The murder continued to be discussed in the British press days later, and the Times analysed the event from the imperial point of view. However, I wanted to find out if the platform could also be The following two tabs change content below. have not specialised in Finnish nor War History in my own research, but I was curious Because the name of this war has been During the quarantine (and any other time!) Omissions? The Winter War is a historical fiction book about boy trying to help out his homeland during wartime. Skis and reindeers make the Finnish soldiers movable. The Finnish Civil War was fought between Reds (a section of the Social Democratic Party, agrarian and industrial workers) and Whites (the conservative based Senate with the help of the German Imperial Army, middle-class and upper-class people). helpful when studying Finnish history! German forces landed on the shores of southern Finland on April 3, 1918 to put an end to the Finnish Civil War that had raged for more than two years, with more than 40,000 perishing on both sides. The Soviet proposals for those acquisitions included an offer to exchange Soviet land. The landing at Omaha Beach, as brave and loyal as the Americans were there, was chump change compared to the Eastern Front war. Looking for Help Tackling Tough Academic Works? However, that effort was squelched when the Finnish parliament chose not to ratify the agreement. The war began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939, three months after Germany's invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty.. (Whilst drawing too much comparison between historical events and current situations has its dangers, I could not help but ponder whether the reporting of the Crimean War that can be found in British Library Newspapers was one of the first steps towards the reality we live in today, where news of COVID-19 is available instantly, day in, day out, from hour to hour, from moment to moment, and whether this development in technology is changing society’s approaches and understanding of news as it did to those exposed to the new telegraph technology in the nineteenth century.). It is well known for bringing the end of the Hyper Era and bringing the world into a "dark age". When Finland rejected the demand,…, …for border rectifications and bases, Stalin ordered the Red Army to attack on November 30. To that end, the Soviets also endeavoured to gain possession of several Finnish islands in the Gulf of Finland and to secure a 30-year lease for a naval base at Hanko (Hangö). focusing on Great Britain or America, since the collections seem mostly focused This was the name that the English gave to the military clash in the Finnish city called Hanko in the summer of 1855. To summarise my exploration of the coverage of Finland in Gale Primary Sources, I was genuinely amazed by the amount of newspapers, periodicals, news pieces and articles concerning Finnish war history that I found. Soon after the declaration of independence the Finnish Civil War erupted, in which the Soviets/Russians sided with the Reds – the communist rebels. Finland's White Guard, the Whites, managed to seize a few aircraft from the Russians, but were forced to rely on foreign pilots an… The investigation will look to see if any Finns participated in “in the homicide of Jews and civilians during 1941-1943.” Profiting quickly from its understanding with Germany, the U.S.S.R. on October 10, 1939, constrained Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to admit Soviet garrisons onto their territories. This is a useful tip to remember when conducting research – place names may change over time or be referred to differently for numerous political and social reasons, so it is worth searching for such variations to pull back more results. After limiting the time span of my results to the nineteenth century using the date limiter in Gale Primary Sources, one significant event stood out: The Crimean War, a conflict fought from October 1853 to March 1856 between the Russian Empire and an alliance made up of Britain, the Ottoman Empire, France and Sardinia. Finland’s heroic struggle to preserve independence and defend its territories, citizens, and culture against the Russian superpower to the east has been acknowledged many times, as have the bravery and resourcefulness of the Finnish troops in the 105-day conflict termed the Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40 (hereafter shortened to the … Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Gale, A Cengage Company. In the eyes of the British press, Finland’s reputation as a winter- and sports-loving nation was already under construction – although the winter sports did not quite unite Finnish people because athletes belonging to the Sports Federation of Working People (Työväen Urheiluliitto in Finnish) were not allowed to take part.5. … In Hearts of Iron 3 The Finnish Winter War decision and event creates a state of war between Finland and the Soviet Union.. In 1939, two Finnish brothers are conscripted in the army to fight in the war between Finland and the Soviet Union. Finnish war children in Norway. Marko’s job is to alert the troops if the Soviets are coming. Revising the Byronic Hero with Gale Primary Sources, Coping at College – Research Resources and Mental Health, How To Handle Primary Source Archives – University Lecturer’s Top Tips. In 1939, tiny Finland waged war-the kind of war that spawns legends-against the mighty Soviet Union, and yet their epic struggle has been largely ignored. Try These Study Tips. The first steps in the history of Finnish aviation were taken with Russian aircraft. Based on that search, Gale The Red Army wanted to split Finnish forces above Lake Ladoga, north of the Mannerheim Line, as well as seize the coastal city of Petsamo along the Arctic Ocean to the north, to prevent oceanic intervention from Norway. The Finnish Civil War was fought between Reds (a section of the middle-class and upper-class people). It involved Rüdiger von der Goltz, a German general, whose wildly differing roles in the history of Latvia and Finland illustrate the complexities of history. “Whoever Expected Prophets to Agree?” – Predicting the Future One Hundred Years Ago, Cengage EMEA, Cheriton House, North Way, Andover, SP10 5BE. |date=}}The 200th anniversary of the Finnish War was selected as the main motif for a high value commemorative coin, the €100 200th Anniversary of Finnish War commemorative coin, minted in 2008. As a result, it was apparent that I needed to limit my search somehow, and I decided to focus on the history of Finnish warfare and armed conflicts. The Russo-Finnish War, or Winter War, began on 30 November 1939 when the Soviet Union invaded Finland. When I browsed through the digital material during the war years, I found a particularly large amount of material from the so-called “Hango massacre”. The most famous murder is that of the Governor-General of Finland, Nikolay Bobrikov, a Russian General who was the victim of an organised group of Finnish nationalists. The murder took place in the very centre of Helsinki on June 16, 1904, and was committed by a Finnish activist, Eugen Schauman. Never miss our exclusives! There are quite up-to-date reports on how the military conflict progressed that were published very soon after the events had taken their place. – Finland in American News in the Late Nineteenth Century or Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld – A Great Arctic Explorer of the Nineteenth Century. (For further information about this, check out “100 years since Finland declared independence”). How I Survived Studying in Lockdown – and You Can Too, 100 years since Finland declared independence, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/R3213121622/GDCS?u=uhelsink&sid=GDCS&xid=401a0c6f, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/R3214048411/GDCS?u=uhelsink&sid=GDCS&xid=2c3cfbc9, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/EZ3245120400/GDCS?u=uhelsink&sid=GDCS&xid=21cd8d89, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/JE3235891112/GDCS?u=uhelsink&sid=GDCS&xid=65bddfd9, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GW3226023367/GDCS?u=uhelsink&sid=GDCS&xid=efaa8f32, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS101649041/GDCS?u=uhelsink&sid=GDCS&xid=919e3a49, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS151325804/GDCS?u=uhelsink&sid=GDCS&xid=32691789, Suomi mainittu! I’m now going to look at some of the events that took place during the Crimean War that involved Finland and were covered in the British press at that time. As a Finn myself, I cannot help but feel a little uneasy reading an emotionless, “third-party” depiction of destroying Svartholma’s fort – a building that has since been restored by the Finnish Heritage Agency. The Anniversary of the Sinking of the Titanic – Who Was Bruce Ismay? Finnish troops were conscripted to fight in the wars the Swedish Empire engaged in. Russo-Finnish War, also called Winter War, (November 30, 1939–March 12, 1940), war waged by the Soviet Union against Finland at the beginning of World War II, following the conclusion of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (August 23, 1939). In February 1940, however, the Soviets used massive artillery bombardments to breach the Mannerheim Line (the Finns’ southern defensive barrier stretching across the Karelian Isthmus), after which they streamed northward across the isthmus to the Finnish city of Viipuri (Vyborg). limitation to look for results only in year 1918. At the beginning of the First World War, Finland was an autonomous Great Duchy within the Russian Empire. The news has caused the greatest excitement.” General Bobrikov died the morning the reports of the shooting were published, so the press could still not confirm the death in that day’s paper. She believes expressing herself by writing columns and academic texts is one way to make a change in the world! The rest of the article was dedicated to praising the international (or rather Nordic) winter sports that were held in Helsinki in February 1919. Despite their much smaller size and strength, the Finns were able to hold off the Soviets for more than two months before the larger force redoubled its efforts and finally overran them. Unlike the Winter War, which was a Soviet war of aggression against Finland, the Continuation War was a war of aggression initiated by the Finns, which attempted to rectify the territorial losses of the Winter War and pre-empt Soviet aggression. The Finns then joined the fight against the Soviets, undertaking the “War of Continuation.” An armistice signed on September 19, 1944, effectively concluded that conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland, contingent on Finnish recognition of the Treaty of Moscow and the evacuation of German troops (who refused to leave). Telegraphs were used by the military for sharing strategies, but also for forwarding war reports to the press.2 Consequently it was the first war where the media were reporting in “real-time”. Moving on to the twentieth century, I was curious whether the unrest at the beginning of the century appears in Gale’s archives. to check whether the Finnish Civil War in 1918 was of interest to British The news of the murder spread widely and fast thanks to the vast telegram network3 – General Bobrikov was shot before noon in Helsinki and the breaking news was published in Mexico the next morning (ironically, even before the information reached remote cities in Finland). In other words, German troops marched to the city without facing any defensive lines. As expected, the news spread without delay to Britain as well. To the north Finnish troops moved to … What I found, in short, was a highly There is a debate in Finland on whether the country had a realistic option of not joining the German Operation Barbarossa, and about how much of the Finnish action was morally justified. The Hull Daily Mail was wise enough to predict two days before the battle that, given “German warships have already been seen off Helsingfors, the occupation of which will probably take place in the very near future” – the very near future, it turned out. contended both during and after the conflict, I decided to focus on Helsinki to Armed Forces of Finland in the Winter War 1939-40. In Helsinki, the university library has (in large part) physically shut its doors, but luckily there is a great deal of primary source material available in, for example, the digital collections of the National Library of Finland, and the Helsinki University Library also offers students and staff numerous digital collections which include several Gale Primary Sources archives. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership. By merely searching for “Helsingfors” the search results offered 250 monographs, 8 manuscripts and 28,159 newspaper and periodical articles! make the search easier. On November 30th the Winter War was on (formally known as the Russo-Finnish War), a conflict that would last until March, the following year. Even though the Finnish territory was spared of most of the fighting, it witnessed a series of military operations for three and a half months during the … Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... World War II: The Baltic states and the Russo-Finnish War, 1939–40. For example, the Sheffield Independent published a report on the “Destruction of Lovisa” on July 21, 1855 from a dispatch that was written on July 8, 1855 in “Hogland”. In Gale Primary Sources, 2,323 newspaper and periodical articles can be found by searching for “General Bobrikoff”, of which 22 were published on June 17, 1904. Norway received 100 children. 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