RED FIASCO: SUOMUSSALMI

Good Evening to All....Tonight, the story of a battle that characterised the struggle for Finnish soverignty, an engagment that has been overlooked for it's effect on later Red Army operations.
I refer, of course to SUOMUSSALMI, a fiasco for the Red Army of catastrophic proportions and one that could be argued as having a decisive influence on the later struggle for the mastery of Europe in Russia.....So, with the prelims over..........On with the SHOW......

SUOMUSSALMI: The ROARING of the LION.


PART ONE: The BEAR and the LION
The struggle for Finnish nationalism has taken many forms, political and social, but "War", as Leon Trotsky said, "....is the locomotive of CHANGE." December of 1939 saw this locomotion change the face of Europe, but in a manner not forseen by it's participants, nor by the military theorists that saw the Winter War in Finland as a straight "David and Goliath" struggle.....the theoretical and tactical shockwaves that resounded from this battle came to fruition with the Soviet Winter counter-offensive in 1941, almost two years to the day after the mud and snow at Suomussalmi had faded into memory...........
The genesis of this battle lies entirely in the mind of Josef Stalin.
Traditionally, control of access to the Baltic Sea has always been a sore point with the Russians. A strategic dillemma confronted them. What, they thought, would be the attitude of the young state of Finland when it came to a guarantee of access? Would the Finns side with the Soviets, would they be neutral, or would they be openly hostile? The "Maximum Leader" fretted over this strategic question......resolution would come, and no matter what happened, he would make sure that the Soviet Union was going to get it's way.......
Diplomatic 'feelers' had been extended by the Reds, and political negotiations continued, but with the end of German/Soviet military co-operation and the rise and re-armament of a military dictatorship in Germany, the Soviets began to feel increasingly uneasy. Suspicious, as always, the public pronouncements of German expansion policy made by Adolf Hitler meant that negotiaions with the Finns now came to mean something more....."Drang Nach Osten" scared Soviet diplomats more than they were willing to publicly admit, and with Germany adopting "Lebensraum" as a manifestation of national will, the Soviets began to look to the situation in the Baltic more with unease. Then, in 1938, Stalin felt he saw a definate direction in Finnish policy and sympathies with the arrival of a German military delegation to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Finland's independence. Not wishing to enunciate this in public as a matter of course, Stalin began to see Finland as an ally of Germany in any possible future conflict. Finland was simply following a neutrality policy; but for Stalin, there could be no neutrals on any Soviet border, particularly one that was so close to Russian territory. Diplomacy turned to tyranny, as Stalin made it very plain that Finland's neutrality would, under no circumstances, be tolerated. One might say that it was a "With us or against us" type of argument, but the alarm bells that rang in Finland caused Field Marshal Mannerheim to extend diplomatic negotiations with the Soviets, in an attempt to calm Stalin's paranoia......His failure to do this was not suprising. Was there anything on the face of the earth that could rid Stalin of this mental malady? The Soviet Bear began to eye Finland with military action in mind.
Finland was not the only country to be completely taken by suprise when Stalin, out of the blue, signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Events began to take an evil course, as Poland was divided, and the Baltic countries occupied by the Soviets. These "buffer" territories were all a method of keeping the German Wolf at arms length; the Soviets began to increasingly turn up the political pressure against the Finns. The Leningrad commissar, Zhdanov, made the outcome of these pressures plain for all to see, plain as the nose on the face of Stalin...
"We of Leningrad....look out at the world........around us lie small countries who dream of great adventures or permit other adventurers to scheme within their borders. We are not afraid of small nations....We may indeed call on our Red Army to defend our country!!!
Such blatant sabre rattling could barely fail to be noticed, amongst all the other barrage of Soviet words aimed at Finland. Stalin demanded the same "mutual defence agreements" of Finland that had been so delightfully imposed on the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Now he played his final card, and on October 14th, Stalin, Molotov and Potemkin faced a Finnish delegation with a mutual defence policy that left Helsinki's diplomats open-mouthed.....
-Finland to cede islands in the Gulf of Finland.
-Finland to withdraw her frontier in the Karelian Isthmus between the Baltic and Hango.
-Lease of a Hango air-naval baseto the Soviet Union for 30 years.
-Finland to cede Rybachiy Peninsula in Lappland, AND
-Finland to sign a "mutual defence" treaty for the defence of the Gulf of Finland.
For nine days, Helsinki tried to reach a compromise, feeling that there was not much in it that was to Finland's benefit. Ministers Passikivi and Tanner, pressed on by Mannerheim to compromise, rejected all claims to Hango bases and the Rabachiy frontier adjustments. October 23rd found the Soviets not budging an inch. More discussions followed, but it was plain to Helsinki that the negotiations were more than a little pointless. Deadlock was followed on November 26 by an announcement from Soviet Foreign minister Molotov that Finnish artillery had opened fire on Soviet troops (untrue), and followed this up with a demand that Finnish troops should retire 15 miles from the frontier. Helsinki asked for clarification of the conditions, wishing the Soviets themselves to show good faith and retire from their border with Finland a similar distance......
The Bear licked it's chops....whilst the Lion prepared for the coming ordeal. On November 30th, 1939,(6:50 am) Soviet land, air and sea forces crossed the borders of Finland without any formal declaration of war.....
The Winter War was ON.......


PART TWO: The Bear Growls.
The Soviet commander of The Leningrad District (Gen. Kirill Meretskov) had orders that were plain and simple.
"Attack Finland by the end of November and sieze the Karelian Isthmus and access to the Gulf of Finland."
The Red Army was afflicted by overconfidence, borne of Zukhov's victory at Kalkhin Gol. To many Soviet Generals, Finland, a land of 3.5 million people, would be a "Walkover". Meretsekov's artillery chief (Nikolai Nikolaevich Voronov), was told that he had no less than 12 days to achieve these objectives. Voronov, survivor of the recent purges, was uneasy,
"I'll be happy if it can be sorted out in three months..." More than 600,000 Soviet soldiers, behind large artillery preparations, were divided into 23 divisions, backed by 2,000 tanks and 1,000 aircraft. The Southern sector at Karelia was to push through the defences between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland to capture Viipuri, then Finland's second largest city. This objective of the Russian Seventh Army was expected to fall in a matter of days. Further north, the Soviet Eighth Army was to flank Karelia, and cut off Finnish defenders from the North. Other divisions were to pin Finnish reserves in place. But by far the most vital element to Soviet plans was given to their Ninth Army, which was tasked with a straight thrust to Oulu. Commanded by General Mikhail Dukhanov, this thrust was aimed at cutting Finland in two, and it's thrust led directly to a crossroads......a community of 4,000 people called SUOMUSSALMI.
In Karelia, Soviet soldiers burst arrogantly forward on a 90 mile front..........Their battle cry of "URAHHH" resounding across the frozen country. In the grand old style of the "Steamroller", shoulder to shoulder with advancing tanks. The Finnish defenders were, however, unimpressed...
"So many Russians! Where will we bury them all?"

(continued in another thread of Winter War)

 

The Soviet offensive began to run into MAJOR difficulties, almost from the moment they crossed the border.............


PART THREE: The Lion ROARS!!!

The resolute Finns fell back, ambushing and punishing Red formations at each point. The 9 divisions of the Soviet 7th Army began to slow to a crawl, causing huge traffic jams along the forest roads, spilling blood at every turn and ambush. Finn snipers, deadly and invisible, added to the confusion, targeting traffic policeman. The road bound Soviet artillery could not be brought forward through the mess; The Finns pounced on any attempt to deviate from the roads. Red armor became bogged in the slush, and Finnish Sissi commandoes waged relentless war on rear areas. The Soviet advance wavered, STOPPED, as the Finns sowed their path with booby-traps of every description.....fallen trees, abandoned cottages, bridges, lavatories, DUNG HILLS were all mined. Casualties mounted at an alarming rate. The TALIVOSTA (Finnish for "War in the Winter) became a deadly nightmare for the non-ski equipped Russians. Harsh lessons began as temperatures dropped to 30 and 40 below zero. Red medical orderlies began to learn the tricks, keeping valuable ampules of morphine in their mouths for instant use, and as always with an army in arctic winter, wounds froze, sentries froze if not relieved in time, and vehicles froze for lack of anti-freeze in their tanks and had to be kept running. Infantry weapons, particularly automatics, stopped dead. Quartermasters for Soviet units struggled to keep food warm, doubling rations just to keep men functioning. Narrow tracked Soviet tanks of this period, not designed for these conditions, froze to the ground. Separation from parent units spelt death. Road dependent Russians enabled free-skiing Finnish soldiers to appear ghostlike from the forest. Swift and deadly, their sub-machine guns wrought absolute HAVOC....taking their dead and wounded with them, they would disappear as fast as they came before any resistance was forthcoming. Russian tank units learnt particularly harsh lessons when their infantry support was lost to them, becoming easy meat for Finnish soldiers equipped with home-made pipe-grenades, stuffing them into exhaust ports and vision slits. These weapons were a little too "passive" for the aggressive Finns. The State Liquor Board was pressed into service, and came up with a better weapon.
In the first week of December, 1939, a combination of alcohol, tar, resin and kerosine was combined into a weapon that was wistfully named "The Molotov Cocktail"(a name still used today by many nations for home made, bottled petrol bombs). The Finns became an army of tank hunters with this simple but effective device; after the seperation of Russian tanks from their infantry support, and with Finnish support groups firing to keep Russian heads down, tank hunters would close in for the "kill", dropping the "mixed drink" into hatches, or setting fire to engine bays to "brew up" the crew. Finnish General Hugo V. Osterman, commander of the Mannerheim Front, was reporting to his superiors that at least 80 Russian tanks had been destroyed in the first days of the advance. Specially trained and resolute anti-tank units were raised at every organisational level, and by the end of 1939, the Finns had manufactured and distributed no less than 70,000 of these weapons.....
Kaarlo Erho, a young Finnish tank hunter, was quoted as saying that,
"...every day, was broiled Russian, FOR SURE."
The Finns also had another, devastating trick up their sleeves. Soviet armor that should be so bold as to leave the road would try it's luck across the frozen lakes that dotted the countryside. Resolute, the Finns were also prepared for this eventuality. Just before the outbreak of the Winter War, farsighted officials had anchored lines of anti-tank mines, which were floating with just enough internal air, just below the surface. Once the lake froze over, they had in place an amazing capacity for destroying any upstart Soviet tanks that might venture across the lake itself......with a huge "BANG", these tanks would set these mines off, crashing through the ice and taking tank and crew to a frozen death instantly.

The wily Finns called this advance "THE MOVING ZOO"....or "OUR NEIGHBOURS...THE TARGETS"

By the end of the first week in December, the Southern portion of the Soviet advance was going absolutely NOWHERE, with the prospect of taking Viipuri, or Helsinki for that matter, a mirage on the horizon.

Further Northward, the attack of the Soviet Ninth Army still offered the Red Army a chance, at least on paper.
Orders for this thrust, aimed at cutting Finn defence in two, were simple and to the point....
"....destroy the enemy by operating forces in the direction of Kajaani with the near objective being the advance to the line Kemijarvi-Kontiomaki station and in the shortest possible time, capture Oulu."
This attack had the potential of not only dividing Finland, but of severing all northern communications, nailing down the Soviet's Murmansk railway supply, and making the Mannerheim line useless as a defensive position. General Dukhanov planned a 20 mile pair of pincers,and, the plan depended most on the resolution and speed of the Ninth Army's forward units, the 163rd and 44th divisions.The 44th Rifle division was an elite unit, composed of men drawn mainly from the Ukraine. It's weapons and equipment were said to be "first rate" for a Soviet division of this period; the 163rd Rifle Division was formed near Moscow, and was a unit of peasant soldiers, poorly trained, but with "formidable" artillery and no less than a battalion of tanks and a very well equipped assault engineer regiment (recently reinforced). The 163rd were positioned at a jump-off point some 20 miles to the North of Juuntusranta, advancing down a "newly cut road", whilst the 44th formed up on the Raate road 20 miles east of Suomussalmi. Dukhanov wanted to catch the slippery Finnish forces and pin them against the lakes district, and their staff preparations concentrated on a small village, situated some 25 miles west of Raate and on the Russian border, a vital crossroads, linked to the border by dirt roads through the lakes and forests....SUOMUSSALMI. Defended by a local home Guard Unit (Er P-15), and under the nominal organisation of the "North Finland Group". The defences of this sector were under the command of Lt. Colonel Kyander, with less than a thousand men at his disposal and assisted by two weak half company sized border detachments. The defenders had a 30 mile front.....Kyander requested reinforcements. The Finns had advantages just as the Soviets did. Finnish soldiers were mostly citizens and reservists, but they were excellently led by professionals; they were on their own ground, and communicated by telephone line, which meant that as long as these communications were in the hands of the Finns, Soviet forces would, of necessity and inability to tap these lines, be essentially attacking prepared positions BLIND. Resourceful, patriotic and defending their homes, these Finns regularly read Ninth Army communications traffic, and, they had one more advantage that was utterly priceless...........

THEY WERE ABSOLUTELY AND TOTALLY DEDICATED TO KILLING RUSSIANS AT MINIMAL COST TO THEMSELVES.

The battle for Suomussalmi got off to a bad start for the Finns, as the 163rd jumped off into their portion of the pincer attack without Finnish knowledge. Slowly, the new area commander, Colonel HJALMAR F. SIILASVUO, became aware, and, reacting, evacuated Suomussalmi, offering the town as a "bait" to the advancing Soviets. The 163rd's two regiments occupied a ghost town from the northeast and south-east, harrassed by the Finns. On December 7th, their commander was positioned in the town and along the north road....but.... General Vladimir Zelentsov was out of sync with the southern pincer, and, casting about, he looked for the southern pincer, waiting for the forward elements of the 44th to arrive......Finnish signals intelligence realised that the two pincers had failed to co-ordinate their efforts, and, with the 44th's failure to appear, Colonel Siilasvuo launched a counter attack on December 11th, concentrating against the 163rd, and cut their road bound and strung out units into bite sized "mottis" over a 12 mile section of road. Finnish re-inforcements were fed in by Mannerheim's orders, with the Finn 27th regiment slowly grinding down the trapped pockets of desperate Soviets fighting an all round defence against increasingly heavy attacks.
Colonel Siilasvuo, with his newly formed 9th division elements, now struck the late arriving 44th division advancing cautiously westward along the Raate road. Realizing that the 44ths elite troops could still break through and win the engagement, December 14th saw a small but steady force of 350 Finns set up a "block" position on a narrow isthmus between Lake Kuomas and Lake Knivas. Desperate 44th division troops attempted to outflank the roadblock, but were mercilessly cut down by concentrated machine-gun fire on the frozen lakes........
The decisive moment had come and gone for the Soviets. Bitter hand to hand fighting had resolutely failed to breakthrough the roadblock, and confused, the 44th's vanguard units retreated...or attempted to, for the Finns had wonderfully cut the road 15 miles to the east and back toward the border. Now, the 44th division was trapped as well; both Soviet units were strung out along the east west road in 12 mottis, with the vengeful Finns slicing these columns into smaller and smaller pockets. With nowhere to go but up or down a blocked road, the 163rd division DISINTEGRATED. Survivors abandoned their heavy weapons, and threw away their personal weapons too. Retreating like a herd of reindeer across the ice of Lake Kianta, they commenced a 25 mile rout toward their starting points, littering the surrounding countryside with the detritius of a defeated force; discarded equipment, reams of paper, wounded men.......bodies littered the roadsides. Remarkably, the Finns actually took pity on these pathetic survivors, helping the mob on it's way with random shots, saving wounded and prisoners from a freezing fate where possible.
The cold and hungry remnants of the 163rd division, with more than 5,000 of their number killed, huddled in Suomussalmi, waiting for the end.....
Christmas approached, and the Finnish forces turned their attention to the still trapped 44th Rifle division. Soviet field kitchens were now prime targets, accelerating the process of destruction even more. Commander Vingradov was repeatedly urged to retreat, but the Great Purge had it's effect on this officer, so he hung on, as the triumphant Finns pushed his command into smaller and smaller pockets. By New Year, Vinogradov gave up and wired STAVKA (Soviet High Command) for fresh orders. January 6th of 1940 saw the survivors litterally stagger back to the Soviet border, with over a 1000 dead, 1,500 wounded and 2,250 missing; This elite unit suffered a terrible fate on it's return, with NKVD units sealing off the area to arrest survivors, and public executions for Vinogradov and his principle staff.
Stalins wrath was always fateful, and immediate......
The defeat was total, and the consequences were quickly felt. General Semayan Timoshenko was placed in command, and called a complete halt to operations for a six-week period to retrain his battered army. Political correctness was unceremoniuosly ditched, as the Soviet "North Western Front" experianced many and immediate reforms. Exercises were conducted, even in the Russian front lines......
Finnish soldiers, observing the activity, knew what was coming, calling it "On the job training"
Political Cartoonists of the day were as merciless as the Finns themselves. The London "Daily Mirror" showed an annoyed Stalin, trying, with a hammer and sickle, to tuck into a joint of meat labelled "Finland", and ruefully looking at his blunted sickle.
David Low of the "Evening Standard" depicted a Russian Steamroller stuck in the Finnish snow labeled "Russian Inefficiency"

By February 1940, Timoshenko was ready, and threw no less than 54 Soviet divisions back into the fray. They stubbornly ground their way through the Mannerheim line at the usual great cost, rotating fresh units and increasing pressure gradually against the tired and crumbling Finns. Helsinki was at last within their reach, and, bowing to the inevitable, the gallant Finns came to the conference table, cease firing on March 12, 1940.
The territory traded in this humiliating treaty brought many Finnish soldiers skiing home to despair, knowing as they did that it could only have one result....further fighting. Helsinki went into national mourning. And only 15 months later, Finland reluctantly launched their soldiers back at the old enemy, as an ally to Germany for operation Barbarossa, in what Finns refer to as "The Continuation War".

EPILOGUE:
The reforms pressed on the Red Army by Timoshenko essentially meant, that, when the Germans stood at the gates of Moscow, the winter wounds dished out to them by the heroic Finnish stood them in good stead. The Soviet Military became very adept at winter fighting, and, the lessons so painfully learnt enabled them, on December 5th, 1941, to mount a successful winter counter-offensive against a tired and ill-equipped German army that had not had the same baptism of the Winter War to draw from.......The Battle for Moscow was the decisive engagement of Operation "Barbarossa", and Barbarossa was the BEST CHANCE THE GERMAN ARMY EVER HAD OF DEFEATING THE SOVIET UNION.
It is plain to see then, that without the "Winter War" in Finland, and the experience gained in equipping, supplying and training the million Siberian soldiers that essentially won the Battle for Moscow, the operation of December 1941 would, undoubtedly, have taken a very different, and darker course..Failure to win at Moscow spelt DOOM, but....Finnish taught tricks of the trade in winter operations enabled the Soviets to SURVIVE...........

AND THAT MAKES SUOMUSSALMI THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SINGLE ENGAGEMENT OF WORLD WAR TWO..... by extension and in terms of world history, one of the most decisive battles EVER......


And so, this article comes to an end....I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have putting it together. It is a combination piece, adapted from two articles....
Hughes-Wilson, John "SNOW AND SLAUGHTER AT SUOMUSSALMI" (Military History Magazine, Jan/Feb issue, 2006)
"Purnells History of the Second World War" CHAPTER 5- FINLAND- The Winter War (Based on original text by Lt. Col Eddy Bauer) Orbis Publishing,London.
As always, comments from site users are most welcome....additions or corrections, or if you just want to drop in and say hello.....Meantime, goodbye from me, wherever you are in this world of ours....B5N2Kate.

 

And to remind readers, Finnish people call Winter War sometimes "105 days of honour" (105 kunnian päivää).

Absolutely stunning articles, thanks for posting. This should be used in educational purposes too.

 

Thanks Higge....I really do appreciate your kindness.....more to come from me!