Stupid Wars by Ed Strosser

Author:Ed Strosser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

WHAT HAPPENED: OPERATION “WINTER OLYMPICS”

To the Finns it seems natural. Ski through the woods, rifle slung over a shoulder. Slip off the skis, lie on the ground, and pop off a few quick, accurate rounds. Then ski away. A sport was even created around it—the biathlon—the combination of skiing and shooting that goes together like pickles and herring. In competitions, the biathletes fire at stationary targets. For a few months during the winter of 1939/40, the Finnish competitors fired at live targets, even though sometimes they were even more stationary than the Olympic kind. The snowy woods of Finland were suddenly filled with the easiest targets a soldier often dreams of: Russian soldiers.

As with most of Stalin’s plans, this one was brutally simple: line up as many soldiers and tanks he could muster on the border, pour into Finland, and overwhelm the Finns. If that wasn’t enough, they had thousands of planes to bomb the Finns back to the Ice Age. The whole romp would take no longer than two weeks, the generals assured Stalin. In fact, Stalin was more concerned that his army would roll through Finland so fast they would stumble into Sweden on the other side, angering a country that Stalin did not yet want to conquer.

The attack concentrated on three main areas. First, the Soviets would pound the narrow Karelian Isthmus with division after division, long columns of modern tanks along with hundreds of fighters and bombers. Then five divisions would sweep north of Lake Ladoga to outflank the Finns pinned down on the Mannerheim Line, which was the Finns’ stout defensive line across the Isthmus. And much farther north, into the thinly populated Arctic regions, the Soviets would launch numerous divisions in a pointless attempt to cut the country in half.

Stalin modeled his attack on the German blitz of Poland. His plan was brilliant except for two significant flaws: (1) he didn’t have the German army, and (2) Finland is not Poland. Hitler’s blitzkrieg was designed for fighting on the broad, flat plains of Europe. The invasion of Poland went so well in part because the Nazis had plenty of room to maneuver their huge tank columns, and the weather was warm and dry. Under those conditions, the immobile Poles were easily outflanked, cut off, and decimated.

But Finland is forbidding to invaders even in the summer. Winter invasion is an act of insanity. One third of the country is above the Arctic Circle, and all of it is virtually icebound during the winter when darkness lasts twenty-three hours a day and temperatures regularly drop to 20–30 degrees below zero. Roads are few and narrow, incapable of handling a tank convoy. Between the roads stand deep, dark forests with snowbanks large enough to swallow a man.

The Soviets soon found out that the toughest part of Finland was the Finns. The country had about 4.5 million people, hardy souls all, since that was the only way to survive in the harsh environment. Finns possess exceptional know-how of surviving outdoors in the winter.

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