Roman edge were I was it went much more brutal together with the Jews, Turkey and the other slavics, but thanks to them when killing us that brutal, exterminating us into definite extinction, it is now far beyond the legal terms in international law of genocides and mass war crimes against humanity/germanity :// Normally a military operation would be justifies since decades, but not on this planet, they are kinda gassing us, but no one cares!! Brings the problem that their form of genocide is currently unpunished and this motivated them to do it worldwide! If the Finns would have really understood what was going on, they would have went military against germanistan together with all other germanic states , but you all didn’t and that’s why we all will be exterminated!
Wow. Not even 100 years later Russia is getting embarrassed again by what was supposed to be an inferior force.
Yes, so many similarities still in their doctrine. Meat wave attacks etc. Also Russian Kyiv road convoy reminds finnish Raattee road scene.
@@supersim81the soviet soldiers had in ww2 one of the best kill death Rates over, 8,6m soviet soldiers died to 6,5m axis an enemy that absolut suprised them with broken peace treatys and killing 52% of all prisoners, on the whole westfront died 1,5m soldiers to 800k axis what actually shows how damn incompent the west allies was or how effective the soviets was
Actually the fins fight with the axis in ww2 because they tought they was an superior race to the russians lol
Nice you mentioned the Raate road, where the soviet vehicles and horses were stuck in a long frozen traffic jam and everybody died. Unfortunately these "russians" were Ukrainians! @@supersim81
Wrong Schokobard! At the very end of the war in 1944 there was no choice. Finland had to acccept the help of German air planes or there would have been total defeat. @@schokobar4133
Something I often hear is that "Us Finns knew the cold" or whatever, while this is true so did the Soviets (at least the northern ones). Let's not pretend Russia is somekind of tropical place where they never experienced snow and did not have winter clothing at home (if you don't have winter clothes you are dead simple as that). For this theory to hold water I believe most of the troops sent to the Finnish front from USSR must have been from its southern regions.
Many were Ukrainian. Pretty ironic.
Limited winter gear, poor training, and preparation was fatal for soviets. They thought they could do it by having a bigger army.
@nadabutsi7537, no, in the first wave the Leningrad area was pretty dominant, and the weather there is very similar to the average Finnish Winter weather. The both sdes had very long expercanes about living in a cold climate, but having to fight under those circumstances was a different thing. The Russians made a fundamental error, when they didn't come to think, that the Finns would use "the burned land" tactics against them. The Russians thought, that they could use the Finnish houses and cottages to acommondate the troops. So they didn't have heated tents with them as the Finns had. I have been in a heated tent during my military service in the Finnish army, when the temperature was -35 degrees celsius, and it was not cozy. I almost grilled my boots and froze my head. But still this was a superior place compared to stay out all the night without any shelter. The Russians took their blankets and digged to the snow. But they could not sleep long, only 30 - 60 minutes depending how cold it was. Then they had to move a bit to get the blood to circulate and then another short sleep. But eight times fortyfive minutes sleep is not at all as effective than a six hours long sleep in one piece. So in two weeks the Russian army in Finland was full of the Russian sleep-walkers, and that fact ate a lot from the effectiveness of the Red army.
I have now not a source for that but a long time ago i saw all the divisions that participated in the winterwar and the majority was ukraniens or central asians
I remember WW2 very clearly. Finns have my admiration with their bravery. Simo Hayha's spirit is alive and thriving in his fellow Finns.
Soviets just attacked without declaration of war
Sounds familiar. Then they can say they are not in war...
Soviets were also effectively allied with the Nazis for the first 2 years of WW2 and only switched sides when Putin double crossed Stalin and invaded Russia
@@BC-tp8ep Hitler, not Putin.
LIE
@@BC-tp8ep Nope, this is a tolal BS.
Finland fought with true bravery, but importantly also fought with sound tactics and skill. When you mix those two things, it really increases the chances that your military will be a super effective fighting force! Like the Finns :D P.S Finland using skis and equipping skis onto heavy machine guns is about the funniest and coolest idea I’ve heard from warfare 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Finland wont stand alone for round 2
I highly recommend 'a frozen hell' such a good book on the winter war
Thank you for your hard work. I’m sure this video will be great.
Mannerheim did also serve in the russo- japanese war of 1905. During ww1 he had rose to the rank of major general. Interesting fact, he was fluent in Swedish, Russian and German but barely spoke Finnish when he returned to Finland.
Barely*
Finnish/ Irish like same to How to Fight...
Yeh, he was pretty much a russian noble almost, very tight with the upper crust of the empire. He was very upset about the bolsheviks essentially destroying his life when they overtrough the monarchy and forced him to flee to the backwater swamp of finland. And the rich and important people spoke swedish here, not finnish. That was one of the many reasons for the civil war, should finnish be recognised as a official language equal to swedish here.
Wery interesting. Is there any logical or unlogical explanation for that?
@@tomobraica4399 illogical**
Very informative and well done. Giving the background to the conflict puts the conflict into perspective. I learned a lot I didn't know.
Thank you for the video it had some good information in it
Excellent video, W@W! This was my first viewing of your channel.. I am impressed!
Odds has always been hugely against us, but that only makes the battle fair. :)
They was Soviet Urkrainian soldiers who try to cut Finland in the middle via Raatteentie. Snowy and cold winter conditions very strance for them.
Idk about the "ukrainian soldiers" part but the second sentence isn't true. Today's weather is surely warmer than it used to be and there's not much snow during ukrainian winter but even 20 years ago things were different. Grandmother told me the entire house could've been buried under the snow and my father with his brother (my uncle) dug the tunnels to move across the yard; supposedly that were 1970s or 1980s. Also people were used to cold temperatures, maybe not -50 but -20 was considered pretty normal for that region.
@@Pure_Random 44th division was ukrainian. They had been taking part in invasion of Poland and then send to north by train. They didnt have good warm clothes. Thats the reason its said they werent used to cold weather. Other myth is they feared the forest. Might be true. 44 had plenty of time to go and save 163 div but their commander did nothing.
All the military tactics and thorough training is second to the mind of these Finns. The motivation level was really high. Sisu.
Both of my grandfathers fought in the winter war. It was brutal and Finland was basically on their own without very little support. The fact such a tiny country was able to hold on and repel such a massive army like Russia is a testimate to how well Finland prepared and fought. My dad always says we won the war, but lost the peace. Being forced to pay Massive war concession to Russia..even though we were attacked. Took decades to pay off, but it beats being a tool/pawn of Russia. Those old times are becoming much important with how bad relations are with Russia now and being a part of NATO
70years passed and Russia is still making the sames mistakes
you're a victim of corporate propaganda. Ukraine has dug 360,000 graves, all because boris told Zelensky not to negotiate
@@david7384why should they negotiate? Russia wont agree on anything unless they have the final word and get their way. And that would mean a loss for Ukraine. Would you just hand your country, your city and your home to colonizers without fighting back?
@@david7384 🤣
@@david7384 unfortunately, you might be the victim of russian- state propaganda.
How end that conflict?
I have always loved studying the Winter War. As a kid, I wanted to be like Simo Hayha and the other Finnish hunter-turned-snipers. One note on the animation: At around 43:20, a Maxim is shown as if it is multi-barrelled rotary gun. The Maxim is a single-barrelled machine gun, and the water jacket is fixed. Other than that, an amazing video, and a great example of how logistics wins wars.
Incredible quality!
Yeah, incredibly low quality
All in all, 1,895 volunteers started Jaeger / Jääkäri training between 1915 and 1918 in Germany.
I would love to see a video on Jatkosota or The Continuation War as well
Like to offer a small correction. The winter war ended on 13th, not the 11th
I’ve always thought that the Suomi was such a gorgeous weapon. Something about the wooden furniture & milled vents.
I'm from Finland. Thank you for making this. We re resilient ppl. ❤
I was hoping you guys would do the Continuation War and Lapland War at some point.
Compare now how people live in Finland and Karelia.
my grandmothers brother "survived" one of the horrible white death camps (dragsvik, now the military base where most swedish speaking finns do their military service), he collapsed dead at the gates from starvation but he did technically "survive" the camp.... My friends great grandfather was one of the white guards in that same camp, told stories of "in hand reach" grass from the prison windows being all gone becuase they ate the grass that they could reach from the windows.
Germans ate grass in the POW camps of the allies post WW2
Excellent video!
That was one of the greatest stories of WW2, and little known.
this is a refreshingly balanced account of events. I was dreading for what is to come as soon as the civil war was mentioned, because contemporary Russia and the lack of cultural background for foreigners often leads to it being presented as much more black and white than it was ever seen as here. Many foreign (and admittedly domestic) history on the winter war also exaggerates and glorifies the events. You left me positively surprised because this seems to both stick to facts and not present any of them selectively.
It was the REDS who started the civil war. They seized the government. The middle class supported the Whites as well as regular farmers.
Great content and visuals, pls add Jean Sibelius music❤
The enemy always comes from the East
Please do The Continuation War . That time one nameless country gave us weapons :)
The Art style is Top Notch as usual... and realy accurate !!!!
It's crazy to think that they likely would have lost if it weren't for the use of skis
They DID lose. What matters is not the fact that they lost but that they hurt the Soviets hard enough that they were able to retain their independence, albeit with a loss of territory. Something people might want to consider when thinking about this particular war. Despite their magnificent defence the Fins DID NOT WIN. What they did manage however was to give their Diplomats some kind of bargaining chip at the table. Considering what they were facing, that's about all that could be hoped for, or expected. At the end of the day I would have preferred to retain Independence even if that meant leaving my home, than living under the stain that was Soviet rule....
@@alganhar1it’s also notable that they negotiated while they have something on the table. They know their strength and acted accordingly. Their neutrality post-war ensured Finland enjoyed trade partnership with a dangerous neighbour while also be in favour of the other dangerous power from across the North Pole. Had they recklessly refused to accept reality, their tiny country could have been ravaged by war, for not much gain on either sides.
They did lose
The Jaegers where important but not decisive. Mannerheim had rushed the offensive and the battle of Tampere which decided the Civil War to not be dependent on the Germans. It was the Finnish government that prioritized relations with Germany and the Jaegers.
The Jaegers indeed were crucial in 1918. They were one of the few Finns with military training and experience. Their performance as company officers and NCOs - as well as trainers of the ad hoc conscript army - was absolutely essential.
In my childhood , Sweden 50 years ago. We often said that Finland came in on second place in WW2.
Wake up honey, new narrator just dropped.
OMG such a good video
I had heard that Finlands moto was "We shall hack them!". Never hurts to make an enemy nervous! Great show very amazing situation.
Yeah, it's "Hakkaa päälle!" which is kinda difficult to directly translate, but essentially means what you said. I believe it was the thing the finnish cavalry, acting under the swedish rule, yelled when charging in. Which is why the finnish cavalry units were named as Hakkapeeliitat as they gained some fame. These are the military units under sweden that the video also mentions at the beginning briefly.
@@dimsomniac thanks for the the knowledge. How about " axe time, sword time, wind time, wolf time". From a show where 2 young kids were rescued by a Scandinavian farmer back in the viking times, years later he and friends fought to give the older now kids time to escape. The girl, of the two kids then was singing that, Wind time etc can't remember the name of the show but was very powerful. Have a great day!
Finland only a small country. But strong powerful fighters. And no push over
Finland survive the sausage war my respect for the Finnish people
Seemingly they did NOT survive!! According to genetic studies there is so much haplogroup N1c1, not just from the Sami people, but by a continuous genetic attack by russians and the global south :// Must be somehow their or the slavic peoples absolute goal to destroy the indigenous european population with abnormal crimes as murder and systematic interbreeding!! I would rather say, they were exterminated by the neanderthal bestiality °` I found out these Sami were also kinda russian eskimo people, they would already infiltrate into the north 4000 years ago!! At the same time when these haplogroup G criminals started their aggressions against them through the Balkans from there taking spain, france, and later as R1b, the roman empire, they then took the UK and its islands, from there until today infiltrating Iceland, so everywhere they went there is only R1b left and now it is already inside Iceland a lot, same with Norway and all other gemanic states where these criminal hybrid species invaded, if it is R1b or R1a, G, J, E, NO, Q, … etc… whatever, everyone is part of the total extermination of the germanic people until the Germanoid / Cro-Magnon hominids are completely neanderthaled and denisovaned or whatever creature these abnormal criminal roman rapist legions bring with them in their continuous aggressions of rape and enslavement :// Lucky for them it was the Russian side, cause at the Roman edge were I was it went much more brutal together with the Jews, Turkey and the other slavics, but thanks to them when killing us that brutal, exterminating us into definite extinction, it is now far beyond the legal terms in international law of genocides and mass war crimes against humanity/germanity :// Normally a military operation would be justifies since decades, but not on this planet, they are kinda gassing us, but no one cares!! Brings the problem that their form of genocide is currently unpunished and this motivated them to do it worldwide! If the Finns would have really understood what was going on, they would have went military against germanistan together with all other germanic states , but you all didn’t and that’s why we all will be exterminated!
While the term "motti" is used for a cubic meter of chopped wood, it also means a mug, which in my opinion is the suitable translation, as the tactic basically corners a convoy without a way to escape, like a wasp under a mug.
8:50 Kersantti Nönnönnöö, missä teidän lakkinne on!
Great video. Jäger🇫🇮✌️
This video has been watched by 400k people which is almost a tenth of the population of Finland.
1. thing wrong before 1 minute, Nordic, not Baltic.
Finland survived because of Geography and one proud will not surrender man. The Winter Death helped too. A Sniper beyond compare liked "IRON SIGHTS" and had half his face blown off. He came right back to fight again. Simo Hayha.
One man does not win or lose wars 😆. (Chuck Norris might ?) 😄