And then there's Finland, who beat the shit out of Russia by themselves, beat the shit out of Russia with the aid of Germany, and then beat the shit out of Germany.
@Cyborg_Viking Well, we kind of did win Winter War (we survived in that Finland in its entirety was not occupied, but the fact is there was no way for us to come out on top in any negotiations that followed. We simple didn't have that sort of political clout or support). No, you're think of Continuation War there (unless that's what you meant, in which case I apologize for my misunderstanding), during Winter War Germany actually hampered support shipments coming through their border, what with them being allied of the Soviet Union at that time.
And we did receive some help (the jokes about the over sized shells that Sweden sold us will always be remembered) and volunteers, but they were drops of water in the desert, they were never going to be enough. Not that we aren't grateful for what we did get, there's just the question if there was more that others could have done...
@Arkticus I totally understand that it was a win to a certain degree, but I see way too many people saying that Finland won and I just want to enlighten their history knowledge. I read somewhere that Stalin expected Finland to survive within 4 weeks. So much for that expectation
I am not sure what war I was thinking of because I am struggeling to remember what I wrote and I cannot find my previous comments. I did read somewhere that Germany was sending weapons and stuff to Finland during the Winter war but they had to stop because a Swedish newspaper found out
@Cyborg_Viking During the Talvisota Germany was hampering Finland. See, The Winter War started because Germany promised Russia the Baltic states and Finland. During that time, Finland held most of it's land against overwhelming opposition in the form of 300,000+/- and latter 600,000+/- Russian soldiers that attempted to invade. Finland lost some land, but was never concurred by the mighty Russian bear. Russia got it's ass handed to it by Finland.
If Finland was a larger nation (read, more populous), then Russia would have been beaten back, and perhaps even LOST ground to Finland.
@Tartock apparently the Germans were sending weapons trough Sweden to Finland, but a Swedish newspaper found out so Germany had to initiate a policy of silence towards Finland. I totally agree that Finland put up very good resistance and held out for long. I am just pointing out that this was officially a Soviet victory.
@Cyborg_Viking Didn't Finland get steamrolled the second Stalin sacked the incompetent general who started the whole thing? I seem to remember that Russia changed the general in charge of taking Finland and he basically begun winning left to right, but because they'd lost so much from the idiot who started, they couldn't get all they wanted, and had to settle with what went in the end.
@Tartock:
1. I honestly can't see how you can say "beating the shit out of Russia" and mean "losing 11% of land (arguably the best land, too) to USSR", even though Red Army lost several times more men (which is quite common for offensive side anyway)
2. "Beat the shit out of Russia with the aid of Germany" — seriously? Let's be frank: Finnish troops reclaimed lost territories, when USSR was struggling for survival, being ravaged by Nazi Germany (already controlling almost the whole Europe). That's like kicking the bully you hate most, while he's knocked down by another bully.
3. "Beat the shit out of Germany" — well, that's just ridiculous. By autumn of 1944 Axis was being beaten shit out of at accelerating rate. Finland left "sinking ship" and joined future victors. Let's kick another falling bully in the nuts.
I'd like to add that neither me, nor majority of Russians hold a grudge against Finland in that respect. We rather are ashamed of Winter War, and Finnish political maneveuring in WWII is usually thought of as something like "well, what could Mannerheim do?". Perfectly sensible things to have been done, nothing too gruesome. Self-defense, really. But not a lot of "beating the shit out of everyone around".
@ohnoidont Few corrections, but mostly you are right.
1. Losing 11% against 100% what was USSR's plan is a lot of winning for a country that was outnumbered more than 10 to 1. I agree that we didn't really "win" but we sure as hell didn't lose either.
3. This is actually more ridiculous than you said. Finland didn't really want to fight against Germany because they were the only ones helping us. (Officially anyway. I don't mean to offend the volunteers). So when Germany lost Finland had to make it look like we were getting rid of the German troops, so we put up a fake war against them, while they were pretty free to just pack up and leave at their own pace. That scam didn't go on for long as allied countries told Finland to step it up or there would be even more sanctions. Then Finland had to actually force the Germans out. As you can imagine Germans didn't really like the fact that an ally suddenly starts fighting for real, so they decided to burn everything while retreating. At that point things got ugly.
The "what could Mannerheim do?" is really well said. At Winter war Great Britain actually wanted to help Finland, but because Sweden and Norway denied them access by land (sea was not an option as Russia held the gulf). So we were pretty much alone. Against freakking Russia! When Germany offered help on Continuation war you can't blame us for taking the help. If we go with the "what if" my money would be on no more independent Finland if we didn't get support from Germany.
@Tartock You forget that Finland is not part of Scandinavia, that's why they are left out. They are however part of the Nordics, just like for example Iceland, and maybe someday soon Estonia.
@Tartock Finland didn't "beat the shit out of Germany". We were on Germany's side all the way til the end. Cuz if Germany didn't help us then all the Nordic countries would be a part of Russia.
You should feel gill-ty for that joke! ...Well no, I guess it wasn't tuna bad, but cod do batter. Let minnow if you think of one. I wait with baited breath. ;)
Before someone says it, Finland is not a part of Scandinavia. And we're still quite grateful for those Scandinavian neighbors, who were not afraid to help us in our time of need.
@LuthersMinion well...actually we lost both wars, Winter War and Continuation War. But managed to delay Soviet advance enough and make it very costly. But nevertheless, we were forced to make peace on Russian terms. But we were not invaded.
@taakho Well, in terms of numbers you won. Surprised the whole Western world, I think... a nation of 3 million holding off a woefully unprepared Soviet army of in the 100s of millions and thoroughly embarrassed Stalin (frankly, I'm surprised he didn't invade). In my book, you won.
@tumppu Britain helped as well. Finland was pretty much the only country where the armed forces actually like the Boys AT rifle (probably because the T-26 and T-28 had so little armour), so we sent over every spare one we had. The late lamented Sir Christopher Lee (among many others) actually went over as a volunteer to help Finland fight off the Soviets. The Winter War and the Continuation War were a really messy and confusing conflict (lets be honest here, they were the same war really).
Norway had a strong resistance movement, also sabotaging the heavy water transport from Vemork. This heavy water was supposedly about to be sent to Germany to help creating an a-bomb.
But then, Norway wasn't the only one doing good stuff when occupied. Sweden managed to remain sort-of neutral, providing a safe haven for a lot of refugees, Finland was fighting its own demons with aggressive Soviets on one side and Nazis on the other and Denmark managed to save a huge part of its Jews.
I guess all occupied countries had people trying to do good stuff in their own way.
Well that's not strictly fair to Denmark. Yes, you're seeing a world first here people, a swede sticking up for Denmark.
Considering the sorry state of the Danish armed forces at the time of the invasion, they put a brave, but brief, effort. This, along with deft maneuvering on the part of Swedish and Danish politicians, allowed Denmark to smuggle damn near their entire Jewish population out of Denmark to Sweden. There they were checked up in hospitals before being rehomed. A school in my former town of residence was one such hospital.
And to give my own country some credit, we tapped and decrypted German radio and telephone communications (the guy who broke the code the first and second time did it with a notebook and pencil while commuting to work), and the Swedish Volunteer Corps to Finland, was and still is, the largest volunteer corps of it's kind. That is to say, a corps sent from a country not in war, to help a nation in it's own war. We also helped hide and train the Norwegian resistance. Still, I honestly wish we had done more back then.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the read, whoever read this!
@NordicPatriot In Norway there were a lot of sore feelings that Sweden stayed neutral. Honestly, staying neutral was our plan as well. We didn't officially come to Finland's aid, we would not have gone to war for our neighbours, we were quite content to be a non-threat without allies until we were attacked. So kudos to you. You did a lot of good during the war, and you managed to walk the fine line of being too much of a hassle to be taken while being a small enough threat to be able to leave alone.
@cimeryd To be left alone.... Germany was ready to attack Sweden in 1943, but needed the troops (that had been gathering in Norway) on the Eastern Front.
@NordicPatriot First of all: Sweden did not help train any resistance fighters. Second: Resistance fighters (mostly) were not trained at all, apart from a special few *cough* Max Manus *cough*. The resistance fighters who did get trained however, were trained in GB (Mostly Scotland).
One thing is supporting a resistance movement. Training one is another
@Smithi There were two separate conflicts between Finland and the Soviet Union. The first one was when the Red Army invaded Finland. However, the second one was when Finland supported the Nazis in laying siege to Leningrad and allowing them to operate the Wehrmacht inside Finland's borders freely.
It was that second conflict in which Finland was not guilt free.
@Saukkomies Because the soviet union had taken parts of Finnish territory. many thousands of Finns had previously been forced to run away and abandon their homes when the red army took Finnish land.
The continuation war was a direct consequence of that. It had nothing to do with supporting the nazi cause. Finns wanted their homeland back.
@Saukkomies What Smithi said. While the wars are named different it really was just one war. If we had the equipment we had in Continuation war there would not have been a ceasefire in the first place.
Oh and the Leningrad thing? Sure. Finland was kinda part of it. US and USSR sieged a lot of cities too. The fact that there was some Finnish soldiers around during that siege is like blaming the few European scientists for Hiroshima. And that was not a good thing. Little Boy killed mostly civilians.
@Saukkomies #9403086
"Finland did do one decent thing: they refused to hand over the Jews living in their country to the Nazis."
We actually handed over 8 of them accidentally. Oopsie!
Regardless of that, Finland was guilt free in WW2. Finland was in a tough situation and handled it well, 9/10. Being allied with nazis is not a bad thing when the enemy is soviets. And Finland had to fight wars against both of those and still remained unoccupied, what other country had to do that?
@sagas Eh, sometimes civilian casualties are inevitable. Besides, they weren't killed by Finns, they just starved. Besides, Stalin killed way more of his own soviet civilians than the amount that died there.
'@Finn123'
Why do I care what Stalin did or didn't do in the context of what Finland helped Hitler do? It's irrelevant. They didn't starve unavoidably. They starved as part of a deliberate siege in styles of warfare that the Nazis never attempted on the western front where they regarded the locals with some humanity, and not as subhumans.
And it was in absolutely staggering numbers over a very long siege time. By no accident.
@sagas Apparently not enough of them starved to death seeing that they are once against staring down greedily on the riches of europe. Myself I'm glad I've got hardasses like finland and poland between me and them and should the sithuation call upon it I will support helping out those who fight the russians again, both openly and covertly (like last time).
In the words of cpt Pellew from hornblower:
"The old adversary may wear a new face, but whatever mask he chooses to hide behind, a [Russian] is still a [Russian] and we will beat him as we always have beaten him!"
'@TheDungen'
You know, as someone who despises the Russian government, and has done so well before 2014 took off the mask at every turn...even I have to be bamboozled at the racism you got going there toward Russians. Congrats I guess.
Cool quote btw, remind me again of the dastardly deeds of those perennial monsters, the Japanese and Germans?
Also the French before them? Terrible monsters the French.
And oh man, don't get me started on those violent rape bandits, the Scandinavians.
Still, majority of Russia's population (not only ethnic Russians) favour our government's policy, which is really frustrating. It's obvious that hardly anyone over the world needs a truly strong Russia (nor the monster on feet of clay waving rusty nuclear fists about we have now), just as hardly anyone over the world needs USA to be (even more) powerful, but it's quickly approaching total paranoid state
@sagas So you don't care that Stalin killed 30 times more civilians than Hitler did. Also joint ops with Finland and Germany were very rare. Finland didn't so much fight alongside Germany, but took their help to secure Finland. Would you let US get conquered by Russia if only other choice was getting help from North Korea? Well not even Russia. By Soviet Union.
'@Barracuda'
Hitler planned to literally eliminate the populations of Poland and the whole USSR in order to make new land for Germans, no description of what Stalin actually did comes even close to what Hitler planned on. The Nazis were objectively a more destructive and evil force compared to well....anyone.
"Also joint ops with Finland and Germany were very rare. Finland didn't so much fight alongside Germany, but took their help to secure Finland."
Aside from that one big deal, the siege of a huge city.
"Would you let US get conquered by Russia if only other choice was getting help from North Korea? Well not even Russia. By Soviet Union. "
The US did ally the USSR lol. The problem isn't that. The problem is the conduct of the siege.
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