Finnish civil war
The Finnish Civil War is an armed conflict that shook Finland , which only gained independence on December 6, 1917, essentially from January 27 to May 5, 1918. In the background of the civil war there were pent-up social differences, but also the effects of the revolutionary events in Russia , to which Finland had previously belonged as an autonomous grand duchy. The abdication of the Russian Tsar and Finnish Grand Duke as a result of the February Revolution in 1917 plunged Finland into a constitutional crisis in which public order increasingly fell apart. A food crisis caused by the First World War , in conjunction with the propaganda of the Russian Bolsheviks, brought about a radicalization and militarization of the labor movement .
This development finally led to a socialist coup attempt at the end of January 1918. The revolution established a workers-led state in southern Finland, but the bourgeoisie were able to hold their own in the northern part of the country. After the bourgeois "white" troops under the command of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim had succeeded better than the "reds" in training their combat units for warfare, they went on the offensive in mid-March and took the city of Tampere after heavy fighting . German combat units, which had come to the aid of the whites, advanced at the same time in the south. After the capture of Viipuri at the end of April, the last of the insurgents gave up at the beginning of May. The side effects of the war included acts of political violence on both sides, and its aftermath was a hunger and epidemic tragedy among the Reds in the prison camps.
backgrounds
The starting point for the armed conflict in Finland was created by increasing social differences, which were not taken into account through appropriate reforms. Particularly in conjunction with the influence of the events in Russia, there was radicalization and the formation of armed groups. The outbreak of the First World War favored this development and also led to a noticeable food shortage, which further increased the unrest among the workers.
Social contrasts
Finland, an autonomous grand duchy of the Russian Empire, was subject to major economic and social changes in the 19th century. The onset of industrialization and population growth led to a softening of the class society and the emergence of new social classes, especially in the cities. The largely bourgeois national romantic movement pursued the elevation of the Finnish national consciousness by promoting the education of broad strata of the population, without, however, aiming to change the social structures. The increasingly self-confident workers in the cities instead adopted the ideals of socialism , and in 1899 the Workers' Party of Finland was founded, which was renamed the Social Democratic Party of Finland in 1903 . The party also received encouragement from the working rural population and the owners of leasehold farms who lived in uncertain legal circumstances.
In 1906 the old estates' Reichstag was replaced by a democratically elected parliament in which the social democrats immediately won 80 out of 200 seats. However, this reform was unable to reduce social tensions. Central social reform laws repeatedly failed because the tsar refused to ratify them. In the municipal area, the fact that the representatives of the city council were only elected by taxpayers and thus the poorer social classes remained without influence. Since all social services were the responsibility of the municipalities, improvements in this area were difficult to achieve.
Formation of armed groups
The parliamentary reform of 1906 was the result of a general strike in 1905 which was called by the Helsinki workers but was supported by bourgeois movements. Since the police forces were also on strike, the strike committees formed so-called national guards to maintain order. The red guards (punakaarti) partly split off from these to protect the workers. After the end of the strike, these armed organizations continued to exist, the bourgeois groups now known as the Schutzkorps ( suojeluskunta ) . During a soldiers' uprising in the Viapori fortress , riots broke out in the Helsinki district of Hakaniemi on August 2, 1906, in connection with which the Red Guards and the civil protection corps first got involved in a firefight in which ten people were killed. The Red Guards were initially disbanded after this incident.
In the meantime, a radicalization made itself felt in the bourgeois camp, which was directed primarily against belonging to Russia. Towards the end of the 19th century, two trends prevailed in relation to Russia. While the advocates of a policy of indulgence, represented mainly in the Finnish party , emphasized loyalty to the tsarist rule, the constitutionalist tendency, represented primarily by the Young Finnish Party and later also by the Landbund , insisted on literal compliance with the constitutional rights of autonomous Finland. After Governor Nikolai Bobrikow began his Russification efforts in 1903 , the militant activist movement split off from the constitutionalists and was preparing underground for an armed conflict with Russia.
First World War
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 initially did not have a significant impact on living conditions in Finland. Finnish soldiers did not take part in the war unless they voluntarily joined the Russian army . While the paper industry suffered great losses, the Finnish economy benefited from the war in the metal sector and also through the fortification work started in different parts of the country in 1915. At the end of 1916, however, the war situation began to have a significant impact on the supply situation in Finland, when the distribution of butter, milk and sugar, and later also meat, had to be rationed.
After the outbreak of war, the activist movement developed into the so-called hunter movement . In the hope of a war defeat for Russia, the movement contacted Germany and finally sent around 2,000 volunteers in 1915 for military training in the German army . The Royal Prussian Jäger Battalion No. 27 formed in this way was also partially deployed at the front and thus gained experience as a soldier that was otherwise hardly to be found in Finland.
The political development of motherland Russia, which had been marked by the rapid destabilization of tsarist violence since the beginning of the 20th century, had considerable significance for the development of internal tensions in Finland. The general strike in 1905 had its origins in comparable strikes in Russia, especially St. Petersburg , in the context of the events of the Russian Revolution in 1905 . The war intensified the internal unrest in the empire, which eventually led to the revolutions of 1917, which also threw the Finnish state system out of joint.
Finland after the February Revolution
The Russian Tsar Nicholas II renounced the throne on March 15, 1917 as a result of the February Revolution . The government was taken over by a parliamentary appointed provisional government . The revolution gave a new impetus to the political life of Finland, which had practically come to a standstill during the war, but at the same time led to a heightening of social differences.
Revitalization of autonomy and government formation
On March 20, the provisional government restored Finland's autonomous rights, which were severely restricted under Nicholas II. The Finnish parliament, which had not met during the war, was convened. Despite the war, parliamentary elections were held in the summer of 1916, in which the Social Democrats received 103 of the 200 seats and thus an absolute majority.
The parliamentary majority meant the socialists had the chance to use their newly won freedom for reforms, but it also plunged the party into an ideological crisis. An influential part of the party leadership, especially the editorial staff of the party organ Työmies , orientated themselves strictly to the tenets of Karl Kautsky . Participation of the socialists in a government in a capitalist system, as well as cooperation with bourgeois forces in general, was out of the question according to this doctrine, because it would weaken class consciousness. A socialist government would therefore presuppose a socialist revolution. This would ignite as a historical necessity as soon as capitalism had progressed sufficiently in the country without the party actively pursuing the revolution. The party did not see the time for the revolution as having come because of the still little advanced capitalism in Finland.
The party nevertheless agreed with the representatives of the bourgeois parties on the formation of a coalition senate, which should be chaired by the social democrat Oskari Tokoi and also to include six socialists and six bourgeoisie. However, because of the party's ideological concerns, its support for Tokoi's government remained weak. The socialists represented in the Senate were reformers, especially Matti Paasivuori , Väinö Tanner and Wäinö Wuolijoki , who did not have the support of the party majority. However, the Senate set itself an ambitious program. It included the expansion of democracy, especially at the local level, the limitation of the influence of the Russian provisional government, the improvement of working conditions, especially working hours and social security, as well as the waiver of compulsory education and freedom of religion.
The parliament falls over the relationship with Russia
All parties agreed that Finland should become independent from Russia. After the Tsar's abdication, the constitutional monarch ceased to exist. Opinions diverged as to what kind of legal consequences this had. While some were of the opinion that the state connection with Russia had broken through the disappearance of the Grand Duke, the prevailing opinion was that the supreme power had temporarily passed to the provisional government.
The Senate made several attempts to reach an agreement with the provisional government on greater independence for Finland, but failed. The most active role in the quest for independence played the social democrats, who wanted to expand the powers of the parliament they ruled. The party received support from the Russian Bolsheviks under Lenin , who gave the Finns full freedom of choice and the right to independence. With this unconditional support, the Bolsheviks were able to significantly strengthen their influence in the Finnish labor movement. When the power of the provisional government seemed to be shaken by the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd, the Social Democrats introduced the so-called state law (valtalaki) into parliament on July 18, 1917 , with which parliament declared that it would now exercise supreme power in the state itself .
The state law was passed with a large majority, but the provisional government emerged victorious for the time being from the internal unrest and showed no inclination to recognize the arbitrary state law of the Finnish parliament. The bourgeois parties decided to back down and proposed that the Provisional Government dissolve Parliament. The Social Democrats tried to oppose the dissolution of parliament, but eventually had to give in to the pressure and prepare for new elections. Tokoi and the social democratic senators withdrew from the Senate, the new head of government was Eemil Nestor Setälä of the Young Finnish Party.
In the new parliamentary elections held in early October, the Social Democrats suffered a defeat and lost their absolute majority with 92 seats. While the bourgeois camp celebrated the "defense of the socialist threat", the Social Democrats were bitter and dismayed that the parliamentary majority had been lost as a means of remedying grievances and alleviating the unrest in the country.
Public order collapse
The Russian February Revolution had an immediate impact on Finnish public order. The large Russian army units in the country formed workers 'and soldiers' councils , as in Russia , which exercised control over the army from March onwards. Pressure from the councils also brought the police to a standstill. On March 19, the Helsinki Soldiers' Council informed the Social Democratic Party that civil police power would be handed over to the workers. Under pressure from the councils, the city councils declared themselves ready to hand the power of order into the hands of special militias, the organization of which differed from city to city, but which in all cases were ruled by socialists.
During the summer of 1917 social tensions escalated dramatically. Russia ended the fortification work in Finland and also reduced the purchase of war supplies from Finland. The result was a sharp rise in unemployment in both rural and urban areas. At the same time, the food shortage was becoming alarming. In May, the parliament passed a food law, which subjected the production and distribution of basic foodstuffs to strict controls, but which in many cases was not followed. In August, demonstrators broke into food stores in many cities, mainly distributing butter to workers.
The trade unions as well as the Social Democratic Party received a massive influx of new members during this time, the majority of whom had no particular attachment to the socialist ideology, but were radicalized and often violent due to the heated atmosphere and the worsening of the social situation. The more moderate party leaders increasingly lost control of the labor movement, which formed various armed groups on the grassroots.
The bourgeois sections of the population, troubled by the increasing collapse of order, began to form local armed protection corps as early as June, but especially from August to November. While the local organizers were primarily concerned with protecting against rioters, the anti-Russian activists also speculated that the corps would be used in an armed clash with Russian troops.
The labor movement saw the protection corps as an instrument for suppressing the working class. The socialist newspapers speculated that the commoners wanted to weaken the class enemy first by starving them and then drowning them in a bloodbath. The members of the protective corps were quickly referred to as “butchers” (lahtari) . The arming of the workers' groups accelerated, and at the end of October the party decided on the official nationwide formation of armed "Ordnungsgarden", for which the name "Red Guards" soon became established again.
Finland in the wake of the October Revolution
On November 6, 1917, the day of the Russian October Revolution , the Bolsheviks took power in Petrograd . The upheaval upset bourgeois Finland and encouraged the revolutionary base of the Finnish working class. In the shadow of the newly won independence, the opponents prepared for the clash.
Revolutionary unrest intensifies
The struggle for a common line of the labor movement was marked by increasing pressure from the street and an indecisive party leadership after the lost parliamentary election. In a joint meeting of the leaders of the party and the trade unions on October 18, it was agreed that the grassroots workers could no longer be held if the Senate could not be induced to act on the food issue. On October 20, the trade union federation gave the Senate an ultimatum to place the production and distribution of food under state control. Despite the fruitless expiry of the ultimatum, the federal government initially postponed the decision on specific measures. At the same time, the Social Democratic Party published a program entitled We Demand , in which they demanded , alongside democratic and social reforms, the dissolution of the bourgeois protective corps.
The successful October Revolution led directly to an intensification of Lenin's efforts to induce a revolutionary uprising also in the Finnish labor movement. Indeed, on November 14th, the leaders of the labor movement called a general strike that would result in the revolution. The call was heeded nationwide, and power in the country was in fact exercised in those days by the Red Guards. The specially formed Revolutionary Committee, however, despaired, among other things, because of Lenin's position in Russia, which still seemed uncertain, and ended the strike on November 20 after part of the demands of the We Demand program had been complied with. During those days there had been numerous acts of violence and killings across the country.
independence
Political Finland was initially stuck in a power vacuum after the October Revolution. The bourgeois parties, startled by the events of the general strike, now endeavored to bring about state independence as quickly as possible. The newly elected parliament declared on November 15, 1917, at the same time rejecting the Social Democrats' program, that it would temporarily exercise the monarch's constitutional authority. On November 27, it elected a new Senate headed by Pehr Evind Svinhufvud . He submitted a formal declaration of independence to parliament , which was passed on December 6th - against the votes of the Social Democrats.
It soon became apparent that international recognition of the new state would not be possible without prior recognition by Soviet Russia. Lenin had previously repeatedly assured the Finnish socialists that he would not stand in the way of Finland's independence, and he stood by this word when a Finnish delegation led by Svinhufvud appeared in person in Petrograd on December 30 to seek recognition of the Finnish state sought. Before that, Lenin had once again urged the socialists to launch an immediate revolution.
White Finland is preparing its army
The acts of violence during the general strike accelerated the formation of “white” protective corps. A group of almost a hundred hunters who had returned early from service in the German army were mainly deployed in the strongest area of the whites, in Ostrobothnia , to train command personnel for the coming army. In particular, the groups trained in Vimpeli from December 28, 1917 to January 14, 1918 , and in Vörå from January 26, gave the whites an important training advantage over their opponents in the later war. The armament of the protective corps was initially poor. In October a shipload of 6,500 rifles and 30 machine guns had arrived from Germany with the aid ship Equity , but otherwise only sporadic quantities could be procured, often through secret purchases from the Russian garrisons. At the end of January 1918, the protective corps comprised around 40,000 members, but only 9,000 of them could be equipped with rifles.
In view of the precarious security situation and the 75,000 Russian soldiers still present in the country, the bourgeois camp was of the opinion that the government needed regular law enforcement. On January 12, 1918, the parliament decided against the bitter resistance of the socialists to authorize the government to take all measures "which it considers necessary to establish a strict public order." On January 16, Svinhufvud instructed the Lieutenant General who had returned to Finland Russian army Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim as commander with the formation of armed forces. On January 25, the until then private protection corps were declared the government's regular army.
As early as January 9, 1918, the Senate had decided to negotiate with Germany about the delivery of further weapons and the return of the Finnish soldiers serving in the German army. Germany's attitude towards Finland was ambivalent. The armistice concluded with Russia and the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk prevented open support for anti-Russian activities, but on the other hand it seemed favorable to secure a regime in Finland that was friendly to Germany. On January 18, Ludendorff therefore agreed to the purchase of 70,000 rifles and other military equipment and the exemption of the Finnish hunters . However, the implementation of these agreements was delayed until February.
Mannerheim's activities were initially directed primarily against the Russian garrisons, as he assumed that the unrest in the country was primarily caused by the Russian soldiers and criminal elements incited by them. On January 25, Mannerheim gave the order to mobilize the protective corps on the night of January 27 to 28 and to disarm the Russian garrisons in Vaasa and five other places in southern Ostrobothnia .
The socialists decide the revolution
After the general strike in November, the Red Guards increasingly took the lead in the development of the labor movement, especially the radical guards in the cities, where the influence of Bolshevik propaganda was strongest. In Turku in particular , there were massive looting and riots, which the party leadership proved powerless to moderate.
The Red Guards centralized their organization at the end of November by setting up a central commission, which a few weeks later was transformed into a general staff . For commander was Ali Aaltonen , a journalist and a lieutenant in the Russian army , was appointed.
The socialists interpreted the parliamentary decision of January 12, 1918 to mean that the government had created a class struggle army directed against the Finnish working class. The social democratic party leadership was initially not clearly on a revolutionary course. The moderate long-time members did not consider the armed uprising to be inevitable.
Pressure from the Red Guards increased shortly thereafter, however. Ali Aaltonen had traveled to Petrograd at the beginning of January and, through the mediation of Eino Rahja of Finnish origin , who belonged to the Bolsheviks there , received an oral promise from Lenin on January 13th to deliver 10,000 rifles and other weapons to the Finnish Reds. He confirmed this promise in writing on January 20, and at the same time it was announced that the train carrying the weapons would leave Petrograd early in the morning on January 26. In this situation, and in an effort to preserve the unity of the labor movement, the Socialist Party Council took on new radical members on January 22nd and set up an all-radical executive committee on January 24th, chaired by Eero Haapalainen , union leader from Viipuri , took over.
The leadership of the Red Guards assumed that the protective corps would try to stop the planned arms transport, and so Aaltonen and Haapalainen gave the order for a general strike on January 23 and for the mobilization of the guards from January 25. The Executive Committee finally decided on January 26th that the revolution should begin the next day.
Outbreak of civil war
Practically at the same time as the beginning of the attempted socialist coup, the white troops began their military actions against the Russian garrisons. While the revolution in the south was successful, Mannerheim was able to secure a base in southern Ostrobothnia, from which bourgeois Finland soon brought the entire northern part of the country under its control.
The uprising succeeds in the south
On the evening of January 27, 1918 at 11 p.m., a red lamp shone on the tower of the Helsinki Trade Union House to signal the beginning of the revolution. The Red Guards occupied the most important buildings and had the city completely under their control the following morning. In the cities of southern Finland, the revolutionaries encountered just as little resistance as in most of the rural areas there.
The Social Democrats' Executive Committee set up a red government, the People's Commissariat , on January 28th . Its chairmanship, and thus the office of head of government, was taken over by party leader Kullervo Manner , who had been president of the socialist majority parliament. The red government immediately faced the consequences of an almost complete strike by all public officials. The administration had to be newly formed from representatives of the workers. Likewise, the entire banking system went on strike and plunged red Finland into a severe financial crisis, in which it was only able to manage itself through constant reprinting of banknotes during its entire existence . The economic policy of the People's Commissariat was also largely determined by efforts to stabilize the situation and secure supplies. Economic reforms that could be classified as socialist did not take place in red Finland.
On February 20, the red government approved the text of a new constitution . The draft, which came largely from the pen of Otto Ville Kuusinen and was to be put to a referendum after the war , was strictly democratic and gave the supreme power to the freely elected parliament. The text was clearly based on the Swiss constitution and was liberal, but could hardly be called revolutionary.
The white government holds its own in the north
On the night of January 28, the white protective corps began to disarm the Russian garrisons in southern Ostrobothnia. The garrisons in Laihia , Lapua , Seinäjoki , Ylistaro , Ilmajoki , Kaskinen , Nykarleby and Jakobstad offered little resistance, and Vaasa was also taken on the same day. In Kristinestad and Kokkola, however, the protective corps had to break the resistance of the soldiers supported by the Red Guards. However, until January 31, all of southern Ostrobothnia was under white control. 8,000 rifles and heavy armament were captured, so that a much more effective warfare was subsequently possible.
While the socialists in southern Ostrobothnia had little support, they were strongly represented in northern Ostrobothnia and Lapland . In Oulu in particular , the first heavy fighting of the civil war broke out on February 3. However, on February 7th, the whites had secured the north. In the cities of Jyväskylä and Mikkeli , the insurgents were put down by the local protection corps at the beginning of February, as was the case in Kuopio after a brief battle on February 8th. This meant that the northeast of the country was also under white control, with the exception of the industrial city of Varkaus , which initially remained a red enclave . In Karelia there had already been strong activities by the local protection corps before the outbreak of the civil war, which had led to the disarmament of the Russian troops in North Karelia and in the north of South Karelia . These areas remained in white hands even after the socialist upheaval.
Right at the beginning of their uprising, the Reds suffered a severe setback as they failed to arrest the members of the Senate. Three senators were able to travel to Ostrobothnia shortly before the outbreak of war, and a fourth followed them at the beginning of February. The remaining members, among them Svinhufvud, were able to hide with bourgeois residents in Helsinki. The escaped senators were thus able to form a functioning, constitutional government in Vaasa, which gave white Finland an inestimable advantage in terms of legitimacy, especially in relation to other countries. Heikki Renvall took over the chairmanship until Svinhufvud could also be smuggled from Helsinki to Vaasa in March.
The front is stabilizing
The position of the whites depended to a large extent on the ability to move troops and materials between the main base areas in Ostrobothnia and Karelia. Fortunately for them, the new railway line from Haapamäki in the municipality of Keuruu via Pieksämäki to Elisenvaara was inaugurated shortly before the outbreak of war . To secure this vital connection, Mannerheim sent the protective corps from Lapua to Haapamäki on January 29th. The railroad crossing was taken without a fight because the red leaders in nearby Tampere had not yet recognized the importance of the place at that time. The white troops advanced along the railway line to the south to Vilppula , where they established their position. From February 2 to 7, the Reds carried out several attacks on Vilppula. In the same way as the Reds organized stronger attacks, the Whites were also able to strengthen their positions and armaments, so that the attacks were repulsed.
After Vilppula was secured, the front line remained largely stable for a long time. The border between red and white Finland ran from the west coast between red Pori and white Kristiina via Vilppula, Padasjoki , Heinola , Lappeenranta and Antrea to Rautu on the border with Russia. However, it was not a continuous front. One of the essential characteristics of the Finnish civil war was that it took place in the wintry and difficult-to-access country exclusively along the few traffic routes, primarily the railway lines. Accordingly, there were front positions only where a railway line or a country road crossed the front line.
Both sides initially concentrated their forces on securing their own hinterland. On the south coast there were still numerous functioning white protective corps, especially in Porvoo and Loviisa , but also in Siuntio and Kirkkonummi . The last of these units did not surrender until March 1st and until then tied up considerable resources of the Reds. In the white hinterland, the red Varkaus remained, whose Red Guard comprised around 1,500 men, who were, however, weakly armed. On February 20, the Whites carried out an attack with 1,050 soldiers , six machine guns and two artillery pieces . The next day the defense attorneys surrendered.
The warring parties
Neither the Red Guards nor the Protection Corps were designed to wage a full-blown civil war. Poor training, lack of discipline, and poor leadership hampered warfare on both sides. Through targeted training, the introduction of conscription and especially through the addition of the Jäger battalion, the whites were able to make progress in these areas in the course of the war, which gave them a decisive advantage over the reds. At the same time, the German Reich sent auxiliary troops and gave the whites another advantage.
The Red Guards
The Red Guards had been formed as local order organizations from convinced members of the labor movement. After the beginning of the civil war, new members poured into the guards, partly because the members now received a salary from the state treasury. There is no reliable information about the overall strength of the Garden. At the beginning of the war they comprised around 20,000 members, but grew to 65,000 to 80,000 by April, depending on the estimate.
At the beginning of the conflict, the armament of the Reds was primarily based on the arms delivery from Petrograd received at the end of January. This was not enough to ensure adequate armament. Only when the Russian army evacuated Finland at the end of February and beginning of March as a result of the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk did the garrisons leave their weapons to the Finnish revolutionaries, which at one stroke remedied the shortage of arms among the Reds.
Most of the Red Guards had no military training whatsoever, and attack movements in particular were very difficult with these soldiers. The Red Guards succeeded better in the defensive struggle, but the fear of circumnavigations often led to the premature abandonment of positions and headless flight. Warfare was also made difficult by the lack of qualified leadership. Apart from a few Russian volunteers, the Red Army had practically no trained officers. A functioning central command structure did not materialize during the entire war.
The dissatisfaction with the leadership was expressed in the frequent changes of the commanders in chief. Ali Aaltonen had relied solely on the local command structure of the Red Guards, trusting the support of the Russian army. He was replaced on January 28 by Eero Haapalainen as the new Commander-in-Chief. After this had proven to be less capable, he was replaced on March 20 by a triumvirate made up of Evert Eloranta , Eino Rahja and Adolf Taimi . Already on the threshold of the fall of red Finland, on April 12th, attempts were made to join forces once more by proclaiming Kullervo Manner as dictator.
Although the history of the red attempted coup was closely linked to the Russian revolutions and the leaders of the revolution had expected considerable support from the Russian soldiers in the country, their participation in the fighting remained small and played no essential role in the warfare of red Finland. Lenin saw himself prevented from openly participating in the war in Finland by the precarious situation of the world war and the peace negotiations with Germany and limited himself to occasional arms deliveries. Most of the garrisons remained passive and gave only a few local support. In the course of the evacuation of Finland, soldiers were given the option to volunteer in the Finnish Red Army in early March. Around a thousand soldiers made use of this option. An exception was Karelia, where troops from Russia were also sent across the border because of its proximity to Petrograd. In the fighting around Rautu in early March in particular, Russians made up around half of the red troops.
The white army
The white protective corps initially had to deal with problems similar to those of the reds. Inadequate training and a lack of military discipline made a coordinated approach difficult. However, the whites succeeded to a much greater extent than the reds in improving the level of training in the course of the war. The fact that the whites had trained officers at their disposal played a decisive role here. These included former members of the Finnish armed forces, which were disbanded in 1901, as well as volunteer officers of the Russian army , which Mannerheim also belonged to. Other officers were recruited from Swedish volunteers. The greatest impetus for the formation of the army was the arrival of 1,060 hunters trained in Germany from the 27th Jäger Battalion on February 18th and 25th. These formed a functioning, war-experienced leadership class and at the same time served as a model for the inexperienced troops.
The strength of the white army was around 45,000 in March and 75,000 at the end of April. The ranks were deliberately strengthened by the general conscription introduced on February 18, which increased the proportion of workers in the army. But workers had already joined the protective corps before. The largest proportion (56%) of the white soldiers, however, were the independent farmers with their sons. The originally extremely inadequate armament was initially improved by the disarmament of the Russian garrisons at the end of January. In February the Senate received 70,000 rifles and heavy weapons from Germany so that the entire army could be adequately armed.
The role of Germany
The imperial Germany had at the beginning of the Civil War, a tense relationship with Finland. It was in the German interest to secure a friendly, bourgeois country in the vicinity of Russia; on the other hand, the open support of whites could endanger the Brest-Litovsk peace process. The recognition of Finland by Russia and the subsequent signing of the peace treaty, in which Russia undertook to evacuate Finland, eased the situation. On March 7, 1918, the Finnish ambassadors in Berlin, Edvard Hjelt and Rafael Erich , signed a peace treaty with Germany. A little later, Svinhufvud, who had just fled Helsinki, arrived in Berlin and asked for auxiliary troops to be sent.
The use of German aid was controversial in white Finland. Mannerheim had repeatedly refused this because he feared Finland would become dependent on Germany. The Rumpfsenat in Vaasa also refused to officially confirm Svinhufvud's agreements. The dispute was eventually settled by formally placing the German troops under Mannerheim's command. On April 3, 1918, the Baltic Sea Division of the German army landed in Hanko as part of the so-called Finland intervention with 9,500 men under Major General Rüdiger Graf von der Goltz , and on April 7 a further 2,500 men, the Brandenstein Detachment , under Colonel Otto von Brandenstein from Tallinn in Loviisa .
Course of the war
After the front had remained largely unchanged for six weeks, the main white offensive began with the encirclement and conquest of the city of Tampere. German troops landed in the south captured Helsinki and later met with Mannerheim's units in Lahti. The encircled stream of red refugees surrendered after desperate fighting. The last heavy fighting took place in Karelia around the city of Viipuri. The civil war ended on May 5, 1918 when the last rebels gave up.
The battle for Tampere
The city of Tampere was the largest industrial center in Finland and the stronghold of the Red Guards in 1918. On March 15, 1918, the white army began a large-scale attack aimed at encircling and subsequently conquering the city.
The attack was carried out from several sides and initially progressed with varying degrees of success. In many cases, even small attempts at attack led to a disorderly flight of the Red Defenders, but tough resistance was offered in other places. On March 16, for example, bitter fighting broke out in Länkipohja, a village in the municipality of Längelmäki , in which the protective corps of Lapua lost its two commanders. After the conquest of the village, the whites shot all the captured Red Guards, a procedure that was practiced in a similar form in other places.
After several days of fighting, the Lempäälä train station south of Tampere was finally captured on March 26, thus closing the siege belt around the city. The fighting in the vicinity of Tamperes had led to the fact that the soldiers of the Red Guards stationed there as well as a large part of the civilian population had fled into the city and the city was filled to bursting with people. After the red units had previously fled, often hastily, every other escape route was now blocked, and so the city under the leadership of the local commander Hugo Salmela prepared for the defense of the city. The militarily uneducated worker in a wooden warehouse managed to sort out the panic troops and to organize an effective defense until he was killed in an explosion on March 28th.
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The whites were surprised by the suddenly strengthened resistance, and the assault on the city that began on Maundy Thursday, March 28, initially ended in a bloodbath around the cemetery of Kalevankangas in eastern Tamperes. In the machine gun fire of the Reds, the attackers lost almost 1,000 men as dead or wounded. In the days that followed, too, the attack made difficult progress. The defense lawyers had decided not to surrender, apparently due to the reports of the fate of the prisoners in Länkipohja. The capture of Tamperes therefore required bitter street fighting for days, in which the city was conquered house by house from east to west, but was almost completely destroyed by constant gunfire. On April 6, 1918, the last defenders pushed into the western district of Pyynikki surrendered.
The Battle of Tampere was the largest armed conflict in Finnish history to date. According to popular estimates, around 600 white and 1,800 red soldiers died in the street fighting. According to the investigation of Ylikangas, up to 500 people who were executed during the fighting are said to be among the red dead.
Advance of the Germans in the south
The Tamperes case represented a severe blow to red Finland, both militarily, since a considerable part of the Red Guards had been destroyed with the troops stationed in the city, and psychologically, since the revolutionary movement had lost one of its most important centers. Three days earlier, on April 3, 1918, the landing of the German troops in Hanko had shaken the People's Commissariat, which in any case had little control over its remaining troops.
The Baltic Division advanced along the south coast to Leppävaara near Helsinki by April 10 without encountering any significant resistance. An energetic defense of the capital was also practically impossible to organize after Eino Rahja had gathered all the forces available in the city and led them to Lempäälä to relieve the enclosed Tampere. The People's Commissariat met in Helsinki for the last time on April 6 and then fled to Viipuri in view of the approaching Germans. Von der Goltz had his troops start the storm on the city on April 11 , supported by naval units that had penetrated the port on April 12. On April 13, the Reds encircled in Siltasaari in the Kallio district gave up. The Germans recorded 200 dead and wounded in the fighting.
Colonel von Brandenstein's troops, which landed at Loviisa on April 7, captured Loviisa quickly and without resistance and advanced to Orimattila by April 11 . After Goltz also advanced north, von Brandenstein took the city of Lahti on April 19 , met there with the white troops from the north and thus severed the connections between the Reds in the west and east.
The red refugee train
On April 4, the Red General Staff ordered the evacuation of the western Finnish areas and the withdrawal of the Red Guards there to the east. After the Germans had landed, the defense of these areas initially seemed hopeless, and the Red leadership wanted to regroup forces in the east. However, the local commanders were unwilling to obey the order - it was better to defend the hometown. The Turku Guard was not ready to carry out the evacuation until April 10, Pori even not until April 12. The guards stationed further to the east, which were later included in the evacuation plan, also delayed their departure. In addition, the guards resisted the order to leave their families behind, but fled with their families and their movable belongings.
The trains of many thousands of heavily laden refugees made difficult progress on the country roads softened by the thaw, and the journey finally ended in the Lahti area, where the whites' bolt had now been closed. The Red Guards tried to break through in many places. In a desperate battle in Hauho on April 28 and 29, the soldiers, supported in many cases by their armed wives, were actually able to fight their way through the German ranks. Ultimately, however, they too, like the other refugees, had to admit defeat. The last of them surrendered on May 2, 1918.
Conclusion of war in Karelia
At the end of April, the Reds only had the Kymenlaakso region and part of Karelia in their hands. However, in faint hope for help from Russia, they continued their resistance. The whites began the attack on Viipuri on April 23 and soon encircled the city. The conquest of the city, however, required tough fighting and finally succeeded on April 29th. Many of the leading figures in red Finland were able to flee to Petrograd shortly before. The conquest of Viipuri represented the last major fighting. The last red enclave in Kymenlaakso surrendered on May 5, 1918. This day is considered to be the end of the war, even though the Ino fortress in Karelia remained occupied by Russian troops until May 15.
According to the findings of the Finnish state's project to clarify war victims, which was completed in 2004, a total of 9,538 people lost their lives in the fighting during the civil war. Of the victims, 3458 belonged to the white and 5717 to the red side. These figures do not include the roughly 350 Germans and 500–600 Russian dead. Around 2000 people were killed in the Battle of Tampere alone.
Political violence during and after the war
| Cause of death | "Red" | "White" | Other | total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fallen in battle | 5,199 | 3,414 | 790 | 9,403 |
| Death by execution | 7,370 | 1,424 | 926 | 9,720 |
| Death in the internment camp | 11,652 | 4th | 1,790 | 13,446 |
| Death as a result of internment | 607 | - | 6th | 613 |
| Missing | 1,767 | 46 | 380 | 2,193 |
| Other causes of death | 443 | 291 | 531 | 1,265 |
| Total losses | 27,038 | 5,179 | 4,423 | 36,640 |
Around six percent of those actively involved in the war fell in the immediate fighting. However, significantly more victims lost their lives outside the battlefield. The terms “red and white terror” have become commonplace for the processes involved.
During the existence of red Finland, around 1,650 middle-class people were murdered. The killings were mainly divided into two phases. 703 murders occurred in the early stages of the war in February when the Reds killed numerous members of the Protection Corps who tried to side with the Whites. The second wave of violence occurred at the end of the war in April, when 667 people were killed, often in the last days before the town fell to the whites. For the most part, the acts of violence were isolated and often happened without any orders being given. Mass murders only occurred in a few cases; the largest number of people killed in one go was 30 people. The People's Commissariat publicly condemned the unnecessary violence, but no specific punitive measures were taken.
The white troops, who, according to their own opinion, fought in the service of restoring legal order, took drastic punitive measures against the defeated insurgents.
After the conquest of Varkaus, 200 Red Guards were executed within a few days, and similar procedures were followed everywhere after the conquest of towns and cities, particularly in Tampere and Viipuri. The executions often took place without a hearing, often after a short trial in court courts , which were formed from soldiers or from the bourgeois residents of the respective places. Only after the end of the war in May Mannerheim issued a strict ban on executions carried out without a legal basis . In total, the whites executed around 8,400 reds during the war. The Russians identified among the prisoners were practically systematically executed.
After the war, around 80,000 prisoners remained in the hands of the government. A special state criminal court was established in order to be able to negotiate the large number of cases in a reasonably legal manner. The court sentenced 555 people to death ; but only a part of these judgments was carried out. 23,000 Reds were sentenced to prison terms without parole , 44,500 with parole. The proceedings, in all their superficiality, took a long time, and it soon became apparent that the inmates crammed into prison camps could not be adequately cared for. From June 1918 the prisoners began to die en masse from hunger and epidemics, and by October a total of 12,500 to 13,000 deaths were counted. It is estimated that there were around 15,000 orphans .
aftermath
The civil war left a deeply divided society and a humiliated workforce. Moderate members, led by Väinö Tanner , took the lead in the Social Democratic Party, which subsequently showed no more revolutionary tendencies. Most of the old leadership had fled to Bolshevik Russia, where they founded the Communist Party of Finland in August 1918 and sealed the split in the Finnish labor movement. The Social Democrats were excluded from direct influence on politics for a long time, and it was not until 1937 that they were regularly involved in government again.
After the end of the civil war, “white” Finland began to establish an independent state. By drawing on German aid, it had tied itself closely to the German Reich, and in the constitutional dispute that followed the war, the monarchists initially retained the upper hand. On October 9, 1918, the German Friedrich Karl von Hessen was elected King of Finland. However, Germany's wartime defeat and the fall of the German imperial family made this choice obsolete, and Finland eventually adopted a republican constitution.
The split in Finnish society was reflected in looking back at the war. For decades, both camps wrote the history of the war from completely different angles. The historiography of the victorious bourgeois Finland carefully avoided the term “civil war” and described the conflict as a “war of freedom”, which primarily served to liberate the country from the Russian occupiers and criminals allied with them and was not directed against its own citizens. Especially under the impression of the events of the Russian civil war , the victory against the Finnish revolution was felt as a safeguard of the political sovereignty of Finland. In socialist literature, on the other hand, the war appeared as a typical “class war” of an oppressed working class that found no alternative but to take up arms against the ruling class. Today in Finland the more neutral term “civil war” has become common.
literature
- Risto Alapuro: State and revolution in Finland. Berkeley, Los Angeles / London 1988, ISBN 0-520-05813-5 .
- Jussi T. Lappalainen: Punakaartin sota. Parts 1 and 2. Valtion Painatuskeskus, Helsinki 1981, ISBN 951-859-071-0 , ISBN 951-859-072-9 .
- Manfred Menger: The Finland Policy of German Imperialism 1917–1918. Akademie-Verlag, (East) Berlin 1974.
- Aapo Roselius: Amatöörien sota. Rintamataisteluiden henkilötappiot Suomen sisällissodassa 1918. Valtioneuvoston kanslian julkaisusarja, Helsinki 2006, ISBN 952-5354-92-X (quoted: Roselius ).
- Tuomas Tepora; Aapo Roselius (Ed.): The Finnish Civil War 1918. History, Memory, Legacy. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers 2014. ISBN 978-90-04-24366-8 .
- Marko Tikka: Kenttäoikeudet. Välittömät rankaisutoimet Suomen sisällissodassa 1918. SKS, Helsinki 2004, ISBN 951-746-651-X .
- Anthony F. Upton: The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1980, ISBN 081-66-0905-5 .
- Anthony F. Upton: Vallankumous Suomessa 1917–1918, I osa. Kirjayhtymä, Helsinki 1980, ISBN 951-26-1828-1 (quoted: Upton I ).
- Anthony F. Upton: Vallankumous Suomessa 1917–1918, II osa. Kirjayhtymä, Helsinki 1981, ISBN 951-26-2022-7 (quoted: Upton II ).
- Pentti Virrankoski: Suomen historia 2. SKS, Helsinki 2001, ISBN 951-746-342-1 (quoted: Virrankoski ).
- Heikki Ylikangas : The way to Tampere. Bwv Spitz, Berlin 2002, ISBN 383-05-0018-1 .
- Heikki Ylikangas: Tie Tampereelle. WSOY, Helsinki 1993, ISBN 951-0-18897-2 (quoted: Ylikangas ).
- Count Rüdiger von der Goltz: My mission in Finland and the Baltic States. KF Koehler, Leipzig 1920 ( online ).
Movie
- Käsky (Die Unbeugsame ) FI / DE / GR 2008, directed by Aku Louhimies.
Web links
- The German landing in Finland (Official German illustration from 1918)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Virrankoski p. 610.
- ↑ Upton I p. 16.
- ↑ Upton I p. 58 f.
- ↑ Virrankoski p. 705.
- ↑ Soikkanen, Hannu: Kohti kansan valtaa first Vaasa 1975 S. 192nd
- ^ Upton I, p. 248.
- ↑ Upton I, pp. 60 ff.
- ↑ Virrankoski p. 710.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 710.
- ↑ Article in Kansan Lehti of October 17, 1917 and in Uusi Päivä of October 20, 1917, cited in Upton I, p. 222.
- ↑ Upton I, p. 226 f .; Virrankoski, p. 711.
- ^ Upton I, p. 249.
- ^ Upton I, pp. 252-258.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 713.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 716.
- ↑ Upton I, p. 402 ff.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 718.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 718 f.
- ↑ Upton I, p. 434 f.
- ↑ Upton I, p. 449 ff.
- ^ Upton I, p. 455.
- ↑ Upton I, p. 487 f.
- ↑ Upton I, pp 392-396.
- ^ So the words of the SDP MP Vuoristo, quoted in Upton I, p. 440; similar to the announcement of the party commission of January 15, 1918, quoted in Upton I, p. 444 f.
- ↑ Virankoski, p. 721.
- ↑ Upton I, p. 444 f. and 482 ff .; Virrankoski, pp. 718, 721.
- ↑ Upton I, p. 510 f .; Virrankoski, p. 725.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 724.
- ^ Upton II, pp. 145-161.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 726 f.
- ↑ Upton II, p. 217 ff.
- ↑ Upton I, pp. 513-515; Upton II, p. 7 f.
- ↑ Upton II, pp. 11-25; Virrankoski, p. 725 f.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 723 f .; Upton II, p. 210.
- ↑ Upton II, pp. 16-19.
- ↑ Upton II, p. 27.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 735; Upton II, p. 286 ff.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 731 f .; Upton II, pp. 227-231.
- ↑ Upton II, p. 274 f.
- ↑ Upton II, p. 36, 400 f .; Virrankoski, pp. 725, 740.
- ↑ Upton II, pp. 35 f., 265-273.
- ↑ Virrankoski, pp. 732-735.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 732.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 738 f.
- ↑ Ylikangas, pp. 114-130.
- ↑ Ylikangas, pp. 134-146.
- ↑ a b Virrankoski, p. 738.
- ^ Ylikangas, p. 347.
- ↑ Ylikangas, pp. 381-455.
- ↑ Ylikangas, pp. 488-494.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 739 f.
- ↑ Upton II, pp. 381-388; Virrankoski, p. 740.
- ↑ Upton II, pp. 389 f., 416 f.
- ↑ Upton II, p. 378 f. and 402-404.
- ↑ Upton II, pp. 420 f .; Virrankoski, p. 740.
- ↑ Upton II, p. 445 f.
- ↑ Roselius, p. 19.
- ↑ Lars Westerlund in the foreword to Roselius, p. 9.
- ↑ Roselius, p. 42.
- ↑ Statistical survey of the Finnish State Archives Vuosina 1914-22 sotaoloissa surmansa saaneiden nimitiedosto
- ↑ Upton II, pp. 191-195; Virrankoski, pp. 743 f.
- ↑ Virrankoski, pp. 745-748; Ylikangas, pp. 502-514.
- ↑ Virrankoski, p. 749, speaks of 125 executions, while according to Upton II, p. 456, 265 judgments were carried out.
- ↑ Virrankoski, pp. 748-752.
- ↑ Cord, DJ: How Finland found a way to reconciliation after the civil war in 1918, this is finland May 18, 2018
