Petsamo expeditions

Last updated

The Petsamo expeditions (Finnish : Petsamon retket, Swedish : Petsamoexpeditionerna) were two military expeditions in May 1918 and in April 1920 by Finnish civilian volunteers, to annex Petsamo (Russian : Pechenga) from Bolshevist Russia. It was one of the many "kinship wars" ( Heimosodat ) fought by the newly independent Finland during the Russian Civil War. Although both expeditions were unsuccessful, Petsamo was handed over by Russia to Finland in the 1920 Treaty of Tartu.

Contents

The expeditions

The goal of the expedition was to take Petsamo for Finland, which had previously been promised to Finland by Tsar Alexander II in 1864, in exchange for land around the Sestra River on the Karelian Isthmus transferred to Russia to build a weapon factory. Though initially the Bolsheviks assured the Finnish government that they will honor earlier commitments over the region, they later disowned their word. [1]

1918

First Petsamo expedition
Part of Heimosodat and First World War
Petsamon retken esikunta.jpg
Members of the first expedition in Rovaniemi
Date4 April– 5 July 1918
Location
Result

Allied victory

  • Finnish invasion repelled
  • British recognition of Finnish sovereignty over Petsamo [2]
Belligerents
Flag of Finland 1918 (state).svg Finnish volunteers Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Royal Marines
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg Royal Navy
Flag RSFSR 1918.svg Russian SFSR
Flag of Russia.svg White Movement
Socialist red flag.svg Red Guards (Finns)
Commanders and leaders
  • Flag of Finland 1918 (state).svg Thorsten Renvall
  • Flag of Finland 1918 (state).svg Onni Laitinen
  • Flag of Finland 1918 (state).svg Helge Aspelund
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Captain Vincent Brown (WIA)
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg Captain James Farie
Strength
150-200 500
1 armoured cruiser
Casualties and losses
5 killed (Finnish claim)
10 killed
4 missing (British claim)
2 killed (Finnish claim)
Several wounded (British claim)
1 civilian killed
1 civilian wounded

The 1918 expedition, still during the First World War, was composed of about 200 volunteers and was led by doctors Thorsten Renvall and Onni Laitinen. The military mission departed from Vaasa, then the provisional capital of Finland, to Rovaniemi, under the mandate of the Finnish Senate. The Senate ruled that all the expeditionaries should be volunteers and the that the theatre of operations should not extend beyond the boundaries of Petsamo region. The 30 men-strong party reached their first destination on 6 April [3] and were reinforced by other 60 men commanded by Kaarlo Karhunen. Other 60 volunteers from Oulu, six of them women, joined the trip at Virtaniemi. [4] The expedition crossed the border on 26 April. [5] Sixty Sámi with 200 reindeers were hired as sled drivers. Some villages met the newcomers with distrust and even open hostility. A civilian was shot dead in a confuse incident at Höyhenjärvi, and there was a minor skirmish with local residents and Red Guards at the village of Salmijärvi, which had been fully evacuated by its inhabitants. The cattle was either sent to Norway or slaughtered. [6]

The Finnish force was confronted by the British Royal Navy, whose goal was to prevent the German Army from following in the wake. The British, who were intervening in the Russia Civil War and had established their headquarters at Murmansk, sent in the cruiser HMS Cochrane with sailors, Royal Marines and 40 Red Army soldiers, who took positions around the Pechenga Monastery. [6]

The first clash between the opposing forces happened in early May, when a party of White Finnish ski troops beat off a patrol of Royal Marines and sailors from HMS Cochrane. [7] Finnish sources recorded an encounter of the expedition's recce platoon with a British-led detachment approximately at the same date near Vuoremi. [6] A major battle followed on 10 May at Tunturimaja. The Finnish raiding troops, divided in three, encountered a group made up of 20 Russian White sailors from the cruiser Askold, two White Russian militiamen and ten Finnish Red Guards, all of them commanded by eight British officers and ratings. [6] British sources claim that the action took place on 8 May and that it involved 15 local skiers and at least 30 Royal Marines commanded by Captain Vincent Brown, a veteran of the Western Front. [7] The Allied squad found a Finnish camp and launched a two-column attack on the position, [7] only to be ambushed by two Finnish rearguard companies in charge of Renvall himself. The battle lasted for two hours. According to Finnish sources, a Russian sailor was killed and two members of the Finnish expedition were wounded. Despite this initial success, the Finnish party was hit by illness, desertions, and disputes between Renvall and Laitinen over leadership and communications with the Finnish government. [6]

In the earlier hours of 11 May, the expedition reached a high position near Petsamo fiord. Although the party spotted HMS Cochrane, Laitinen took for granted that no enemy troops were deployed in the area, and decided not to send reconnaissance platoons to the villages surrounding Petsamo. The plan was to occupy the villages of Trifona, Parkinna and Näsykkä, which were already controlled by the Allies. South of Näsykkä lays the Pechenga Monastery, were British and White Russian troops were entrenched. A two-pronged assault was launched, but it was met with fierce resistance. The northern wing was attacked from three different directions, while the southern group was outnumbered by a column of Russian sailors who launched a counterattack from the monastery, supported by gunfire from HMS Cochrane. A hasty Finnish retreat followed, in which several ammunition wagons and reindeers were left behind. Two volunteers were killed in action; the Allies lost a British serviceman, and a local boy was seriously injured. [6] The British acknowledge a few casualties, among them Captain Brown, who was severely wounded by machine gun fire, [7] and received information of ten White Finnish killed and four missing, Heavy snow prevented the British from carrying out a fresh pursuit. A Royal Marines' ambush on one of the retreating expeditionary columns was thwarted on 13 May. [8] The expedition fell back 60 km in a day, and on 15 May, after reaching the border post of Virtaniemi, they sent a telegram to the Finnish Senate reporting their failure at Petsamo; in the case of Laitinen, he presented his resignation. [9]

After receiving reinforcements on 19 May, [10] the expedition made a last bid to establish a bridgehead on the other side of the border from Norway. On 13 June, a party of 16 men commanded by Helge Aspelsund, the young officer who had been in charge of the expedition's recce patrol, attempted a landing in three fishing boats on Töllev, on the eastern shores of Lake Klistervatnet, to relieve nearby Kolttakönkä, a border outpost between Norway and Petsamo. The position had been held by a skeleton garrison of two Finnish officers until 4 June, when they surrendered to Norway's border guards when near starvation. The operation had been betrayed by an informant, and the volunteers were surprised just before landing by a detachment of Red Guards led by a British officer. Three Finnish were killed when the leading boat was hit, and the remaining men were forced to take shelter on the beach from where they returned fire. All the survivors of the raid, Alpesund included, were eventually detained by Norwegian border guards who had witnessed the battle. The three fallen were buried with honors by the British officer and his subordinates. Renvall learned of the defeat at Töllev on 22 June and then withdrew to Virtaniemi. After a last ditch petition to the Senate asking for fresh troops, Renvell handed his command to Jalmari Tela on 5 July, when the Finnish Senate's mandate for the expedition expired. Tela became the leader of a 40-strong garrison at Virtaniemi tasked with preventing any Red Guard infiltration through the border. All but one of the 18 men held by Norway were released by September, the remainder having died from Spanish flu. Renvell's final report put the blame for the failure on Laitinen's hesitancy. [11]

Interlude

The Finnish Senate sent a letter to the British government complaining that the British military had repelled by force the Finnish expedition and occupied Petsamo, a region which legally belonged to Finland. The British responded in September, explaining that they did not oppose to Finland's sovereignty over Petsamo, but as long as Germany represented a threat to Murmansk they could not accede to that demand. [2] Finland and Soviet Russia held peace talks in Berlin in August 1918, but no agreement resulted since the Bolshevik government refused to hand the Kola peninsula over. A later bid of the Finnish government to bring their territorial claims to the Paris Peace Conference also ended in failure. [12] Hopes that the armistice with Germany in November 1918 would mean the withdrawal of British and Allied forces from northern Russia were quickly quashed when the skirmishes with the Red Army soon developed into open conflict. [13] When the campaign became increasingly unpopular in Britain, and the Allied armies began to evacuated the region for good in September 1919, [14] the White Russian resistance quickly collapsed. [15] A previous promise of the Bolsheviks that they would give up Petsamo encouraged the Finnish to try another expedition by 1920. [1]

1920

Second Petsamo expedition
Part of Heimosodat
Asein ja suksin varustautuneet heimosoturit (musketti.M012-HK7981-98.24).jpg
Finnish ski troops (1919-1920)
Date20 December 1919 – 1 July 1920
Location
Result

Soviet victory

Belligerents
Flag of Finland.svg Finnish volunteers Flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1918-1925).svg Russian SFSR
Commanders and leaders
  • Flag of Finland.svg Kurt Martti Wallenius
  • Flag of Finland.svg Gustaf Taucher
Flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1918-1925).svg Ivan Alexandrov
Strength
196 400
Casualties and losses
4 killed
29 interned
3 defectors
3 killed

The 1920 expedition was initially composed of 60 men commanded by General Kurt Martti Wallenius. The rationale for the expedition was the request of White Russian General Yevgeny Miller to the Finnish government for reconnecting the telegraph line between Alexandrovsk and Rovaniemi. The works would take place on Finnish territory, but the authorities deemed necessary to provide security on the Russian side of the border, with Miller's consensus. [16]

The expedition departed from Rovaniemi on 7 January in three columns, and after some delays caused by Norway government concerns, they crossed the border at Virtaniemi on 18 January. Norwegian authorities planned to hold a referendum to determine whether or not residents in the area desired to join their country, while local populations, who feared that the expedition could put their trade with Norway at risk, had an unfriendly attitude toward the volunteers [16] on both sides of the border. Most of the population fled to Norway, taking with them reindeers, sleds, supplies and food. [17]

The Finnish volunteers reconnected the telegraph lines between Salmijärvi and Petsamo on 3 February, and on 7 February the expedition arrived in Petsamo fiord, where they found no resistance from the local White detachment, led by Sergey Sokolovsky, a Cossack captain, and consisting of 50 demoralised soldiers. Finnish troops billeted in the barracks formerly occupied by British and Russian White forces. [17]

On 18 February Petsamo witnessed the influx of hundreds of refugees escaping persecution in Murmansk, including a number of Red Guards who were immediately put under Finnish command; Russian White resistance in northern Russia, however, collapsed by 21 February, and the Finnish officers allowed the Bolsheviks to disarm Sokolovsky and his men. The White troops were interned at Trifonia, one of the three villages around Petsamo fiord. [18]

Once the Russian Civil War was over, Wallenius was granted the reinforcements he had long requested. The Finnish government sent a battalion and resupplies aboard the steamer Silvia, but the arrival of fresh troops was delayed by a month when the cargo ship ran aground in the Danish straits and had to be docked. This mean that Wallenius had to resort to delaying tactics and negotiations with the Bolsheviks until the eventual coming of the battalion on 18 March. One of the first decisions was to disarm the Red Guards still at Petsamo. Another measure was to ration food, which had become scarce with a now 196-strong garrison. Government information about a Soviet Russian expedition to Petsamo fiord, an ultimatum from the Russian authorities at Murmansk and the fear of being cut off from their line of supply by a sudden attack led Wallenius to retreat inland to Vuoremi, leaving a string of forward positions at Parkkina, Trifona, Heikinpaikka, Alaluostar and Yläluostar. [17] [18]

The Bolshevik offensive finally materialised with a naval landing on Petsamo on 22 March 1920, supported by 150 ski troops marching from Murmansk. The Russians warships shelled the slopes where the Finnish troops were deployed, and the Red Army soon blocked the retreat route of the forward outposts. Wallenius ordered the withdrawal of his forces first to Vuoremi and then to the hamlet of Samiyarvi, which served as the expedition's ammunition depot. The Silvia unloaded its resupplies at Vuoremi on 24 March, giving some relief to the exhausted Finnish volunteers. By 31 March, the expedition was isolated at Samiyarvi, pressed by ski troops from the north, by the Russian main force from the east and by Red Finnish ski guerrillas on the rear. [17] The battle began at 15.30, when the local school, converted in the expedition's headquarters, received an outburst of machine gun fire. After four hours of action, with his men almost surrounded and outnumbered, and despite Senate orders on the contrary, Wallenius decided to withdraw through the border with Norway. [19]

The expedition lost two volunteers in the battle of Samiyarvi. Two other died of wounds in Kirkenes, Norway. Three other deserted to the Red Army. The Russians suffered three dead, one of them an ethnic Finnish. [20] Norwegian authorities interned 29 ski troops. [20] [21]

Wallenius and his remaining forces retreat to Virtaniemi through swamps and swollen streams. They reached destination on 4 April. Wallenius returned to Rovaniemi, where he handed the command to Lieutenant Alfred Sippus. Though the fiasco was to blame to the miscalculations of the government and the high command, Wallenius became the escape goat, and was replaced by Major Gustaf Taucher. [21] [20] As negotiations with Russia loomed, the expedition, now reinforced, was banned from crossing the frontier and expended the next three months performing drills and border guarding. On 1 July, the volunteers handed over their duties to the Lapland Border Guard. [20]

Aftermath

In the Treaty of Tartu, signed on 14 October 1920, Petsamo was handed over by Soviet Russia to Finland and became the Petsamo Province until the Winter War of 1939. [22]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pechenga (urban-type settlement), Murmansk Oblast</span> Urban-type settlement in Murmansk Oblast, Russia

Pechenga is an urban locality in Pechengsky District, Murmansk Oblast, Russia. Municipally, it is incorporated as Pechenga Urban Settlement of Pechengsky Municipal District. Population: 3,188 (2010 Census); 2,959 (2002 Census); 2,671 (1989 Soviet census).

The Aunus expedition was an attempt by Finnish volunteers to occupy parts of East Karelia in 1919, during the Russian Civil War. Aunus is the Finnish name for Olonets Karelia. This expedition was one of many Finnic "kinship wars" (heimosodat) fought against forces of Soviet Russia after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and during the Russian Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viena expedition</span> Attempt by Finnish volunteers to annex White Karelia in 1918

The Viena expedition was the military expedition in March 1918 by Finnish volunteer forces in order to annex White Karelia from Soviet Russia. It was one of the many "kinship wars" (Heimosodat) fought near the newly independent Finland during the Russian Civil War. Russian East Karelia was never part of the Swedish Empire or the Grand Duchy of Finland, and was at the time mostly inhabited by Karelians. However, many advocates of a Greater Finland considered these Karelians "kindred" to the Finnish nation, and therefore supported Finnish annexation of Russian East Karelia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Silver Fox</span> 1941 World War II military operation

Operation Silver Fox from 29 June to 17 November 1941, was a joint German–Finnish military operation during the Continuation War on the Eastern Front of World War II against the Soviet Union. The objective of the offensive was to cut off and capture the key Soviet Port of Murmansk through attacks from Finnish and Norwegian territory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kurt Martti Wallenius</span> Finnish Major General

Kurt Martti Wallenius was a Finnish Major General.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Finland in World War II</span>

Finland participated in the Second World War initially in a defensive war against the Soviet Union, followed by another, this time offensive, war against the Soviet Union acting in concert with Nazi Germany and then finally fighting alongside the Allies against Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War</span> Foreign interventions in Russia between 1918 and 1925

The Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War consisted of a series of multi-national military expeditions that began in 1918. The initial impetus behind the interventions was to secure munitions and supply depots from falling into the German Empire's hands, particularly after the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and to rescue the Allied forces that had become trapped within Russia after the 1917 October Revolution. After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the Allied plan changed to helping the White forces in the Russian Civil War. After the Whites collapsed, the Allies withdrew their forces from Russia by 1925.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heimosodat</span> Interwar conflicts in Finnish territory

The Finnish term Heimosodat refers to a series of armed conflicts and private military expeditions in 1918–1922 into areas of the former Russian Empire that bordered on Finland and were inhabited in large part by other Finnic peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Russia intervention</span> 1918–1919 Allied intervention in Russia

The North Russia intervention, also known as the Northern Russian expedition, the Archangel campaign, and the Murman deployment, was part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War after the October Revolution. The intervention brought about the involvement of foreign troops in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement. The movement was ultimately defeated, while the British-led Allied forces withdrew from Northern Russia after fighting a number of defensive actions against the Bolsheviks, such as the Battle of Bolshie Ozerki. The campaign lasted from March 1918, during the final months of World War I, to October 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murmansk Legion</span>

The Murmansk Legion, also known as the Finnish Legion, was a British Royal Navy organized military unit during the 1918–1919 Allied North Russia Intervention. It was composed of Finnish Red Guards who had fled after the Finnish Civil War from the White-dominated Northern Finland to Soviet Russia and of some Finns working on the Murmansk Railroad. The Legion, along with British troops, fought off the 1918 Viena expedition of Finnish White Guards and defended the Murmansk Railroad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treaty of Tartu (Finland–Russia)</span> 1920 border treaty between Finland and Soviet Russia

The Treaty of Tartu was signed on 14 October 1920 between Finland and Soviet Russia after negotiations that lasted nearly five months. The treaty confirmed the border between Finland and Soviet Russia after the Finnish Civil War and Finnish volunteer expeditions in Russian East Karelia that resulted in annexation of several Russian districts.

The 45th Rifle Division was a Red Army infantry division formed originally during the Russian Civil War that fought in World War II and then served through the Cold War in the Leningrad Military District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Karelian uprising</span> 1921-1922 rebellion in East Karelia

The East Karelian Uprising and the Soviet–Finnish conflict 1921–1922 were an attempt by a group of East Karelian separatists supported by Finland to gain independence from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. They were aided by a number of Finnish volunteers, starting from 6 November 1921. The conflict ended on 21 March 1922 with the Agreements between the governments of Soviet Russia and Finland about the measures of maintenance of the inviolability of the Soviet–Finnish border. The conflict is regarded in Finland as one of the heimosodat – "Kinship Wars".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pechengsky District</span> District in Murmansk Oblast, Russia

Pechengsky District is an administrative district (raion), one of the six in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. As a municipal division, it is incorporated as Pechengsky Municipal District. It is located in the northwest of the oblast, on the coast of the Barents Sea and borders Finland in the south and southwest and Norway in the west, northwest, and north. The area of the district is 8,662.22 square kilometers (3,344.50 sq mi). Its administrative center is the urban locality of Nikel. Its population was 38,920 (2010 Census); 46,404 (2002 Census); 59,495 (1989 Soviet census). The population of Nikel accounts for 32.8% of the district's total population.

The 14th Army was a field army of the Soviet Army, formed twice.

The Province of Petsamo was a Finnish panhandle. It was a separate province from 1921 to 1922, when it was merged into the Province of Oulu. This panhandle used to give Finland access to the Arctic Ocean, until it was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1944.

The timeline of the Winter War is a chronology of events leading up to, culminating in, and resulting from the Winter War. The war began when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 and it ended 13 March 1940.

The 14th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army. Formed in Moscow in 1922, the division spent most of the interwar period at Vladimir. After moving to the Kola Peninsula during the Winter War, the division fought on that front during the Continuation War. After the end of the Continuation War it became the 101st Guards Rifle Division.

Aleksanteri (Aleksi) Hihnavaara, better known by his nickname Mosku, was a famous Finnish frontiersman and reindeer herder in Sompio region, Northeastern Lapland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iivo Ahava</span>

Iivo Ahava was a Karelian-born Finnish military officer and nationalist who supported the idea of an independent East Karelia. In the 1918 Finnish Civil War, Ahava led a Red Guard unit fighting against the Whites on their Viena expedition. During the Allied North Russia Intervention, Ahava served as a lieutenant in the British organized units of Murmansk Legion and Karelian Regiment. He was murdered in unclear circumstances in East Karelia.

References

  1. 1 2 Paasilinna (1980), pp. 225–244
  2. 1 2 Aatsinki (2008), pp. 198-99
  3. Niinikangas (2013), pp. 27, 31
  4. Paasilinna (1980), pp. 175–183
  5. Niinikangas (2013), pp. 34–35
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Paasilinna (1980), pp. 185-90
  7. 1 2 3 4 Wright (2017), p.24
  8. Wright (2017), p. 25
  9. Ninikangas (2013), pp. 41-42
  10. Niinikangas (2013), pp. 43–44
  11. Paasilinna (1980), pp. 204–206
  12. Paasilinna (1980), pp. 218–224
  13. Wright (2017), p. 149
  14. Wright (2017), pp. 291–292
  15. Mawdsley (2007), p. 255
  16. 1 2 Lehtola (2012), pp. 90-96
  17. 1 2 3 4 Lehtola (2012), pp. 96–103
  18. 1 2 Paasilinna (1980), pp. 225–244
  19. Lehtola 2012, pp. 104–107
  20. 1 2 3 4 Paasilinna 1980, pp. 245–253
  21. 1 2 Lethola (2012), p. 104-107
  22. Häikiö, Martti (6 September 2017). "The Republic made peace with Soviet Russia – Svinhuvfud". finland100.fi/. Retrieved 2024-08-03.

Bibliography