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The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II , and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940.
- Continuation War
The Continuation War, also known as the Second...
- Background of The Winter War
The background of the Winter War covers the period before...
- Finnish Democratic Republic
The Finnish Democratic Republic (Finnish: Suomen...
- Winter War in Popular Culture
A Soviet book of Red Army war heroes of the Winter War. At...
- Kirill Meretskov
Kirill Afanasievich Meretskov (Russian: Кири́лл Афана́сьевич...
- Battle of Summa
The Battle of Summa was fought between the Soviet Union and...
- Continuation War
May 9, 2024 · Russo-Finnish War, (November 30, 1939–March 12, 1940), war waged by the Soviet Union against Finland at the beginning of World War II, following the conclusion of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (August 23, 1939).
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Nov 23, 2019 · On November 30, 1939, nearly half a million Soviet troops stormed into Finland, beginning what would become known as the Winter War. The surprise attack came after the Kremlin, fearing a...
Nov 30, 2016 · On November 30, 1939, following a series of ultimatums and failed negotiations, the Soviet Red Army launched an invasion of Finland with half a million troops. Though vastly outnumbered and...
- An Unprepared Red Army
- The Great Purge
- A Veteran Finnish Army
- The Three Fronts of The Russo-Finnish War
- A Responsive Finnish Strategy
- Slowing The Russian Advance
- Defending The Mannerheim Line
- The Finnish Counterattack
- The Battle For Suomussalmi
- Breaking The Mannerheim Line
Responding to the unexpected rebuff from Helsinki of Soviet demands, which he viewed as urgent and reasonable, Stalin ordered the Red Army on November 13, 1939, to prepare for an invasion of Russia’s northern neighbor, prompting the beginning of the Russo-Finnish War. Like the country it represented, the Red Army was a colossus on paper, with hundr...
By far the most serious and crippling blow to the effectiveness of the Red Army at the brink of the Russo-Finnish War was the lingering effects of Stalin’s cold-blooded purge of its officer corps during the previous two years. The paranoid dictator, seeing plots against him at every turn, had decimated the Red Army leadership in an attempt to quash...
The Red Army’s opponent in late 1939 was a Finnish National Army of 33,000 men grouped in three infantry divisions, a light infantry and a cavalry brigade supported by about 15 artillery battalions, fewer than 70 aircraft, and a dozen French World War I-era Renault tanks. The regular army was backed up by territorial and home guard units. The most ...
Operations during the Russo-Finnish War would be divided among three distinct geographical areas: the Karelian Isthmus, the region immediately north of Lake Ladoga, and the area farther north of the lake. By far the most important front was the Karelian Isthmus north of Leningrad. Its open fields and partly cultivated woodlands made the topography ...
The Finns’ strategy was one of wait and see. They guessed correctly about the size and scope of their enemy’s thrust up the Karelian Isthmus and at Suomussalmi in the central part of the country and prepared well to counter the attacks. But they underestimated the power of the Soviet attack on the Karelia-Ladoga axis, which was undermanned by frien...
On November 30, Russian air raids on Helsinki, Viipuri, and other Finnish cities and towns heralded the start of the Winter War. That same day, Soviet landing parties from the Baltic Fleet occupied several key Finnish islands in the Gulf of Finland. The next day, Meretskov stormed across the frontier with 120,000 men, 1,000 tanks, and 600 artillery...
By December 6, the Finns had withdrawn to the Mannerheim Line, a series of 109 reinforced concrete positions covering 80 miles. Fronting the line were vast fields of barbed-wire entanglements, thousands of mines planted on all likely avenues of approach, and five to seven rows of granite rocks sunk into the ground to serve as antitank obstacles. Th...
On December 23, the Finnish high command launched a counterattack from the Mannerheim Line. Lack of fresh troops and blasting snow storms coupled with fierce enemy resistance brought the attack to a halt that same day. The Finns lost 1,300 battle casualties in return for a few miles of ground gained. North of Lake Ladoga, in the Finnish IV Corps se...
As Hagglund’s mottis were forming, the action was heating up farther north. The Soviets had set their sights on Suomussalmi, a provincial town of 4,000 inhabitants located in Finland’s midsection. The Soviet 44th and 163rd Divisions of the Ninth Army were tasked with its capture. From there, they were to move on the town of Oulu, cutting off the co...
As 1939 turned into 1940, Stalin, disgusted with the war’s lack of progress, named General Semyon K. Timoshenko the new commander of the fight against Finland. Timoshenko’s chief of staff was General Georgi Zhukov, destined to become the greatest Russian general of the war. The Leningrad Military District was renamed the Northwestern Front, with th...
Nov 5, 2009 · U.S.S.R. attacks Finland. On November 30, 1939, the Red Army crosses the Soviet-Finnish border with 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. Helsinki was bombed, and 61 Finns were killed in an air...
