The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from its organization.
The Battle of Tolvajärvi was fought on 12 December 1939 between Finland and the Soviet Union. It was the first large offensive victory for the Finns in the Winter War.
The Mannerheim Line was a defensive fortification line on the Karelian Isthmus built by Finland against the Soviet Union. While this was never an officially designated name, during the Winter War it became known as the Mannerheim Line, after Finnish Army's then commander-in-chief Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. The line was constructed in two phases: 1920–1924 and 1932–1939. By November 1939, when the Winter War began, the line was by no means complete.
The Battle of Honkaniemi was fought between Finnish and Soviet forces on 26 February 1940. This battle was notable for being fought by tanks, the only time they were used en masse in combat by Finnish forces in the Winter War.
The Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive or Karelian offensive was a strategic operation by the Soviet Leningrad and Karelian Fronts against Finland on the Karelian Isthmus and East Karelia fronts of the Continuation War, on the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviet forces captured East Karelia and Vyborg/Viipuri. After that, however, the fighting reached a stalemate.
The Battle of Kollaa was fought from December 7, 1939, to March 13, 1940, in Ladoga Karelia, Finland, as a part of the Soviet-Finnish Winter War.
The Battle of Nietjärvi was part of the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union, which occurred during World War II. The battle ended in a Finnish victory.
The Battle of Tienhaara was a part of Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union fought north of Viipuri on June 22, 1944, after the Red Army had captured Viipuri. Having lost Viipuri Finns concentrated their defense to the Tienhaara region which offered favourable area for defense with nearby waterway cutting the already narrow battlefield into several islands.
The Finnish invasion of the Karelian Isthmus refers to a military campaign carried out by Finland in 1941. It was part of what is commonly referred to as the Continuation War. Early in the war Finnish forces liberated the Karelian Isthmus. It had been ceded to the Soviet Union on 13 March 1940, in the Moscow Peace Treaty, which marked the end of the Winter War. Later, in the summer of 1944, the Soviet Union reconquered the southern part of the isthmus in the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive.
The Battle of Kelja, fought from December 25 to December 27, 1939 in and around the village of Kelja, was a part of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union.
The Battle of Taipale was a series of battles fought during the Winter War between Finland and Soviet Union from 6 to 27 December 1939. The battles were part of a Soviet campaign to penetrate the Finnish Mannerheim Line in the Karelian Isthmus region to open a route into southern Finland. Despite their numerical superiority, the Soviet forces were unable to break through the Finnish defences.
The Battle of Tali–Ihantala was part of the Finnish-Soviet Continuation War (1941–1944), which occurred during World War II. The battle was fought between Finnish forces—using war materiel provided by Germany—and Soviet forces. To date, it is the largest battle in the history of the Nordic countries.
The Finnish 61st Infantry Regiment (IR61) was a combat regiment of the 17th division of the Finnish Army during the Second World War, consisting almost exclusively of Swedish-speaking Finns. Among others, the regiment participated in the battle of Tienhaara. The regiment has been the subject of several books, as well as a feature film Beyond the Front Line. In 1980, Lieutenant general A. E. Martola opined: "Honestly, this regiment saved Finland during the midsummer weekend 1944, even if only temporarily."
The Swedish Intervention in the Winter War was a short-lived but successful attempt by the Swedish Volunteer Corps, along with other Nordic volunteers, to prevent a Soviet invasion of Finland during the Winter War. The volunteers only engaged in a few skirmishes on ground and in the air, the only major battles they participated in being the battles of Salla and Honkaniemi. The term "volunteers" have often been used to describe the Nordic military support for Finland in the Winter War, although involvement by the government of Sweden has been debated over time. Nevertheless, the Swedish military sent enormous amounts of aid to Finland, including:
The 109th Rifle Division was a Red Army infantry division that was formed three times, briefly in 1939, during 1942, and again from 1942 to 1946. The first formation of the division was converted to a mechanized division after about nine months. Its second formation served for six months in 1942 in the defense of the fortress of Sevastopol, in the southern sector of the siege lines. After being destroyed there in July, a third division was formed by re-designating an existing rifle division near Leningrad in August, and it successfully held its positions for nearly a year and a half, in spite of shortages of food and supplies due to the German/Finnish siege. The 109th then participated in the Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive that drove the Germans and Finns away from the city and lifted the siege in early 1944, helped drive Finland out of the war in the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive, and then joined the offensive along the Baltic coast towards Germany. This third formation compiled an admirable record of service, but was disbanded in 1946.
Georgy Filimonovich Kharaborkin was a Red Army captain and a Hero of the Soviet Union. Kharaborkin was awarded the title for his leadership of a tank company in the Winter War, during which his company broke through the Mannerheim Line. He became a battalion commander in the 7th Mechanized Corps' 14th Tank Division after the end of the war. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Kharaborkin's unit was sent into combat, in an action known as the Lepel counterattack. Before the counterattack began, his corps commander sent Kharaborkin and a dozen heavy tanks on a reconnaissance in force to find fords across a river. The detachment was destroyed on the morning of 6 July when it ran into a German minefield covered by anti-tank guns and artillery, and Kharaborkin was killed.
The Battle of Porlampi, also known as the Battle of Porlammi, was a military engagement fought between the Finnish Army and Red Army from 30 August to 1 September 1941 on the Karelian Isthmus. The battle was fought near the town of Porlampi during the second month of the Continuation War. The battle was a Finnish victory and effectively ended the reconquest of Karelia.
The 13th Light Tank Brigade was an armored brigade of the Red Army that fought in the Winter War. It was formed as the 31st Uritsky Mechanized Brigade in 1932 at Stary Petergof near Leningrad, assigned to the 11th Mechanized Corps, one of the first armored units of the Red Army. Two years later, the brigade became part of the new 7th Mechanized Corps, and it sent crews to fight in the Spanish Civil War. When the corps was redesignated as the 10th Tank Corps, the brigade became the 13th Light Tank Brigade in 1938. In late 1939, it and the corps participated in the massing of forces on the Estonian and Latvian borders to force their governments to agree to Soviet demands.
The Battle of Kuhmo was a series of skirmishes, mainly between January 28 and March 13, 1940, near the town of Kuhmo during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War. The 54th Soviet Rifle Division was encircled, but was able to hold out until the end of the war.
The 168th Rifle Division was formed as an infantry division of the Red Army in the Leningrad Military District in August - September 1939, based on the shtat of the latter month. It was the highest-numbered rifle division to take part in the Winter War against Finland, and attempted to advance west along the north shore of Lake Ladoga as part of 8th Army, but was encircled near Kitelä and remained in this pocket, struggling for survival, for the duration of the conflict. At the start of the Continuation War it was deployed in the same general area along the new USSR/Finland border as part of 7th Army in Northern Front. The Finnish Army crossed the border on June 25, 1941, and the 168th soon found itself again encircled on the shore of Ladoga. In the third week of August it was evacuated to Leningrad and assigned to Leningrad Front's 55th Army. During November it took part in the first offensive to try to break the German/Finnish siege by attacking out of a small bridgehead over the Neva River and then exploiting toward Sinyavino to link up with 54th Army attacking eastward. This effort soon became a bloodbath despite the commitment of reinforcements and a number of tanks. At the end of the year the remnants of the division were removed from the bridgehead and moved through the city and then marched across the frozen Gulf of Finland to reinforce the Front's Coastal Operational Group in the Oranienbaum Bridgehead, where it would remain until January 1944, when it took part in the offensive that drove Army Group North away from the city. It began the offensive as part of 2nd Shock Army, but after linking up with the forces striking west out of Leningrad the 168th was moved to 42nd Army and under this command drove south and west toward Pskov before coming up against the defenses of the Panther Line. In June it was moved back north of Leningrad to face Finland as part of 21st Army in the offensive that drove that nation out of the war. In August it rejoined 42nd Army, now as part of 2nd Baltic Front and took part in the offensive through the Baltic states toward Riga, where it won a battle honor. Until the final weeks of the war the 168th was part of the forces containing the German grouping in the Courland Pocket, when it was moved to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command. It was finally disbanded in January 1946.
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