the Military Commanders of Finland 1918 - 1945
After more than 100 years of subjugation by Russia, Finland took advantage of the power vacuum created by the Bolshevik uprising and resulting demise of the royal house of Romanov in 1917 to proclaim its independence. The preservation of this independence was not an easy task. The Finnish military had to fight a civil war against the Reds in 1918, and was again called into action in 1939 at the outbreak of the so-called Winter War, when the Soviet Union invaded Finland, disregarding the provisions of the previously signed Treaty of Tartu. The Winter War lasted only a few months before a peace treaty was signed, but the cost to Finland was the loss of 11% of its territory. It is therefore no surprise that when Germany launched an attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Finland saw an opportunity to regain what had been lost and allied itself with Germany. This alliance lasted only until 1944, when Finland, realizing that Germany was going to lose the war and that continuing the fight against the Soviet Union threatened its continued existence as an independent nation, signed an armistice with the Russians. This led to a number of minor skirmishes between Finnish and German forces, that in Finnish history books is referred to as the Lapland War, but this lasted only a couple of months, with minimal casualties on both sides.