History: World War II Photography, Finnish Defense Forces, Finland

Soon after Finland gained independence in December 1917, a nationalistic, middle-class militia known as the White Guards, which had been secretly established in 1904 and 1905 and which had remained underground since then disguised as athletic clubs and other groups, was officially proclaimed the army of the Finnish government under General Mannerheim. This so-called White Army was strengthened and trained by 1,100 officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who had traveled clandestinely to Germany during World War I and had formed the Twenty-seventh Royal Prussian Jaeger Battalion. Returning to Finland, they brought back with them urgently needed small arms captured from the Russians. The White forces were swelled by new conscripts, officers of the former Finnish armed forces, Swedish volunteers, and Finnish officers who had served in the Swedish and in the Russian armies, in addition to the jaegers. After three months of bitter civil conflict, the White Army of about 70,000 troops defeated the Red Guards from the radical wing of the Finnish Social Democratic Party, in May 1918. Both sides suffered thousands of casualties. In four months, the White Guards had evolved from a strongly motivated, but ill-trained, militia into a battle-hardened, disciplined national armed force. Although numerically superior and reinforced by the Russian garrisons in Finland, the Red Guards were deficient in equipment, training, and leadership.
During and after the Civil War, conflict emerged between the younger jaeger officers of the Finnish army and the former tsarist officers in its upper ranks. When most of the Finnish officer corps threatened to resign in 1924 over the dominance of the Russian-trained leadership, most of the Russian officers were moved aside and the jaeger officers began to occupy the higher echelons, bringing the influence of German military doctrine and training methods with them.
The new government reinstituted conscription after the Civil War and established a small national army. It also introduced a mobilization system and compulsory refresher courses for reservists. The Finnish Military Academy was reactivated in 1919, and during the 1920s a reserve officers' school was formed, together with NCO schools for various branches and arms of the service. The Civil Guard, a voluntary rightist formation of 100,000 personnel derived from the White Guards, constituted a local auxiliary. Nevertheless, Finland did not succeed in building a strong national army. The requirement of one year of compulsory service was greater than that imposed by any other Scandinavian country in the 1920s and the 1930s, but political opposition to defense spending left the military badly equipped to resist attack by the Soviet Union, the only security threat in Finnish eyes.
When the Soviets invaded in November 1939, they were met by a force of 135,000 Finnish troops organized into 9 divisions. In what became known as the Winter War, the Finnish army defeated numerically superior invading Soviet formations within a relatively short period of time. The initial Red Army contingents were poorly trained, and they were ill prepared for combat under severe inclement winter conditions. The Finnish army was able to inflict sharp reversals in battles on the Karelian Isthmus and in northeastern Finland, killing between 200,000 and 250,000 Soviet soldiers. Momentarily, it looked as if Finland would turn back the aggressor and would inflict an astonishing military defeat on its great and powerful neighbor. When the Soviet commanders reverted to a strategy of wearing down the greatly outnumbered Finns in Karelia by their overwhelming firepower, however, Finland's defeat was inevitable. On March 12, 1940, an armistice yielded slightly more territory to the Soviets than they had initially demanded in 1939. The Soviets regarded this territory as being vital to their preparations for a future showdown with Nazi Germany.