HEADQUARTERS October 14, 1940
THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF’S ORDER OF THE DAY
Soldiers of the glorious Finnish Army, Air Force and Navy!
Peace has been concluded between our country and the Soviet Union, a peace in which we have won a great victory, a victory against all odds, a victory in which Finland has held nearly every battlefield on which you have shed your blood on behalf of everything we hold dear and sacred. It is a victory that has resulted in the return of historic Finnish lands and tribes in Eastern Karelia to Finland and in the repatriation of many thousands of our Finnish kinfolk from oppression in Viena, Aunus and Ingria.
You did not want war; you loved peace, work and progress; but you were forced into a struggle in which you have done great deeds, deeds that will shine for centuries in the pages of history. More than forty five thousand of you who took the field will never again see your homes, and how many of those who remain have lost forever their ability to work. But while you did not want war, when war came to our land you were not found wanting, you dealt hard blows to the invader and if two million of our enemies now lie on the snowdrifts and in the forests, gazing with broken eyes at our starry sky, the fault is not yours. You did not hate them or wish them evil; you merely followed the stern law of war: kill or be killed.
The many battles that you have fought will be written into history. The Defence of the Isthmus, the Krondstadt Raid, Tolvajärvi, Suomussalmi, Raate-Road, the Kollaa, Petsamo, Murmansk, the Onega Offensive, Arctic Fox, the Spring Offensive of the Isthmus, the Kalmaralli – the destruction of the Red Army on the Syvari, the Helsinki Convoy, the Battle of Narvik and the Norwegian Campaign, the Tuulispäänä Leningradiin, the Moscow and the Baku Raids, these and countless other battles you won against uncountable odds will forever be remembered.
Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, Lottas: I have fought on many battlefields, but never have I seen your like as warriors. Never have I seen men and women who have fought as you have fought. I am as proud of you as though you were my own children; l am as proud of the man from the Northern fells as of the son of Ostrobothnia’s plains, of the Carelian forests, the hills of Savo, the fertile fields of Häme and Satakunta, the leafy copses of Uusimaa and Varsinais-Suomi. I am as proud of the sacrifice tendered by the child of a lowly cottage as of those of the wealthy.
I thank all of you, officers, non-commissioned officers, men and women, but I wish specially to stress the self-sacrificing valor of the officers of the reserve, those men of the special forces units and the men of the Panzer Regiments, their sense of duty and the cleverness with which they have fulfilled the tasks that were theirs. Theirs has been the greatest sacrifice in this war in proportion to their numbers, but it was made joyfully and with an unflinching devotion to their military duty and to Finland.
I thank the Staff Officers for their skill and untiring labors, and finally I thank my own closest assistants, my Chief Commanders, the Army Corps Commanders and the Divisional and Regimental Battle Group Commanders who have so often transformed the impossible into the possible.
I thank the Finnish Army in all its branches, which in noble competition have done heroic deeds since the first day of the war. I thank the Army for the courage with which it has faced an enemy overwhelmingly superior in numbers and equipped in part with hitherto unknown weapons, and for the stubbornness with which it first held on to every inch of our soil and then took the war to the soil of the enemy. The destruction or capture of over 5,500 Russian tanks, of thousands of Soviet Artillery pieces and the more than two million enemy dead and the countless more enemy rendered non-combatant speaks of great deeds of heroism that were often carried out by single individuals.
I thank the Finnish Air Force for their courage in the skies and their tireless work on the ground, fighting outnumbered against great odds from the very start and nevertheless triumphing in the air. Over 4,700 destroyed Russian aircraft speak of the heroic deeds of our airmen. To you we owe the protection of our soldiers from attack from the air. To you we owe the guarding of our civilians, the old people and the women and children of our towns and cities from the horrors of those cruel bombing attacks that we experienced in only the first days of war, when we were taken by surprise. To you we owe great thanks for taking the war far behind the enemy’s frontlines and striking at the evil architect of this war, ensuring he received his just desserts. Your deeds were indeed those of legend.
I thank the Finnish Navy for their courage on and under the seas. Thanks to you, the sailors and marines of the Navy, the Soviet Naval Fleets were destroyed, you took command of the Baltic from the start, protecting our merchant ships as they carried their precious cargoes to our ports, you attacked the enemy where they least expected it and in every conflict at sea you were triumphant. In particular, the sacrifices and the heroism of the men of the Helsinki Convoy, fighting both the Soviets and the Germans to bring desperately needed war supplies to our country in our hour of greatest need, these will be remembered for as long as Finland exists.
With joy and pride my thoughts dwell on the Lottas of Finland – their spirit of self-sacrifice and untiring work in many fields, work which has liberated thousands of men for the fighting line. Their noble spirit has spurred on and supported the Army, Air Force and Navy, whose undivided gratitude and respect they have achieved. Posts of honor have also been those of the thousands of workers who, often as volunteers and during air-raids, have worked beside their machines for the Army’s needs, or labored unflinchingly under fire, strengthening our positions. On behalf of the Fatherland, I thank them.
I thank the volunteers from so many countries who came to fight beside us in our struggle. Americans, Argentines, Australians, British, Canadians, Chileans, Danes, French, Hungarians, Italians, Japanese, New Zealanders, Norwegians, Poles, Rhodesians, South Africans, Spanish, Swedes, and all those others, those many thousands who responded in our hour of need, who answered our call for help and who fought for a country not their own. So many died here as our brothers-in-arms. To you I say, we will always remember your sacrifice.
I thank the people and the government of our country who, for so many years supported the strengthening of our defenses through your taxes, your willing purchase of defense bonds year after year and through the willingness of your sons and daughters, your husbands and wives to give their time to the study of war. You hoped that war would not come. But year after year you toiled and trained as our Fatherland strengthened itself for a struggle you always hoped would never come. But when it came, thanks to you, thanks to your sacrifices, Finland was prepared and ready and thanks to you and your sacrifices, we were triumphant.
Even so, without the help in arms and equipment and volunteers which Sweden and the Western Powers have given us, our struggle would have been inconceivable against the countless guns, tanks and aircraft of the enemy. It is indeed fortunate that the assistance promised by the Western Powers was realized, despite the threats to our neighboring countries security. And when our neighboring country, Norway, which had done so much to assist us in our hour of need, was in turn attacked by Germany, a Germany which had already done much to assist the Soviets in their unprovoked war on us, we, who were already fighting the giant to our East, we summoned the strength and the courage to assist our Norwegian comrades-in-arms to the extent that we could while fighting the Giant to our East.
Our thanks and our heartfelt support also go out to our Comrades in Arms from Estonia. You who stood beside us and supported us unflinchingly against the tyranny to the East. You who stood beside us unbowed and were attacked without cause. Estonia now lies under the jackboot of the enemy, but many thousands of her people and of her soldiers are sheltering within the shield of Finland’s defences. To you I say, rest assured that the day will come when Finland will do her best to repay your loyalty and your friendship, and on that day, Estonia will again be free.
But our weapons and our preparations and training did not by themselves win this unsought war. As we have seen in Poland and in France, weapons and soldiers by themselves do not bring victory. Compared to the might of Russia, our Army, Air Force and Navy were small, our Reserves and Cadres inadequate. Over the years, we had done our best to prepare for a War with a Great Power while praying that we would never have to fight. We procured weapons where we could, built them where we could afford to do so, constructed lines of defense as best we could and trained as best we might. When war came, despite our best efforts to avoid it, we sought help and we obtained some, despite being caught up in a time when all the nations were feverishly arming themselves against the storm which now sweeps over the entire world. And when our neighbors in Norway were treacherously attacked by Germany, we came to their aid, fighting not just one Great Power, but two. And Victory was ours. Finland remains free today because of you.
Our victory is due to every single one of you, to your bravery and your spirit of sacrifice, to your willingness to train and fight in ways that no-one has ever fought before. After forty weeks of bloody battle with no rest by day or by night, our Army stands unconquered before an enemy which in spite of terrible losses has grown in numbers; but those numbers have never defeated us in battle. Nor has our home front, where countless air-raids have spread death and terror among our women and children, ever wavered. Burned cities and ruined villages far behind the front, as far even as our western border, are the visible proofs of the nation’s sufferings during the past months. And yet you have fought day and night without the possibility of being relieved, have had to meet the attacks of ever fresh enemy forces, straining your physical and moral powers beyond all limits for month after month as you drove the enemy out of Finland, drove the enemy out of our historic homelands of Viena and Anus, liberating our Finnish kinfolk and taking the war to the enemy lands, to the furthest reaches of the empire of evil.
Our fate has been hard indeed, but for every blow struck against us, we have returned a thousand. For every one of ours who has died, the enemy has paid, and paid more dearly than they ever imagined was possible. And the architects of this war, the leaders of the Russians who sought to conquer Finland and who have been responsible for so much death and destruction, they have been sent to their just reward by your hand. Your heroic deeds have aroused the admiration of the world, but after ten months of war we are now done with fighting. The new leaders of the Russians have now concluded peace with Finland.
It is perhaps not the peace we would desire after the sacrifices we have made. Despite all our victories, despite having liberated the historic homelands of the Finnish people in Viena and Aunus, we are compelled to give up to an alien race, a race with a life philosophy and moral values different from ours, land which for centuries our Finnish kinfolk have cultivated in sweat and labor. We have won some concessions from the Russians, some border adjustments in Eastern Karelia have been made in our favor, and we in turn have made some concessions to the Russians on the Karelian Isthmus. And Russia has agreed that our Finnish kinfolk within Russian, our Finnic brethren from Viena, Aunus and Ingria who have suffered under the Russian yoke, will be returned to the safety of the Fatherland. And so we must again put our shoulders to the wheel, in order that we may prepare on our soil a home for those many thousands of our kinfolk rescued from imprisonment, servitude and exile and ensure an improved livelihood for all.
And when, some day, the history of this war is written, as it will be, the world will learn of your efforts, your heroism and your sacrifice. Soldiers of Finland, be proud of your bravery and your skill as warriors, for it is all of you that have won peace for Finland.
We are proudly conscious of the historic duty which we shall continue to fulfill; the defense of that Western civilization which has been our heritage for centuries. And as before, as the storm of war now sweeps over the world we must be ever ready to defend our Fatherland with the same resolution and the same fire with which we have fought this War.
Mannerheim
Mannerheim
President Kyösti Kallio with Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim at Helsinki railway station on December 19, 1940, shortly after the final Peace Agreement with the Soviet Union concluding the Winter War had been signed. Behind them in dark suit is Risto Ryti, the new President. Lieutenant-General Erik Heinrichs (Chief of the General Staff) is to the left of Mannerheim, and partly behind Kallio is Colonel Aladár Paasonen, his adjutant. Kallio had resigned a few days earlier due to poor health and was to leave for Nivala, his home, for Christmas and retirement. The right hand of Kallio was paralysed after a heart attack in August, and has been tucked inside his coat. A few seconds after the photograph was taken, Kallio had another heart attack and died (according to the popular version) in the arms of Mannerheim as the band was playing Porilaisten marssi.
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