Finland intervention

The Finnish intervention of German troops (March to December 1918) decided the Finnish Civil War in favor of the conservative counter-revolutionary White Army . In addition, the German leadership pursued the goal of permanently detaching Finland from the Russian sphere of influence and instead integrating it firmly into the Baltic Sea region, which was dominated by the German Reich after the peace of Brest-Litovsk . The presence of German troops secured the election of Prince Friedrich Karl von Hessen-Kassel-Rumpenheim as King of Finland in October 1918 . The evacuation of the German Baltic Sea Division in December 1918 resulted in the abdication of Friedrich Karl and the overthrow of the pro-German government Svinhufvud . In this way, those political forces in Finland who advocated a connection to Great Britain and France or the neutrality of the young state prevailed.

Officers of the Baltic Sea Division in Finland

background

The Grand Duchy of Finland , whose special political and economic status within the Russian Empire had repeatedly been questioned since the turn of the century, attracted the attention of German politics immediately after the outbreak of war . The Finnish aspirations for autonomy and the already existing German influence in Finland - imports from Germany had dominated Finnish foreign trade since 1905 - seemed to offer a promising starting point for the disintegration of the Tsarist empire in general and the weakening of the Russian position in the Baltic Sea region in particular. On August 6, 1914, Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg instructed the German ambassador in Stockholm to establish contact with influential Finns and to influence them in the sense of "throwing Russian despotism back on Moscow". Admittedly, these and subsequent similar efforts failed to achieve a real breakthrough until the complete reorganization of conditions caused by the Russian revolutions of 1917. This was not least due to the German refusal, despite repeated requests from Finnish contact persons, to publicly and bindingly speak out in favor of Finland's independence. The Reich leadership refused because they had long speculated on a separate peace with Russia. As a result, the majority of the Finnish ruling class remained reserved towards the German initiatives, especially since they considered it unlikely that Germany would be able to dictate peace to Russia. It relied on the Western Powers, from whom it expected a moderating effect on its Russian allies on the Finnish question. The strong Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP), in which the left wing dominated, placed its hopes in a revolution in Russia and refused to accept the German attempts at rapprochement, which were also undertaken through representatives of the SPD .

Only the supporters of the radical nationalist and anti-socialist activist movement that emerged in 1904/1905 became unconditional supporters of German interests in Finland . This flow entertained in Berlin one of the Finnish Bar Friedrich Wetterhoff led Finn firm (since the end of 1916 Finnish chalets Office ). Out of this group, a "Principality of Finland" with a Hohenzollern prince at the head was brought into discussion with German representatives as early as the autumn of 1914 . Individual activists also negotiated with Duke Adolf Friedrich zu Mecklenburg about a candidacy for the throne. Until the autumn of 1917, however, this movement remained an outsider in the political spectrum in Finland. Far-reaching consequences had only the materially from those activists powered recruiting volunteers (total of 1,886 man) for military training in Germany, had agreed to the German authorities on 26 January 1915 (see. Royal Prussian Infantry Battalion no. 27 ). The activists were convinced that Finnish independence could only be achieved through an armed uprising, but were also aware that such an uprising would be completely hopeless without the support of German (or Swedish ) troops. Consequently, they rejected the regularly repeated German calls for an independent Finnish attack. Incidentally, individual activists acted as German agents, cleared up military movements, destroyed Russian war material or helped German prisoners of war to flee to Sweden.

It was only after the Russian February Revolution that the German leadership took the first concrete steps to prepare a military intervention in Finland. The Jäger Battalion No. 27 had been ready for loading in Libau since the end of March 1917 , and in Danzig the OHL had all the equipment for a Finnish army of 100,000 men - including the rank insignia with the Finnish lion and Finnish cockades - ready. At the same time, an unofficial declaration was circulated by German shop stewards in Finland, in which it was said for the first time that it was "German interest that Finland might gain full independence." The German hopes for an anti-Russian uprising in Finland and an accompanying " Invitation “German troops were disappointed again. The revolutionary crisis in the tsarist empire loosened the central office's access to the non-Russian peripheral regions, but in the case of Finland in particular it led to the Finnish bourgeoisie and the landowners, given the parallel upswing of the Finnish labor movement (the membership of the SDP rose to over 100,000 in 1917 - in a country with fewer than 3 million inhabitants) there was even less sense of weakening the existing state structures than before. In contrast to the SDP, the bourgeois parties in the Finnish state parliament now even insisted that the new autonomy regulation unilaterally adopted in July be coordinated with the Russian Provisional Government . They now resolutely opposed complete independence, as this would have made the Landtag, which was ruled by Social Democrats, the sole political authority in Finland. These connections were not recognized by the German authorities, which is why they repeatedly accused their Finnish contacts of their alleged “weakness”.

The dissolution of the Landtag, ordered by the Provisional Government in August, and the subsequent new elections on October 2, 1917 - in which the SDP lost its majority against the bourgeois and agrarian parties united under the sign of the “red danger” - were largely due to bourgeois Finnish politicians been stimulated. The new parliamentary majority agreed with the Provisional Government that Finland would remain under Russian sovereignty. However, the overthrow of this government (cf. October Revolution ) brought about a dramatic change of perspective and brought German influence back into play, which at the time seemed almost completely eliminated. The new government, elected by the state parliament on November 26, 1917, under Pehr Evind Svinhufvud - a declared partisan of Germany - immediately set course for complete secession from Russia and close ties to Germany. The Soviet Council of People's Commissars accepted on 31 December 1917, adopted on 4 December Declaration of Independence of Finland . The escalation of the internal Finnish conflicts, consciously brought about by the Svinhufvud government, and the resulting civil war finally opened the way for German troops to Finland.

course

Political and military preparation

As early as November 12, 1917, the Foreign Office received a memorandum from Finnish bourgeois politicians, which was to be understood as an invitation to intervene. Among other things, it said:

“With Russia falling victim to anarchy and complete powerlessness, the great (...) opportunity seems to have come for Germany to establish solid and unshakable rule in the Baltic Sea. (...) The German acquis in these areas would be joined by a Sweden who (...) would be dependent on following the political guidelines of the Central Powers - Central Europe - as well as a free Finland. (...) It should be permissible for the Finnish side to respectfully emphasize that external intervention in and for the benefit of Finland as swiftly as possible would meet an urgent need for life in this country. (...) [It is] to be feared that certain irresponsible elements of the country's own people who are blinded by alleged class interests will use the opportunity to seize power and bring about a violent overthrow of the social order. (...) A quick and powerful intervention by the German armed forces would be of inestimable value in this situation. "

These advances were repeated several times in writing and orally both at the Foreign Office and at the OHL by the end of November. During these talks, the German representatives urged, for domestic and foreign policy reasons, that the Finnish government and parliament should publicly ask for German intervention. Without this having happened, a German submarine brought an advance command of the Jäger Battalion as well as equipment, weapons and radio equipment to the Finnish south coast at the end of November.

After the whole of southern Finland fell to the revolutionary forces in January 1918, the OHL, fearful of the country's imminent return to Russian influence, immediately wanted to send a larger force to the region. However, the Admiral's staff declared this impossible due to the climatic conditions and the as yet unexplained or cleared minefields in the northern Baltic Sea. The Privy Council meeting on February 13, 1918 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe decided, regardless of the further development of the relationship with Soviet Russia - the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk had been broken off on February 10 - in any case at the end of March (according to Admiral von Holtzendorff the earliest possible date) to intervene in Finland. The White Finnish rump government, which had evaded to Vaasa , was asked to hand over a declaration to German authorities in which “our intervention to restore order, citing the prevailing anarchy and the permanent threat to life and property” should be requested. On February 14th, the Finnish representative in Berlin, Edvard Hjelt , presented the requested document “on behalf of the Finnish people and state”. On February 21, in a first public step, the Soviet government ultimately demanded the immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops still remaining in Finland.

The German preparations were also accelerated by the surprise landing of Swedish troops on the Åland Islands on February 14th . On the German side, it was suspected that the Entente powers encouraged Sweden to take this step. It was therefore decided three days later to occupy this strategically important group of islands before intervening on the Finnish mainland. For the liquidation of the entire company, the formation of the approximately 11,000 men strong, directly subordinate to the OHL, the so-called Baltic Division was ordered on February 25th. For the most part, selected elite associations were used.

The occupation of the Åland Islands

The Swedish approach had made the situation considerably more complicated for German politics. Ironically, the political forces in Sweden who had previously favored the country's attitude towards the Central Powers (the royal house and the conservatives) were the most resolute advocates of a Swedish annexation of the Åland Islands . A collision between German and Swedish measures on the Åland question would have to further undermine the already faltering German positions in Sweden. However, the OHL in particular was not ready to simply leave the archipelago to Sweden. In coordination with the Foreign Office, it was agreed to initially occupy the islands themselves and, if necessary, later - of course only if there was appropriate "accommodation" in political and economic areas - to leave Sweden. In a telegram to the Swedish queen, Wilhelm II justified the occupation of the islands with - alleged - logistical constraints of the Finland expedition. Given the obvious hopelessness of an armed confrontation, the Stockholm government bowed to German pressure and instructed the Swedish commander on the ground not to offer any resistance to a possible landing by German troops.

Customs house in Eckerö

On February 26, a German naval formation under the command of Rear Admiral Meurer left Gdansk with the detachment of the Baltic Sea Division destined for the Åland Islands . Due to difficult ice conditions, he did not arrive at his destination until the morning of March 5th. Contrary to the assurances made by German representatives in Stockholm, the German admiral claimed control of almost the entire archipelago, which he received by March 8th. The provocative raising of the imperial war flag on the customs house in Eckerö sparked a storm of indignation in Sweden. Nevertheless, the Swedish troops were gradually withdrawn by April 25th.

The German-Finnish treaties of March 7, 1918

The White Finnish government in Vaasa welcomed the German troops on Finnish soil as “friends” and “brothers in arms” in a proclamation. On March 7, 1918, their representatives in Berlin signed a German-Finnish peace treaty, a trade and shipping agreement and a secret agreement that obliged Finland to cover almost all of the current war-economically relevant production and other available materials ( wood products , cardboard , paper , pulp , ores , Metals , minerals , old rubber , rubber , oils ) until a general peace agreement “as payment for the war materials delivered” to Germany. The publicly concluded contracts also served almost exclusively German interests. The regulations concerning trade aroused fierce criticism in Finland, for example the wholesalers in the city of Turku saw themselves as "German clerks". In the peace treaty, Finland was obliged to pay extensive damages (including interest) for German property losses that had occurred since 1914 on Finnish territory or in Finnish waters. The Finnish property confiscated in Germany or in countries occupied by Germany, on the other hand, should be and remain "by virtue of martial law the property of the German Reich". The most drastic constitutional stipulation provided that Finland was not allowed to conclude any agreements with third parties that in any way affected the country's territorial sovereignty without prior agreement with Germany. This provision was generally seen in Germany as an expression of the “semi-sovereignty of Finland in relation to the German Empire”.

The revolutionary government in Helsinki immediately declared the Berlin agreements null and void. She was of course aware that the treaties provided another serious reason for the German side to reinstall the Vaasa government in Helsinki.

Landing and action of the Baltic Division

Main axes of the German advance (gray arrows)

Procedure of the Baltic Sea Division in Finland

On March 7th, Wilhelm II advised the Chancellor to have the imminent German landing on the Finnish coast presented to the public in such a way that it looked as if this was “not a fight against Russia, but a pure police measure upon request the government recognized by us. ”Two days later, British-French troops began to land in Murmansk . The German leadership was now more determined than ever to station German troops in Finland under all circumstances. In addition to the political necessity in the second half of March, there was also an immediate military necessity to act quickly; This was pointed out by, among others, the White Finnish Commander-in-Chief Mannerheim in a telegram dated March 20, in which he described further delays as "fateful". In the meantime, offers of negotiation made by the government in Helsinki were treated dilatorily by the German side.

Troops of the Mecklenburg Jäger Battalion No. 14 on the deck of the SMS Westfalen , March / April 1918

Soldiers of the Baltic Sea Division in Helsinki

On April 3, the Baltic Division went ashore in the port of Hanko . German planes dropped 130,000 leaflets in which the invaders introduced themselves as “liberators” of Finland. Four days later, a detachment of 3,000 men from the 8th Army landed under Colonel Otto von Brandenstein in the Loviisa area . A parallel attempt from Åland to land the 14th Hunter Battalion in Turku failed due to the stubborn resistance of the defenders in the archipelago in front of the city. The small cruiser SMS Kolberg had to take the landing force back on board with considerable difficulty and disembark in Ekenäs (near Hanko) on April 10 . In Hanko, however, the weak local Red Guard withdrew at the sight of the German naval association that suddenly appeared and only offered resistance in the outskirts of the city. A major battle with around 500 Red Guards who had been hastily transported up did not take place until 5/6. April at Karis . On April 9, a German detachment intended to interrupt the Helsinki- Riihimäki railway line was defeated at Nummela . The main power of the Baltic Sea Division, however, advanced along the coast directly against Helsinki. The high command of the Red Guards could not counter it with sufficient forces in the short time. In Helsinki, which had been a safe stop until then, there were only poorly equipped troops - "mostly worthless shotguns or old-fashioned military rifles" were found in the dead and wounded, according to the report by the German commander von der Goltz . Contrary to what Goltz expected, Helsinki did not capitulate. Only after several days of heavy fighting, in which German ship artillery and a landing squad consisting of marines intervened, did the attackers have the city reasonably under control on April 14th. Several war crimes occurred during the fighting. The Åbo barracks, into which the Red Guards, but also women and children had fled, was set on fire, refugees were - according to a German officer involved - "shot down". When several German attacks on the working-class district of Siltasaari-Sörnainen had failed, the attackers drove on 12/13. April in a night advance over the bridge leading into the district numerous prisoners as "bullet trap" in front of them. After the conquest of Helsinki, several representatives of the minority right wing of the Finnish Social Democracy ( Väinö Tanner et al.) Went over to the interveners and called on the Red Guards to lay down their arms. Goltz reported to the OHL on April 20:

“Without a doubt, the bulk of industrial and agricultural workers are in the red camp. The weaker revisionist wing of social democracy refused to join forces with the red party. Its senators and deputies made themselves available to the division and the lawful government after the capture of Helsingfors. Your help was accepted to calm the population. The calls of the revisionist party calling for the laying down of arms and the resumption of lawful parliamentary weapons will also be disseminated. "

Meanwhile, the Brandenstein Detachment in the Kausala-Uusikylä area had suffered a heavy defeat and was then placed under the Baltic Sea Division. On April 20, the Germans were able to take Lahti and establish contact with the White Finnish troops advancing from the north. This split the area still under the control of the Red Guards into two parts. The Baltic Division now proceeded against the Red Guards who remained in the west, with fierce fighting especially in the Hämeenlinna area . Numerous Red Guards and civilians (around 30,000 people), who tried in vain to break through to the east via Lahti, had to surrender on May 2nd after a battle that lasted several days. Already on April 29, the White Finnish Army had captured Viipuri , greatly helped by the absence of the main Red Guards forces blocked by the Baltic Division near Lahti . That decided the civil war.

German Politics in Finland after the Civil War

A withdrawal after the end of the supposed “police action” was never an issue for the German authorities. Instead, Goltz was put at his side by several political advisors, he was given the title of German General in Finland and demonstratively moved to the former quarters of the Russian Governor General. The extent to which Goltz's staff was conceptually involved in the mass murders of captured Red Guards and left-wing civilians after the end of the civil war is unknown. What is certain is that the German commanders did not intervene at any point and instead took multiple disciplinary action against soldiers who were not inconsiderate enough. A German military mission, the head of which was Chief of the German General Staff in the Finnish Army , had de facto supreme command of the Finnish Army from June. From May, the Finnish army was reorganized according to German principles. Civil officials oversaw the implementation of the drastic economic provisions of the March 7th Treaties. Cautious attempts by the Finns to loosen these regulations, which completely paralyzed the country's exports of goods, were brusquely rejected by the German side. At the beginning of October a brother-in-law of Wilhelm II, Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse-Kassel-Rumpenheim , was established as King of Finland (but only with considerable difficulty) ; Parallel plans by the Foreign Office to conclude an alliance treaty and a military convention with Finland were, however, delayed by the increasingly cautious Finnish leaders until the German collapse in November 1918. The obvious intention of the German military to use the Finnish army on Soviet Russian territory against the Entente troops landed in Murmansk met with almost unanimous opposition from Finnish officers and men. In the autumn, German troops had to intervene several times against unrest among Finnish recruits. Since September 1918, a rapidly growing faction of the Finnish ruling class that openly advocates a connection between Finland and Great Britain and France emerged politically. General Mannerheim was sent to London and Paris as their representative. This current took over the leadership of the country in December 1918 and subsequently transformed Finland into a republic. The last contingents of the Baltic Sea Division, which was only partially operational under the impact of the November Revolution, left Helsinki on December 16, 1918 by ship to Stettin . Goltz, who went unrecognized in civilian clothes in Stettin for fear of reprisals by the local workers 'and soldiers' council and was happy to "reach my apartment without being beaten" in Berlin, led German troops against them from February 1919 Council republics in Latvia and Lithuania .

Results

In retrospect, it becomes clear that the intervention of German troops, desired by both the German and Finnish sides at the turn of the year 1917/1918, was based on different calculations and that there was hardly any real identity of interests. While German policy was about a permanent separation of Finland from Russia and its stable integration into the German sphere of influence, the Finnish government primarily pursued the goal of "settling accounts" with the local labor movement. In order to ensure success in this regard, the presence of German troops seemed to be absolutely necessary. This ensured sufficient superiority over the Red Guards and at the same time prevented Russia from intervening in the civil war in favor of the left. That is why she occasionally dealt with the German “Central Europe” rhetoric in a declamatory way, without ever seriously thinking of tying hands more than necessary on foreign policy. When this goal had been achieved and it had gradually become apparent in the summer of 1918 that the general German warfare was falling into a hopeless crisis, the decisive parts of the Finnish leadership quickly broke away from any ties to German politics. At no point did the German leaders understand the relatively independent, extremely flexible actions of the Finnish upper class and the close interlinking of domestic and foreign policy problems in Finland. Their easily transparent, years-long rigid work on an armed anti-Russian uprising, for which they indiscriminately tried to win over all of the fatally antagonistic political currents in Finland, regardless of their specific ambitions, reduced German influence to almost zero by the summer of 1917. The situation that arose as a result of the October Revolution changed that for a short time, but ultimately only reproduced the inevitable structural problems of the German position in Finland, until any further discussion became superfluous with the end of the war.

literature

• Lutz Bengelsdorf: The naval war in the Baltic Sea 1914-1918. Hauschild, Bremen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89757-404-5 .
• Rüdiger von der Goltz: My broadcast in Finland and the Baltic States. Leipzig 1920. ( online )
• Manfred Menger : The Finland Policy of German Imperialism 1917–1918. Akademie Verlag , Berlin (GDR) 1974. (problematic, little current work with a fixed "class standpoint")

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See in great detail Julius Bachem (Ed.): Staatslexikon. Fourth volume (patent law to state examinations), 3rd revised and 4th edition Freiburg i. B. 1911, col. 812-820.
2. ↑ See Manfred Menger : The Finland Policy of German Imperialism 1917-1918. Berlin 1974, p. 19. In 1908, 40.2% of Finnish imports came from Germany, while 10.5% of exports went there. See Bachem, Staatslexikon, Sp. 819.
3. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 17.
4. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 33.
5. ↑ ^{a b} See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 49.
6. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, pp. 53f.
7. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, pp. 40ff.
8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from February 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 44.
10. ↑ ^{a b} See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 42.
11. ^ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 46.
12. ^ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, pp. 41, 54 (footnote 74).
13. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, pp. 48f.
14. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 55.
15. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 55.
16. ↑ ^{a b} See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 56.
17. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, pp. 61f.
18. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 62.
19. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 90.
20. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 73.
21. ^ See Menger, Finland Policy, pp. 75f.
22. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 77.
23. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 112.
24. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 113.
25. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 115.
26. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 108.
27. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 127.
28. ^ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 129.
29. ^ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, pp. 130, 189.
30. ^ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 132.
31. ^ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 129.
32. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, pp. 120f.
33. ^ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 133.
34. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 134.
35. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, pp. 134f.
36. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 140.
37. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 149.
38. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 148.
39. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, pp. 151f.
40. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 153.
41. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 155.
42. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 154.
43. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 159.
44. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 168.
45. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 188.
46. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, pp. 163f.
47. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 193.
48. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 197.
49. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 137.
50. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 199.
51. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, pp. 197ff.
52. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 202.
53. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 200.
54. ↑ Quoted from Menger, Finlandpolitik, pp. 204f.
55. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 205.
56. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, pp. 207f.
57. ^ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 208.
58. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 210.
59. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, pp. 210f.
60. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 211.
61. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 211.
62. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, pp. 213f.
63. ↑ See Menger, Finland Policy, p. 215.
64. ↑ See Menger, Finlandpolitik, p. 216. See also Rüdiger von der Goltz: My mission in Finland and in the Baltic States. Leipzig 1920, p. 106ff. and 116.
65. ↑ See Goltz, Sendung, p. 119.