Finnish Civil War

Finnish Civil War
Part of World War I, Revolutions of 1917-1923
Tampere's civilian buildings destroyed in the Civil War
Date 27 January – 15 May 1918 (3 months, 2 weeks and 4 days) Location Finland Result Victory of the Finnish Whites German hegemony until November 1918 Division in Finnish society
Belligerents
Finnish Whites German Empire Swedish, Estonian, Polish volunteers	Finnish Reds Soviet Russia
Commanders and leaders
C.G.E. Mannerheim Hannes Ignatius Ernst Linder Ernst Löfström Martin Wetzer Karl Wilkman Rüdiger von der Goltz Hans von Tschirsky und von Bögendorff Konrad Wolf Otto von Brandenstein Hugo Meurer Hjalmar Frisell Harald Hjalmarson Hans Kalm Stanislaw Prus-Boguslawski	Ali Aaltonen Eero Haapalainen Eino Rahja Adolf Taimi Evert Eloranta Kullervo Manner August Wesley Hugo Salmela Heikki Kaljunen Fredrik Johansson Verner Lehtimäki Konstantin Yeremejev Mikhail Svechnikov Georgij Bulatsel
Strength
White Guards 80,000–90,000 Jägers 1,450 Imperial German Army 14,000 Swedish Brigade 1,000 Estonian volunteers Polish Legion 1,737	Red Guards 80,000–90,000 (2,600 women) Former Russian Imperial Army 7,000–10,000
Casualties and losses
Whites 3,500 killed in action 1,650 executed 46 missing 4 POW deaths Swedes 55 killed in action Germans 450–500 killed in action Total 5,700–5,800 casualties (100–200 neutral/"White" civilians)	Reds 5,700 killed in action 10,000 executed 1,150 missing 12,500 POWs deceased, 700 acute deaths after release Russians 800–900 killed in action 1,600 executed Total 32,500 casualties (100–200 neutral/"Red" civilians)

The Finnish Civil War (27 January – 15 May 1918; Finnish: Suomen sisällissota; Swedish: Finska inbördeskriget; Russian: Гражданская война в Финляндии, romanized: Grazhdanskaya voyna v Finlyandii; German: Finnischer Bürgerkrieg) concerned leadership and control of Finland during the transition from a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire to an independent state. The conflict formed a part of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I (Eastern Front) in Europe. The war was fought between the Reds, led by the Social Democratic Party, and the Whites, conducted by the non-socialist, conservative-based Senate. The paramilitary Red Guards, composed of industrial and agrarian workers, controlled the cities and industrial centers of southern Finland. The paramilitary White Guards, composed of peasants and middle-class and upper-class factions, controlled rural central and northern Finland.

Finnish society had experienced rapid population growth, industrialization, pre-urbanization and the rise of a comprehensive labour movement. The country's political and governmental systems were in an unstable phase of democratization and modernization, while the people's socio-economic condition and national-cultural status gradually improved. World War I led to the collapse of the Russian Empire and a power struggle, militarization and escalating crisis between the left-leaning Finnish labour movement and the Finnish conservatives.

The Reds carried out an unsuccessful general offensive in February 1918, supplied with weapons by Soviet Russia. A counteroffensive by the Whites began in March, reinforced by the German Empire's military detachments in April. The decisive engagements were the Battles of Tampere and Vyborg (Finnish: Viipuri), won by the Whites, and the Battles of Helsinki and Lahti, won by German troops, leading to overall victory of the Whites and the German forces. Political terror became a part of the warfare. Around 12,500 Red prisoners of war died due to malnutrition and disease in camps. In total, approximately 39,000 people, of which 36,000 Finns, perished in the conflict.

In the aftermath, the Finns passed from Russian governance to the German sphere of influence with a plan to establish a German-led Finnish monarchy. The scheme was cancelled with the defeat of Germany in World War I and Finland instead emerged as an independent, democratic republic. The Civil War divided the nation for decades—Finnish society was reunited through social compromises based on a long-term culture of moderate politics and religion, the outcome of World War I and the post-war economic recovery.

Background

International politics

The main factor behind the Finnish Civil War was World War I; the Russian Empire collapsed under the pressures of the conflict, leading to the February and October Revolutions in 1917. The breakdown caused a large power vacuum and a subsequent struggle for power in Eastern Europe. The Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Russian Empire since 1809, became embroiled in the turmoil. Geopolitically less important than the continental Moscow-Warsaw gateway, the northerly Finnish ground, isolated by the Baltic Sea was a peaceful sidefront until early 1918. The war between the German Empire and Russia had indirect effects on the Finns. Since the end of the 19th century, the Grand Duchy had become a vital source of raw materials, industrial products, food and labour for the growing Imperial Russian capital Petrograd (modern Saint Petersburg), and World War I emphasized the role. Strategically, the Finnish territory was the less marked northern section of the Estonian–Finnish gateway and a buffer zone to and from Petrograd through the Narva area, the Gulf of Finland and the Karelian Isthmus.

The German Empire saw Eastern Europe—primarily Russia—as a major source of vital products and raw materials, both during World War I and for the future. Her resources overstretched by the two-front war, Germany pursued a policy of breaking up Russia from within by providing financial support to revolutionary groups, such as the Bolsheviks and the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and to radical, separatist factions, such as the Finnish activist movement leaning toward Germanism. Between 30 and 40 million marks were spent on the endeavour. Controlling the Finnish area would allow the Imperial German Army to penetrate Petrograd and the Kola Peninsula, an area rich in raw materials for the mining industry. Finland possessed large ore reserves and a well-developed forest industry.

From 1809 to 1898, a period called Pax Russica, the peripheral authority of the Finns gradually increased, and the Russo-Finnish relations were exceptionally peaceful compared with other parts of the Russian Empire. Russia's defeat in the Crimean War in the 1850s led to attempts to speed up the modernization of the country. This caused more than 50 years of economic, industrial, cultural and educational progress in the Grand Duchy of Finland, including improvement in the status of the Finnish language. All this encouraged Finnish nationalism and cultural unity through the birth of the Fennoman movement, which bound the Finns to the domestic administration and led to the idea that the Finnish Grand Duchy was an increasingly autonomous state of the Russian Empire.

In 1899, the Russian Empire initiated a policy of integration through the Russification of Finland. The strengthened, pan-slavist central power tried to unite the "Russian Multinational Dynastic Union" as the military and strategic situation of Russia became more perilous due of the rise of Germany and Japan. Finns called the increased military and administrative control "the First Period of Oppression", and plans for disengagement from Russia or sovereignty for Finland were drawn up for the first time. In the struggle, the activists including sections from working class and Swedish-speaking intelligentsia, executed terrorist acts. During World War I and the rise of Germanism, the pro-Swedish Svecomans began their covert collaboration with Imperial Germany, and from 1915 to 1917, a Jäger (Finnish: jääkäri) battalion consisting of 1,900 Finnish volunteers was trained in Germany.

Domestic politics

The major reasons for rising political tensions among Finns were the autocratic rule of the Russian Czar and the undemocratic class system of the estates of the realm. The system originated in the Swedish Empire regime, preceding Russian governance, and divided the Finnish people into two groups, separated economically, socially and politically. Finland's population grew rapidly in the 19th century (from 860,000 in 1810 to 3,130,000 in 1917), and classes of industrial and agrarian workers as well as propertyless peasants emerged. The Industrial Revolution was rapid in Finland, though it started later than in the rest of Western Europe. Industrialization was financed by the state, and some of the social problems associated with the industrial process were diminished via control of the administration. Among urban workers, socio-economic problems steepened during periods of industrial depression. The position of rural workers had worsened since the end of the 19th century, as farming became more efficient and market-oriented and the gradually developing industry did not fully utilize the rapid population growth of the countryside.

The difference between Scandinavian-Finnish (Finno-Ugric peoples) and Russian-Slavic culture affected the nature of Finnish national integration; the upper social faction took the lead and gained domestic might from the Russian Czar in 1809. The estates planned to build up an increasingly autonomous Finnish state, led by the elite and intelligentsia. The Fennoman movement aimed to include the common people in a non-political role in order to reduce unrest from social problems; the labour movement, youth associations and the temperance movement were initially led "from above".

Social conditions, the standard of living and the self-confidence of workers gradually improved due to industrialization between 1870–1916, but while the standard of living rose among the common people, the rift between rich and poor deepened markedly. The commoners' rising awareness of the socio-economic and political questions interacted with the ideas of socialism, social liberalism and nationalism. The workers' responses and the corresponding counteracts of the dominating factions steepened the social relations in Finland.

The Finnish labour movement, which emerged at the end of the 19th century from temperance, religious movements and Fennomania, had a Finnish nationalist, working-class character. From 1899 to 1906, the movement became conclusively independent, shedding the patronizing thinking of the Fennoman estates, and it was represented by the Finnish Social Democratic Party, established in 1899. Workers' activism was directed both toward opposing Russification and in developing a domestic policy that tackled social problems and responded to the demand for democracy. This was a reaction to the domestic dispute, ongoing since the 1880s, between the Finnish nobility-bourgeoisie and the labour movement concerning voting rights for the common people.

Besides their obligations as obedient, peaceful and non-political inhabitants of the Grand Duchy, who had a few decades earlier accepted the class system as the natural order of their life, the commoners began to ask for and demand for their civil rights and citizenship in Finnish society. The power struggle between the Finnish estates and the Russian administration gave a concrete role model and free space for the labour movement. On the other side, due to at least a century-long tradition and experience of administrative leadership, the Finnish elite saw itself as the inherent natural leader. The political struggle for democracy was solved outside Finland, via international politics; the Russian Empire's failed 1904–1905 war against Japan led to the 1905 Revolution in Russia and to a general strike in Finland. In an attempt to quell the general unrest, the system of estates was abolished in the Parliamentary Reform of 1906. The general strike increased support for the social democrats substantially. As a proportion of the population, the party was the most powerful socialist movement in the world.

The Reform of 1906 was a giant leap in the political and social liberalization of the common Finnish people; the Russian House of Romanov was the most autocratic and conservative rulers in Europe. The Finns adopted a unicameral parliamentary system, the Parliament of Finland (Finnish: eduskunta) with universal suffrage. The number of voters increased from 126,000 to 1,273,000, including female citizens. The reform produced around 50 percent turnouts for the social democrats, but the Czar regained his authority after the crisis of 1905, and during the more severe programme of Russification, called "the Second Period of Oppression" by the Finns, neutralized the authority of Parliament between 1908 and 1917. He dissolved it and ordered parliamentary elections almost annually between 1908–1916, and determined the composition of the Finnish Senate, which did not correlate with the assembly of Parliament, prohibiting parliamentarism.

The capacity of Parliament to solve socio-economic problems was stymied by confrontations between the largely uneducated common man and the former estates. Another conflict festered as employers denied collective bargaining and the right of the labour unions to represent workers. The parliamentary process disappointed the labour movement, but dominance in Parliament and legislation was the workers' means to reach a more balanced society—they identified themselves to the state. Overall, domestic politics led to a contest for leadership of the Finnish state during the ten years before the collapse of the Russian Empire.

February Revolution

See also: February Revolution

Build-up

On strike in Helsinki. The local strikes of early 1917 escalated to a general strike as a part of the Finnish state's power struggle, and for foodstuff.

The Second Period of Russification was halted on 15 March 1917 by the February Revolution and the removal of Russian Czar Nicholas II. The immediate reason for the collapse of the Russian Empire was a crisis stemming from military defeats in the war against Imperial Germany and war-weariness among the Russians. The deeper causes laid in the collision between the most conservative and autocratic regime in Europe and the Russian people urging for socio-economic modernization. The Czar's authority was transferred to the State Duma (Russian parliament) and the right-wing Provisional Government, but it was challenged by the Petrograd Soviet (city council), leading to dual power in the country.

Autonomous status was returned to the Finns in March 1917, and the revolt in Russia handed de facto political control to Parliament of Finland for the first time. The political left, consisting mainly of social democrats, covered a wide spectrum from moderate to revolutionary socialists. The political right was even more diverse, ranging from social liberals and moderate conservatives to rightist conservative elements. The four main parties were:

• The conservative Finnish Party;
• the Young Finnish Party including both liberals and conservatives, the liberals divided to social liberals and economic liberals;
• the social reformist, centrist Agrarian League, which drew its support mainly from peasants with small or middle-sized farms; and
• the conservative Swedish People's Party, which sought to retain the rights of the former nobility and the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland.

The Finns faced a detrimental interaction of a power struggle and breakdown of society during 1917. The collapse of Russia induced a chain reaction of disintegration, starting from the government, military and economy, and spreading downwards to all fields of the society such as local administration and workplaces, and finally to the level of individual citizens as changes and questions of freedom, responsibility and morality. The social democrats wanted to retain the civil rights achieved and increase the socialists' power over the society. The conservatives feared to lose the long-held socio-economic might. Both factions, with groups aiming at major supremacy, collaborated with the corresponding political forces in Russia, deepening the split in the nation.

As a consequence of the labour movement's continuous emplacement in the political opposition, the Social Democratic Party gained an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections of 1916. A new Senate was formed in March 1917 by labour union leader Oskari Tokoi. The cabinet did not reflect the socialists' large parliamental majority; it comprised six social democrats and six non-socialists. In theory, the Senate consisted of a broad national coalition, but in practice, with the main political groups unwilling to compromise and top politicians remaining outside, the cabinet proved unable to solve any major Finnish problems. After the February Revolution, political authority dispersed to the street level; mass meetings, strike organizations and worker-soldier councils, and to active organizations of the employers, all serving to undermine the authority of the state.

The February Revolution halted the Finnish economic boom caused by the Russian war-economy. The collapse in business led to unemployment and high inflation, but the workers who had a job gained an opportunity to resolve long-term problems of their toilsome working life. The commoners call for eight-hour working day limits, better working conditions and higher wages led to demonstrations and large-scale strikes in industry and agriculture.

The food supply of the country depended on cereals produced in Southern Russia, while the Finns had specialized in milk and butter production. The cessation of cereal imports from disintegrating Russia led to food shortages in Finland. The Senate responded by introducing rationing and price controls. The farmers opposed state control; a black market with sharply rising food prices formed and export to the free market of the Petrograd area increased. Food supply, prices, and in the end, the fear of starvation became emotional political issues between farmers and urban workers, in particular the unemployed ones. The common people, their fears exploited by the politicians and the hard worded, polarized political media, took to the streets. Despite the food shortages, no large-scale starvation hit Southern Finland before the civil war and the food market remained a secondary stimulator in the power struggle of the Finnish state.

Contest for leadership

Prior to 1917, the Russian Army sustained Finland's stability. After the February Revolution, the soldiers became a source of social unrest.

The passing of the Tokoi Senate bill, called the "Law of Supreme Power" (Finnish: Laki Suomen korkeimman valtiovallan käyttämisestä), in July 1917 became one of the key crisis in the power struggle between the social democrats and the conservatives. The fall of the Russian Empire opened the question of who would hold sovereign political authority in the former Grand Duchy. Although the Finns accepted the liberating March 1917 manifesto of the Russian Provisional Government, they planned an expansion of the autonomy. After decades of political disappointments, the February Revolution offered the Finnish social democrats a momentum for major control; they held the absolute majority in Parliament. The conservatives were alarmed by the continuous increase of the socialists' influence since 1899, with the climax in 1917, without the offsetting control of Russian administration; the social democrats had to be halted before they were able to markedly alter the political structure.

The "Law of Supreme Power" incorporated the socialists' plan to substantially increase the authority of Parliament as a reaction to the non-parliamentary and conservative leadership of the Finnish Senate between 1906 and 1916. The bill furthered Finnish autonomy in domestic affairs; the Russian Provisional Government could merely control Finnish foreign and military policies. The Act was adopted with the support of the Social Democratic Party, the Agrarian League, part of the Young Finnish Party and some activists eager for Finnish sovereignty. The conservatives opposed the bill and some of the most right-wing representatives resigned from Parliament.

In Petrograd, the social democrats' plan had the backing of the Bolsheviks. They were plotting a revolt against the Provisional Government in July 1917, but the leadership had the support of the Russian army; Vladimir Lenin was thwarted during the July Days and he fled to Karelia. The "Law of Supreme Power" was overruled, more Russian troops were sent to Finland, and with the co-operation and demands of the Finnish conservatives Parliament was dissolved and new elections announced. In the October 1917 elections, the social democrats lost their absolute majority, which radicalized the labour movement and decreased support for moderate politics. The crisis of July 1917 did not bring about the Red Revolution in January 1918 on its own, but together with political development based on the commoners' interpretation of the ideas of Fennomania and socialism, the events were decisive for the goals of a Finnish revolution. In order to win power, the socialists had to overcome Parliament.

The collapse of Russia in the February Revolution resulted in a loss of institutional authority in Finland and the dissolution of the police force, creating fear and uncertainty. In response, both the right and left began assembling their own security groups, which were initially local and largely unarmed. By late 1917, following the dissolution of Parliament, in the absence of a politically strong government and national armed forces, the security groups began assuming a broader and paramilitary character. The Civil Guards (Finnish: suojeluskunnat, lit. protection corps) and the later White Guards (Finnish: valkokaartit) were organized by local men of influence, conservative academics, industrialists, major landowners and activists. The Workers' Order Guards (Finnish: työväen järjestyskaartit) and the Red Guards (Finnish: punakaartit) were recruited through the local party sections and the labour union.

October Revolution

See also: October Revolution

The Bolsheviks' and Vladimir Lenin's October Revolution of 7 November 1917 transferred political authority in Petrograd to the radical, left-wing socialists. The Germans' intrigue, based on idea the that Lenin was the most effective weapon they could launch against Russia, to finance the Bolsheviks and arrange safe conduct for Lenin and his comrades from exile in Switzerland to Petrograd in April 1917, was a success. An armistice between Germany and the Bolshevik regime came into force on 6 December and peace negotiations began on 22 December at Brest-Litovsk.

November 1917 became another watershed in the 1917–1918 rivalry for the leadership of Finland. After the dissolution of the Finnish Parliament, polarization between the social democrats and the conservatives increased dramatically, including political violence. An agricultural worker was shot during a local strike on 9 August at Ypäjä and a Civil Guard member was killed in the aftermath of a local political crisis at Malmi on 24 September. The informal truce between the Finnish non-socialists and the Russian Provisional Government was disrupted by the October Revolution. After political wrangling on how to react to the revolt, the majority of the politicians accepted a compromise proposal by Santeri Alkio, the leader of the Agrarian League. Parliament seized the sovereign power in Finland on 15 November based on the socialists' "Law of Supreme Power" and ratified their proposals from July 1917 of an eight-hour working day and universal suffrage in local elections.

Soldiers of the paramilitary White Guard in Nummi, a suburb of Turku

A purely non-socialist, conservative-led cabinet of Pehr Evind Svinhufvud was appointed on 27 November. The nomination was both a long-term aim of the conservatives and a response to the labour movements' actions during November 1917. Svinhufvud's main aspirations were to separate Finland from Russia, strengthen the Civil Guards and to return at least a part of Parliament's new authority to the Senate. There were 149 Civil Guards on 31 August 1917 in Finland, counting local units and subsidiary White Guards in towns and rural communes, 251 on 30 September, 315 on 31 October, 380 on 30 November, and 408 on 26 January 1918. The first attempt at serious military training among the Guards was the establishment of a 200-strong "cavalry school" at the Saksanniemi estate in the vicinity of the town of Porvoo, in September 1917. The vanguard of the Finnish Jägers and German weaponry arrived in Finland during October–November 1917 on the Equity freighter and the German U-boat UC-57; around 50 Jägers had returned by the end of 1917.

After political defeats in July and October 1917, the social democrats put forward an uncompromising program called "We Demand" (Finnish: Me vaadimme) on 1 November in order to push for political concessions; they demanded a return to the political status before the dissolution of Parliament in July 1917, disbandment of the Civil Guards and elections to establish a Finnish Constituent Assembly. The "We Demand" program failed and the socialists initiated a general strike during 14–19 November to increase political pressure, in particular on the conservatives, who had opposed the "Law of Supreme Power" and the parliamentary proclamation of sovereign power on 15 November.

Revolution became the goal of the radicalized socialists after the loss of political control, and events of November 1917 offered momentum for an uprising. At this phase, Lenin and Joseph Stalin, under threat in Petrograd, urged the social democrats to take power in Finland. The majority of Finnish socialists were moderate and preferred parliamentary methods, prompting Lenin to label them "reluctant revolutionaries." The reluctance diminished as the general strike appeared to offer a major channel of influence for the workers in southern Finland. The strike leadership voted by a narrow majority for revolution on 16 November, but the uprising had to be called off the same day due to the lack of active revolutionaries to execute it.

Troops of the paramilitary Red Guard pictured in 1918

The moderate socialists won a second vote over revolutionary versus parliamentary means at a special party meeting in the end of November 1917, but when they tried to pass a resolution to completely abandon the idea of a socialist revolution, the party representatives and several influential leaders voted it down. The Finnish labour movement wanted to sustain a military force of its own and keep the revolutionary road open too. The Finnish socialists' weak interest in revolutionary activity was a disappointment to Lenin and in turn, he began to encourage the Finnish Bolsheviks in Petrograd.

Among the labour movement, a more marked consequence of the events of 1917 was the rise of the Workers' Order Guards. There were approximately 20–60 separate guard units between 31 August and 30 September 1917, but on 20 October, after defeat in parliamentary elections, the Finnish labour movement proclaimed the need to establish more worker units. The announcement led to a rush of recruits; on 31 October the number of guards was 100–150, 342 on 30 November 1917, and 375 on 26 January 1918. Since May 1917, the paramilitary organization had grown in two instalments, majority of them as Workers' Order Guards. The minority were Red Guards, partly underground groups formed in industrialized towns and industrial centres, such as Helsinki, Kotka and Tampere, based on the original Red Guards built up during 1905–1906 in Finland.

The presence of the two opposing armed forces imposed a state of dual power and fractured sovereignty on Finnish society. The decisive rift between the guards broke out during the general strike; the Reds executed several political opponents in southern Finland, and the first armed clashes between the Whites and Reds broke out. In total, 34 casualties were reported. Eventually, the political rivalries of 1917 led to an arms race and an escalation towards civil war.

Independence of Finland

The disintegration of Russia offered Finns a historic opportunity to gain national independence, but after the October Revolution, the positions of the conservatives and the social democrats on sovereignty reversed. The conservatives were eager for secession from Russia in order to control the left and minimize the influence of the Bolsheviks. The socialists feared a loss of support among nationalistic workers, after promises of increasing liberty, due to the "Law of Supreme Power". Both political factions supported Finland's sovereignty, despite strong disagreement on the selection of leadership.

Nationalism had become a "civic religion" among Finns by the end of 19th century, but the goal during the general strike of 1905 was a return to the autonomy of 1809–1898, not independence. The domestic power of Finns had increased under the less uniform Russian rule—compared to the unitary Swedish regime. In economy, the Grand Duchy of Finland benefited from an independent domestic state budget, its own currency (the markka, since 1860) and customs organization, and the industrial progress during 1860–1916. In turn, the economy was dependent on the huge Russian market and a separation would break up the profitable Finnish financial zone. The economic collapse of Russia and the power struggle of the Finnish state were among the key factors that brought sovereignty to the fore in Finland.

The Bolshevik's recognition of Finnish independence. Some minutes before midnight on 31 December 1917, two men with opposite worldviews, P.E. Svinhufvud and Lenin shook hands.

P.E. Svinhufvud's Senate introduced Finland's Declaration of Independence on 4 December and Parliament adopted it on 6 December 1917. The social democrats voted against the Senate's proposal while presenting an alternative declaration for sovereignty. The establishment of an independent state was not a guaranteed conclusion for the small Finnish nation; recognition by Russia and other great powers was essential. Svinhufvud accepted that he had to negotiate with Lenin for the Russian recognition. The socialists, reluctant to talk with the Russian leadership in July 1917, sent two delegations to Petrograd to request Lenin to approve Finnish sovereignty.

In December 1917, V.I. Lenin was under intense pressure from the Germans to conclude peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, and the Bolsheviks' might was in crisis with an unexperienced administration and demoralized army, facing a gradually increasing number of powerful political and military opponents. Lenin calculated that the Bolsheviks could fight for central parts of Russia but had to give up some peripheral territories, including Finland in the geopolitically less important north-western corner. As a result, Svinhufvud's delegation won Lenin's concession of sovereignty on 31 December 1917. By the beginning of the Civil War, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland had recognized Finnish independence. The United Kingdom and United States did not approve it; they stood by and followed the relations between Finland and Germany, the main enemy of the Allies, and hoped to override Lenin's regime and to get Russia back into the war against the German Empire. In turn, the Germans hastened Finland's separation from Russia to move the country within their sphere of influence.

Warfare

General C.G.E. Mannerheim in 1918 with an armband showing the coat of arms of Finland.

Escalation

The final escalation towards war began in early January 1918 as each military or political action of the Reds or the Whites resulted in a corresponding counteraction by the opponent. Both sides justified their activities as defensive measures, particularly to their own supporters. On the left, the vanguard of the war was the urban Red Guards from Helsinki, Kotka and Turku; they led the rural Reds, and convinced the socialist leaders who wavered between peace and war to support revolution. On the right, the vanguard was the Jägers who had transferred to Finland, and the volunteer Civil Guards of southwestern Finland, southern Ostrobothnia and Vyborg province in the southeastern corner of Finland. The first local battles were fought during 9–21 January in southern and southeastern Finland, mainly to win the arms race and to control Vyborg (Finnish: Viipuri) town.

Drawing of Ali Aaltonen, the first commander-in-chief of the Reds

Parliament authorized the Svinhufvud Senate to establish internal order and discipline of the state on 12 January 1918. On 15 January, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a former Finnish general of the Imperial Russian Army, was appointed commander-in-chief of the Civil Guards. He placed the headquarters in the Vaasa–Seinäjoki area. The Senate appointed the Civil Guards, called the White Guards henceforth, as the White Army of Finland. The White Order to engage was issued on 25 January. The Whites gained weaponry by disarming Russian garrisons during 21–28 January, in particular in southern Ostrobothnia.

The Red Guards, led by Ali Aaltonen, refused to recognise the Whites' hegemony and established a military authority of their own. Aaltonen installed the headquarters in Helsinki and nicknamed it as Smolna according to the Bolsheviks' headquarters in Petrograd. The Red Order of Revolution was issued on 26 January, and a red lantern, a symbolic indicator of the uprising, was lit in the tower of the Helsinki Workers' House. The large-scale mobilization of the Reds began in the late evening of 27 January with the Helsinki Red Guard and some of the Guards located along the Vyborg-Tampere railway having activated between 23–26 January, in order to safeguard vital positions and escort a heavy railroad shipment of Bolshevik weapons from Petrograd to Finland. White troops tried to capture the shipment; 20–30 Finns, Red and White, died in the Battle of Kämärä at the Karelian Isthmus on 27 January 1918. The Finnish contest for power had reached its peak and the disintegration of society began.

Opposing forces

Finland divided into Red and White

The frontlines and initial offensives at the beginning of the war in February.

  Areas controlled by the Whites

  Areas controlled by the Reds

  Railroad network

At the beginning of the war, a discontinuous front line ran through southern Finland from west to east, dividing the country into White Finland and Red Finland. The Red Guards controlled the area to the south, including nearly all the major towns and industrial centres, and the largest estates and farms with high numbers of crofters and tenant farmers. The White Army controlled the area to the north, which was predominantly agrarian with small or medium-sized farms and tenant farmers, and where crofters were few or held a better social position than in the south. Enclaves of the opposing forces existed on both sides of the front line: within the White area lay the industrial towns of Varkaus, Kuopio, Oulu, Raahe, Kemi and Tornio; within the Red area lay Porvoo, Kirkkonummi and Uusikaupunki. The elimination of these strongholds was a priority for both armies in February 1918.

Red Finland was led by the People's Delegation (Finnish: kansanvaltuuskunta), established on 28 January in Helsinki. The delegation sought democratic socialism based on the Finnish Social Democratic Party's ethos; their visions differed from Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat. Red politician Otto Ville Kuusinen formulated a proposal for a new constitution, influenced by those of Switzerland and the United States. With it, political power was to be concentrated to Parliament, with a lesser role for a government. The proposal included a multi-party system, freedom of assembly, speech and press, and the use of referenda in political decision-making. In order to ensure the authority of the labour movement, the common people would have a right to permanent revolution. The socialists planned to transfer a substantial part of property rights to state and local administrations.

In foreign policy, Red Finland leaned on Bolshevist Russia. A Red-initiated Finno–Russian treaty and peace agreement was signed on 1 March 1918, where Red Finland was called the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (Finnish: Suomen sosialistinen työväentasavalta). The negotiations for the treaty implied that, as in World War I in general, nationalism was more important for both sides than the principles of international socialism. The Red Finns did not accept an alliance with the Bolsheviks and major disputes appeared, for example, over demarcation of the border between Red Finland and Soviet Russia. The significance of the Russo–Finnish Treaty evaporated soon due to the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between the Bolsheviks and the German Empire on 3 March 1918. Vladimir Lenin's policy on the right of nations to self-determination aimed at preventing the disintegration of Russia during the period of military weakness. He assumed that in war-torn, splintering Europe, the proletariat of free nations would carry out socialist revolutions and unite with Soviet Russia later. The majority of the Finnish labour movement supported Finland's independence. The Finnish Bolsheviks, influential though few in number, favoured annexation of Finland by Russia.

The government of White Finland, Pehr Evind Svinhufvud's first senate, was called the Vaasa Senate after relocation to the safer west-coast city of Vaasa, acting as the capital of the Whites from 29 January to 3 May. In domestic policy, the White Senate's main goal was to return the political right to power in Finland. The conservatives planned a monarchist political system, with a lesser role for Parliament. A section of the conservatives had always supported monarchy and opposed democracy; others approved parliamentarianism since the revolutionary reform of 1906, but after the crisis of 1917-1918 concluded, that empowering the common people would not work. Social liberals and reformist non-socialists opposed any restriction of parliamentarianism. They initially resisted German military help, but the prolonged warfare changed their stance.

In foreign policy, the Vaasa Senate relied on the German Empire for military and political aid. Their objective was to defeat the Finnish Red Guards, end the influence of Bolshevist Russia in Finland, and expand Finnish territory to East Karelia, a geopolitically significant home to people speaking Finno-Ugric languages. The weakness of Russia induced an idea of Greater Finland among the expansive factions of both the right and left; the Reds had claims concerning the same areas. General Mannerheim agreed on the need to take over East Karelia and to request German weapons, but opposed actual German intervention in Finland. Mannerheim recognized the Red Guards' lack of combat skills, and trusted the skills of the German-trained Finnish Jägers. As a former Russian army officer, Mannerheim was well aware of the demoralization of the Russian army. He co-operated with White-aligned Russian officers in Finland and Russia.

The main offensives until 6 April. The Whites conquer Tampere and defeat the Finnish-Russian Reds at the battle of Rautu, the Karelian Isthmus.

  Areas controlled by the Whites

  Areas controlled by the Reds

  Railroad network

Forces and weapons

A Russian armoured train, Partizan, which assisted the Red war effort in the Vyborg area

The number of Finnish troops on each side varied from 70,000 to 90,000 and both had around 100,000 rifles, 300–400 machine guns and a few hundred cannons. While the Red Guards consisted mostly of volunteers, with wages paid at the beginning of the war, the White Army consisted predominantly of conscripts with 11,000–15,000 volunteers. The main motives for volunteering were socio-economic factors, such as salary and food, as well as idealism and peer pressure. The Red Guards included 2,600 female troops, mostly girls recruited from the industrial centres and cities of southern Finland. Urban and agricultural workers constituted the majority of the Red Guards, whereas land-owning farmers and well-educated people formed the backbone of the White Army. Both armies used child soldiers, mainly between 14 and 17 years of age. The use of juvenile soldiers was not rare in World War I; children of the time were under the absolute authority of adults and generally were not shielded against exploitation.

Rifles and machine guns from Imperial Russia were the main armament of the Reds and the Whites. The most used rifle was the Russian 7.62 mm (0.3 in) Mosin–Nagant Model 1891. In total, around ten different rifle models were in service, causing problems for ammunition supply. The Maxim gun was the most used machine gun in addition to the lesser used M1895 Colt–Browning, Lewis and Madsen guns. The machine guns caused a substantial part of the casualties in combats. Russian field guns were mostly used with direct fire.

The Civil War was fought primarily along railways; vital means for transporting troops and supplies as well for using armoured trains, armed with light cannons and heavy machine guns. The strategically most important railway junction was Haapamäki, approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) northeast of Tampere, connecting both western-eastern and southern-northern Finland. Other critical junctions included Kouvola, Riihimäki, Tampere, Toijala and Vyborg. The Whites captured Haapamäki at the end of January 1918, leading to the Battle of Vilppula.

The German intervention by landings on the Gulf of Finland, grey arrows, and the final offensives by the Whites.

  Areas controlled by the Whites

  Areas controlled by the Reds

  Railroad network

Red Guards and the Russian troops

The Finnish Red Guards seized the early initiative in the war by taking control of Helsinki on 28 January and with a general offensive lasting from February till early March 1918. The Reds were relatively well armed, but a chronic shortage of skilled leaders, both at command level and in the field, left them unable to capitalize on their initial momentum, and most of the offensives came to nothing. The military chain of command functioned relatively well at company and platoon level, but leadership and authority remained weak as most of the field commanders were chosen by the vote of the troopers. The common troopers were more or less armed civilians, whose military training, discipline and combat morale were both inadequate and low.

Ali Aaltonen was replaced on 28 January 1918 by Eero Haapalainen as commander-in-chief. He, in turn, was displaced by the Bolshevik triumvirate of Eino Rahja, Adolf Taimi and Evert Eloranta on 20 March. The last commander-in-chief of the Red Guard was Kullervo Manner from 10 April onwards—until the last period of the war when the Reds no longer had a named leader. Some talented, local commanders, such as Hugo Salmela in the Battle of Tampere, could perform qualified leadership, but not change the course of the war. The Reds achieved some local victories as they retreated from southern Finland toward Russia, such as against German troops in the Battle of Syrjäntaka on 28–29 April in Tuulos.

Red officers on their horses in 1918

Around 60,000 of the former Czar's army troopers were stationed in Finland in January 1918. The soldiers were demoralized and war-weary, and the former serfs were thirsty for farmland set free by the revolutions. The majority of the troops returned to Russia by the end of March 1918. In total, 7,000 to 10,000 Red Russian soldiers supported the Finnish Reds, but around 3,000, in separate smaller units of 100–1,000 soldiers, could be persuaded to fight in the front line.

The revolutions in Russia divided the Russian army officers politically and their attitude towards the Finnish Civil War varied. Mikhail Svechnikov led Finnish Red troops in western Finland in February and Konstantin Yeremejev Russian forces on the Karelian Isthmus, while other officers were mistrustful of their revolutionary peers and instead, co-operated with their former colleague, General Mannerheim, assisting the Whites in disarming Russian garrisons in Finland. On 30 January 1918 Mannerheim proclaimed to Russian soldiers in Finland that the White Army did not fight against Russia, but that the objective of the White campaign was to beat the Finnish Reds and the Russian troops supporting them. The number of Russian soldiers active in the Civil War declined markedly once Germany attacked Russia on 18 February 1918. The German-Russian Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 3 March restricted the Bolsheviks' support for the Finnish Reds to weapons and supplies only. The Russians remained active on the south-eastern front, mainly in the Battle of Rautu on the Karelian Isthmus between February and April 1918, and defended the approaches to Petrograd.

White Guards and Sweden's role

Finnish Jägers in Vaasa, Finland, on 25 February 1918. The battalion is being inspected by White Commander-in-Chief C.G.E. Mannerheim.

While the conflict has been called by some "The War of Amateurs", the White Army had two major advantages over the Red Guards: the professional military leadership of General Mannerheim and his staff, which included 84 Swedish volunteer officers and former Finnish officers of the Czar's army, and 1,450 soldiers of the 1,900-strong, elite Jäger battalion. The Jägers were trained in Germany during 1915–1917 and battle-hardened on the Eastern Front. The main part of the unit arrived in Vaasa on 25 February 1918. On the battlefield, the Jägers provided strong leadership that made disciplined action by the common White soldiers possible. The White troopers were similar to those of the Red Guards with brief and inadequate training. At the beginning of the war, the leadership of the White Guards had little authority over volunteer White Guard platoons and companies, which obeyed only their dominant, local leaders. In the end of February, the Jägers started rapid training of six conscript regiments.

Even the Jäger battalion was divided similarly to the rest of the country was: 450 mostly socialist Jägers remained stationed in Germany as they could have chosen the Red side in the conflict. White Guard leaders faced a similar problem with drafting young men to the army in February 1918: 30,000 obvious supporters of the Finnish labour movement never showed up. It was also uncertain whether common troopers drafted from the small-sized and poor farms of central and northern Finland had strong enough motivation to fight the Finnish Reds; the Whites' propaganda promoted a nationalist war against Bolshevist Russians, and belittled the significance of the Red Finns. Social divisions appeared both between southern and northern Finland and within rural Finland. The economy and society of the north had modernized more slowly than that of the south. There was a more pronounced conflict between Christianity and socialism in the north, and farmland had a major social status; ownership of even a small parcel of land instilled a motivation to fight against the Reds.

Sweden declared neutrality during World War I and the Finnish Civil War. The general opinion, in particular among the Swedish elite, was divided between supporters of the Allies and the Central powers, Germanism being somewhat more popular. Three war-time priorities determined the pragmatic policy of the Swedish liberal-social democratic government: sound economics, via export of iron-ore and foodstuff to Germany, sustaining tranquility of the Swedish society, and geopolitics. The government accepted participation of Swedish volunteer officers and soldiers in the Finnish White Army in order to block expansion of revolutionary unrest to Scandinavia.

A 1,000-strong paramilitary Swedish Brigade, led by Hjalmar Frisell, took part in the battles of Tampere and in the area south of the town. In February 1918, the Swedish Navy escorted the German naval squadron transporting Finnish Jägers and German weapons, and allowed it to pass through Swedish territorial waters. The Swedish socialists did not aid the Finnish Reds but tried to open peace negotiations between the Whites and the Reds. The weakness of Finland gave Sweden a chance to take-over the geopolitically vital Finnish Åland Islands, located east of Stockholm, but the German army's Finland-operation stalled the plan.

German intervention

German sodliers with an MG 08 machine gun in Helsinki and the flag of the Red Guard headquarters, Smolna, on the ground

The German Empire intervened in the Finnish Civil War on the side of the White Army in March 1918. The Finnish activists leaning on Germanism had been seeking German aid in freeing Finland from Russian hegemony since late 1917, but the Germans did not want to jeopardize their armistice and peace negotiations with Russia because of the pressure they were facing at the Western Front. The German stance changed after 10 February when Leon Trotsky, despite the weakness of the Bolsheviks' position, broke off negotiations, hoping revolutions would break out in the German Empire and change everything. The German government promptly decided to retaliate, and as a pretext for aggression, invited "requests for help" from the smaller countries west of Russia. Representatives of White Finland in Berlin duly requested help on 14 February; on 13 February, the German leadership made the decision to send troops to Finland.

The Imperial German Army attacked Russia on 18 February. The offensive led to a rapid collapse and retreat of the Russian troops and to the signing of the first Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the Bolsheviks on 3 March 1918. Finland, the Baltic countries, Poland and Ukraine were transferred to the German sphere of influence. The Finnish Civil War opened a straight access with low costs to Fennoscandia, where the geopolitical status was altered as a British Naval squadron invaded the Russian harbour of Murmansk by the Arctic Ocean on 9 March 1918. Leader of the German war effort, General Erich Ludendorff, wanted both to keep Petrograd under threat through the Vyborg-Narva area and install a German-led monarchy in Finland.

On 5 March, a German naval squadron landed on the Åland Islands, which the Swedish military expedition took over in mid-February and departed from in May. On 3 April 1918, the 10,000-strong Baltic Sea Division (German: Ostsee-Division), led by General Rüdiger von der Goltz, launched the main attack at Hanko, west of Helsinki. It was followed on 7 April by Colonel Otto von Brandenstein's 3,000-strong Detachment Brandenstein (German: Abteilung-Brandenstein) taking the town of Loviisa east of Helsinki. The main German formations advanced rapidly eastwards from Hanko and took Helsinki on 12–13 April, while Detachment Brandenstein overran the town of Lahti on 19 April. The main German detachment advanced northwards from Helsinki and took Hyvinkää and Riihimäki on 21–22 April, followed by Hämeenlinna on 26 April. The efficient performance of the German units contrasted strikingly with that of the demoralized Russian troops. The final blow to the cause of the Finnish Reds was dealt when the Bolsheviks broke off the peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, leading to the German eastern offensive in February 1918.

Decisive engagements

Battle of Tampere

Main article: Battle of Tampere

Unburied bodies at Kalevankangas cemetery after the Battle of Tampere

In February 1918, General Mannerheim weighed on where to focus the general offensive of the Whites between the two strategically vital enemy strongholds: Tampere, Finland's major industrial town in the south-west or Vyborg, Karelia's main city. Although seizing Vyborg offered major advantages, his army's lack of combat skills and the potential for a major counterattack by the Reds in the area or in the south-west made it too risky.

Mannerheim decided to strike first at Tampere. He launched the main assault on 16 March, at Längelmäki 65 km (40 mi) north-east of the town, through the right flank of the Reds' defense. At the same time, the Whites attacked through north-western frontline Vilppula–Kuru–Kyröskoski–Suodenniemi. Some Red Guard units collapsed and retreated in panic under the weight of the offensive, while some detachments defended their posts relentlessly, and were able to slow the advance of the White troops, which were unaccustomed to offensive warfare. Eventually, the Whites lay siege to Tampere. They cut off the Reds southward connection in Lempäälä on 24 March and westward in Siuro, Nokia, and Ylöjärvi on 25 March.

The Battle for Tampere was fought between 16,000 White and 14,000 Red soldiers. It was Finland's first large-scale urban battle and, along with the battles of Helsinki, Vyborg and Lahti, one of the four most decisive military engagements of the war. The fight for the area of Tampere began on 28 March, on the eve of Easter 1918, later called the "Bloody Maundy Thursday", in the Kalevankangas cemetery. The White Army did not achieve a decisive victory in the fierce combat, with more than 50 percent losses in some of the White units. The Whites had to re-organize their troops and battle plans, and they raided the town centre in the early hours of 3 April.

After a heavy, concentrated artillery barrage, the White Guards began advancing from house to house and street to street, as the Red Guards retreated. In the late evening of 3 April, the Whites reached the eastern banks of the Tammerkoski rapids. The Reds' attempts to break the siege of Tampere from outside, along the Helsinki-Tampere railway, failed. The Red Guards lost the western parts of the town between 4 and 5 April. The Tampere City Hall was among the last strongholds of the Reds. The battle ended 6 April 1918 with the surrender of Red forces in the Pyynikki and Pispala sections of Tampere.

The Reds, now on the defensive, showed increased motivation to fight during the battle. General Mannerheim was compelled to deploy some of the best trained Jäger detachments, initially meant to be conserved for later use in the Vyborg area. The Battle of Tampere was the bloodiest action of the Civil War. The White Army lost 700–900 men, including 50 Jägers, the highest number of deaths the Jäger battalion suffered in a single battle of the 1918 war. The Red Guards lost 1,000–1,500 soldiers, with a further 11,000–12,000 captured. 71 civilians died, mainly due to artillery fire. The eastern parts of the city, consisting mostly of wooden buildings, were destroyed completely.

Battle of Helsinki

Main article: Battle of Helsinki

After peace talks between Germans and the Finnish Reds were broken off on 11 April, the battle for the capital of Finland began. At 5 a.m. on 12 April, around 2,000–3,000 German Baltic Sea Division soldiers, led by colonel Hans von Tschirsky und von Bögendorff, attacked the city from the north-west, supported via the Helsinki-Turku railway. The Germans broke through the area between Munkkiniemi and Pasila, and advanced on the central-western parts of the town. The German naval squadron led by Vice Admiral Hugo Meurer blocked the city harbour, bombarded the southern town area, and landed Seebataillon marines at Katajanokka.

Around 7,000 Finnish Reds defended Helsinki, but their best troops fought on other fronts of the war. The main strongholds of the Red defence were the Workers' Hall, the Helsinki railway station, the Red Headquarters at Smolna, the Senate Palace–Helsinki University area, and the former Russian garrisons. By the late evening of 12 April, most of the southern parts and all of the western area of the city had been occupied by the Germans. Local Helsinki White Guards, hidden in the city during the war, joined the battle as the Germans advanced through the town.

On 13 April, German troops took over the Market Square, the Smolna, the Presidential Palace, and the Senate-Ritarihuone area. Toward the end, a German brigade with 2,000–3,000 soldiers, led by colonel Kondrad Wolf joined the battle. The unit rushed from north to the eastern parts of Helsinki, pushing into the working-class neighborhoods of Hermanni, Kallio and Sörnäinen. German artillery bombarded and destroyed the Workers' Hall, and put out the red lantern of the Finnish revolution. The eastern parts of the town surrendered around 2 p.m. on 13 April and a white flag was raised in the tower of the Kallio Church, but sporadic fighting lasted until the evening. In total, 60 Germans, 300–400 Reds and 23 White Guard troopers were killed in the battle. Around 7,000 Reds were captured. The German army celebrated the victory with a military parade in the center of Helsinki on 14 April 1918.

Battle of Lahti

Main article: Battle of Lahti

Detachment Brandenstein took over the town of Lahti on 19 April. The German troops advanced from east-southeast; via Nastola, through Mustankallio graveyard in Salpausselkä and the Russian garrisons at Hennala. The battle was mild, but strategically important as it cut the connection between the western and eastern Red Guards. Local engagements broke out in the town and the surrounding area between 22 April and 2 May 1918 as several thousand western Red Guards and Red civilian refugees tried to push through Lahti on their way to Russia. The German troops were able to hold major parts of Lahti and halt the Red advance. Around 600 Reds and 80 German soldiers perished in the Lahti battle. In total, 30,000 Reds were captured in and around the town.

Battle of Vyborg

Main article: Battle of Vyborg

After the defeat in Tampere, the Red Guards began a slow retreat eastwards. As the German army seized Helsinki, the White Army shifted the military focus to Vyborg; 18,500 Whites raided against 15,000 defending Red troopers. General Mannerheim's Vyborg plan was affected by the Battle for Tampere, the civilian industrial town. He aimed to avoid new bloody city combat in Vyborg, an old military fortress. The Jäger detachments tried to bind and destroy the Red force outside Vyborg, and conquer the lamed town area in a mild battle. The Whites were able to cut the Reds' connection to Petrograd and weaken the troops on the Karelian Isthmus on 20–26 April, but the decisive blow remained to be dealt in Vyborg. The final attack began on late 27 April with a heavy, concentrated Jäger artillery barrage. The Reds' defence collapsed gradually, and eventually the Whites conquered Patterinmäki—the symbolic last stand of the Reds—in the early hours of 29 April 1918. In total, 400 Whites and 500–600 Reds died and 12,000–15,000 were captured.

Red and White terror

A White firing squad executing Red soldiers in Länkipohja, Längelmäki, during the war

The Whites and the Reds carried out political violence, called White terror (Finnish: valkoinen terrori) and Red terror (Finnish: punainen terrori), through executions. The threshold for political violence was crossed by the Finnish activists during the First Period of Russification. Large-scale terror operations were born and bred in Europe during World War I, the first total war. The February and October Revolutions initiated similar violence in Finland; at first by Russian army troopers executing their officers, later between the Finnish Reds and Whites.

There were two kinds of political violence conducted by Red and White: a calculated part of general warfare, and local, personal murders and corresponding acts of revenge. In the former, the commanding staff planned and organized the action and gave orders to the lower level; at least a third of the Red terror and most of the White terror was centrally led. Red and White governments officially opposed political violence, but the operational decisions were made at the military level.

The main goals of the terror were to destroy the command structure of the enemy, clear and secure the areas governed and occupied by armies, and create shock and fear among the civil population and the enemy soldiers. Likewise, the common troopers' paramilitary nature and lack of combat skills drove to use political violence as a military weapon. The terror achieved some of its set objectives, but also gave additional motivation to fight against an enemy perceived to be inhuman and cruel. Red and White propaganda used the opponent's actions effectively, increasing the spiral of revenge. Most of the terror was undertaken by cavalry units consisting of 10 to 80 soldiers aged 15 to 20 under the absolute authority of an experienced adult leader. The detachments were specialiced in search and destroy operations and death squad tactics.

White victims of Red terror at Vyborg county jail in 1918

The Red Guards executed Whites with socio-economic power, including politicians, major landowners, industrialists, police officers, civil servants, teachers as well as leaders and members of the White Guards. Ten priests of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and 90 moderate socialists were killed. The amount of executions varied over the war months; the numbers peaked in February during the period of securing power, but March saw low counts because the Reds could not seize new areas outside the original frontlines. The numbers rose again in April as the Reds aimed to leave Finland. The two major terror centres were Toijala and Kouvola, where 300–350 Whites were executed between February and April 1918.

The White Guards executed Red Guard and party leaders, common Red troopers, socialist members of the Finnish Parliament and local Red administration, and those active in Red terror. The amount varied over the months as the Whites conquered southern Finland. Comprehensive White terror started with the general offensive of the Whites in March 1918, increasing constantly and culminating at the end of the war, but ceased soon after the enemy troops had been transferred to prison camps. During the peak of the executions, between the end of April and the beginning of May, 200 Reds were shot per day. White terror was decisive against Russian soldiers who assisted the Finnish Reds, and several Russian non-socialist civilians were killed in the Vyborg massacre, the aftermath of the Battle of Vyborg.

In total, 1,650 Whites died in Red terror, while around 10,000 Reds perished in White terror, which eventually turned into political cleansing. White victims have been recorded exactly, while the number of Red troopers executed immediately after battles remains unclear. Together with the prison camp treatment of the Reds during 1918, the executions inflicted the deepest scars in the Finnish population, regardless of their political allegiance. Some of those, who carried out the killings were seriously traumatized, a phenomenon that was later to become well-documented.

End

After the defeat in Tampere and the German army intervention, the People's Delegation retreated from Helsinki to Vyborg on 8 April. The loss of Helsinki pushed them to Petrograd on 25 April 1918. The escape of the Red leadership imbittered Red troopers and thousands of them, without true leadership, tried to flee to Russia, but most of the refugees were encircled by the White and the German troops. The Reds in the Lahti area surrendered on 1–2 May . The long caravans of the fleeing Reds included women and children, who experienced a desperate, chaotic escape with several human losses due to the attacks of the enemy. The scene was described as a "road of tears" for the Reds, but for the Whites, the long enemy caravans heading east was a victorious moment. The Red Guards' last strongholds fell by 5 May between the Kouvola and Kotka area, after the Battle of Ahvenkoski. The war of 1918 ended on 15 May, when the Whites took over Fort Ino, a Russian coastal artillery base on the Karelian Isthmus, from the Russian troops. White Finland and General Mannerheim celebrated the victory with a large military parade in Helsinki on 16 May 1918.

The Red Guards had been defeated. The initially pacifist Finnish labour movement had lost the Civil War, several military leaders committed suicide, and a majority of the Reds were sent to prison camps. The Vaasa Senate returned to Helsinki on 4 May 1918, but the capital was under the control of the German army. White Finland had become a protectorate of the German Empire. General Rüdiger von der Goltz was called "the true Regent of Finland." No armistice or peace negotiations were carried out between the Whites and Reds, and an official peace treaty to end the Finnish Civil War was never signed.

Aftermath

Prison camps

Main article: Finnish Civil War prison camps

A prison camp in Suomenlinna, Helsinki. Around 12,500 Red prisoners of war died in such camps due to malnutrition and disease.

The White Army and German troops captured around 80,000 Red prisoners of war (POWs), including 5,000 women, 1,500 children and 8,000 Russians. The largest prison camps were Suomenlinna, an island facing Helsinki, Hämeenlinna, Lahti, Riihimäki, Tammisaari, Tampere and Vyborg. The Senate decided to keep the POWs detained until each person's guilt or innocence could be investigated; a law for a Treason Court (Finnish: valtiorikosoikeus) was enacted on 29 May 1918. The judicature of the 145 inferior courts led by the Supreme Treason Court (Finnish: valtiorikosylioikeus) did not meet the standards of impartiality, due to the condemning atmosphere of White Finland. In total 76,000 cases were examined and 68,000 Reds were convicted, primarily for complicity to treason; 39,000 were released on parole while the mean punishment for the rest was 2–4 years in penitentiary. 555 people were sentenced to death, of which 113 were executed. The trials revealed that some innocent adults had been imprisoned.

Combined with the severe food shortage, the mass imprisonment led to high mortality rates in the POW camps, and the catastrophe was compounded by a mentality of punishment, anger and indifference on the part of the victors. Many prisoners felt that they were abandoned by their own leaders, who had fled to Russia. The physical and mental condition of the POWs declined rapidly in May as food supply had disrupted during the Red Guards' chaotic retreat in April, and a high number of the prisoners had been sent to the less organized camps in Tampere and Helsinki during the first half of April. As a consequence, in June, 2,900 starved to death or died as a result of diseases caused by malnutrition and the Spanish flu, 5,000 in July, 2,200 in August, and 1,000 in September. The mortality rate was highest in the Tammisaari camp at 34 percent, while the rate varied between 5 percent and 20 percent in the others. In total, around 12,500 Finns perished (3,000–4,000 due to the Spanish flu) while detained. The dead were buried in mass graves near the camps. In addition, 700 rundown POWs died soon after release from the camps.

The majority of the POWs were paroled or pardoned by the end of 1918 after a shift in the political situation. There were 6,100 Red prisoners left at the end of the year and 4,000 at the end of 1919. In January 1920, 3,000 POWs were pardoned and civil rights were returned to 40,000 former Reds. In 1927, the Social Democratic Party government led by Väinö Tanner pardoned the last 50 prisoners. The Finnish government paid reparations to 11,600 POWs in 1973. The traumatic hardships of the prison camps have been described as one of the decisive reasons for the long-term and relatively high support of communism in Finland found in the civil war generation of the left.

War-torn nation

The Civil War was a catastrophe for Finland; around 36,000 people, 1.2 percent of the nation's total population, perished. The war left about 15,000 children orphaned. Most of the casualties occurred outside the battlefields; in the prison camps and the terror campaigns. Many Reds fled to Russia at the end of the war and during the period that followed. The traumatic war deepened the divisions within Finnish society, many moderate-neutral Finns identifying themselves as "citizens of two nations." The war of 1918 led to disintegration within both socialist and non-socialist factions. The shift of political power toward the right caused a dispute between conservatives and liberals on the best system of government for Finland to adopt: the former demanded monarchy and restricted parliamentarianism, the latter demanded a Finnish republic with full-scale democracy and social reforms. Both sides justified their views via political and legal grounds.

The monarchists leaned on the Swedish regime's monarchist constitution from 1772, belittled the Declaration of Independence of 1917, and proposed a modernized monarchist constitution for Finland. The republicans argued that the 1772 law, accepted by Russia in 1809, lost validity in the February Revolution and that the authority of the Russian Czar was assumed by the Finnish Parliament on 15 November 1917 and finally, the Republic of Finland was adopted on 6 December. The republicans were able to postpone processing of the monarchists' proposal in Parliament, and in the end a new monarchist constitution was not accepted in Finland. The monarchists responded by applying the 1772 law directly to select a new monarch for the country.

The 1918 conflict led to the breakup of the Finnish labour movement into three parts: moderate social democrats and left-wing socialists in Finland, and communists in Soviet Russia supported by the Bolsheviks. The Social Democratic Party had the first official party meeting after the Civil War on 25 December 1918, wherein the party proclaimed commitment to parliamentary means and disclaimed Bolshevism and communism. The leaders of Red Finland, who had fled to Russia, established the Communist Party of Finland in Moscow on 29 August 1918. After the power struggle of 1917 and the bloody civil war, the former Fennomans and social democrats, who had supported "ultra-democratic" means in Red Finland, declared to have committed to revolutionary Bolshevism–communism and to the dictatorship of the proletariat under the control of Vladimir Lenin.

The Rump Parliament of Finland, Helsinki 1918. German army officers stand in the left corner. Social Democrat Matti Paasivuori is on the right, representing Finnish socialists alone.

A conservative-monarchist Senate was formed by J.K. Paasikivi in May 1918. The Finnish Parliament was called a Rump Parliament, including merely three socialist representatives. In May 1918, the Senate asked the German troops to remain in Finland, but the 3 March Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the 7 March 1918 German-Finnish agreements bound White Finland to the German Empire's sphere of power. General Mannerheim resigned his post on 25 May after disagreements with the Senate about German hegemony over Finland, and about his planned attack on Petrograd to repulse the Bolsheviks and capture Russian Karelia. The Germans opposed the attacks due to their peace treaties with Lenin and other German interests.

On 9 October 1918, under pressure by Germany, the Senate and Parliament elected a German prince, Friedrich Karl, brother-in-law of German Emperor William II, to become the King of Finland, diminishing Finnish sovereignty. Eventually, General Rüdiger von der Goltz was able to utilize the breakdown of Russia for the geopolitical benefit of the German Empire in Fennoscandia also.

The economic condition of the country had deteriorated so drastically that recovery to pre-conflict levels was not achieved until 1925. The most acute crisis was food supply, already deficient in 1917, though starvation had been avoided in southern Finland; the Civil War led to starvation in southern Finland as well. Late in 1918, Finnish politician Rudolf Holsti appealed for relief to Herbert Hoover, the American chairman of the Committee for Relief in Belgium. Hoover arranged for food shipments and persuaded the Allies to relax their blockade of the Baltic Sea, which had obstructed food supplies to Finland, and allow food in.

Compromise

As the fate of Finns was decided outside Finland in Petrograd on 15 March 1917, it was decided similarly again on 11 November 1918 in Berlin after Germany surrendered in World War I. The German Empire collapsed in the German Revolution of 1918-19, caused by lack of food, war-weariness and defeat in the battles of the Western Front. General Rüdiger von der Goltz and his division left Helsinki on 16 December, and Prince Friedrich Karl, who had not yet been crowned, left his post on 20 December. Finland's status shifted from a monarchist protectorate of the German Empire to an independent democratic republic with a modernizing civil society. The system of government was confirmed within the Constitution Act (Finnish: Suomen hallitusmuoto) on 17 July 1919.

The first local elections based on universal suffrage in Finland were held during 17–28 December 1918, and the first free parliamentary election after the Civil War on 3 March 1919. The United States and the United Kingdom recognised Finnish sovereignty on 6–7 May 1919. The Western powers demanded establishment of democratic republics in post-war Europe to calm down the widespread revolutionary movements. The Finno–Russian Treaty of Tartu was signed on 14 October 1920. aiming to stabilize the political relations and settle the border line between the former Grand Duchy and its Empire.

The Whites' Civil War memorial in Kamennogorsk, Russia

In April 1918, the leading Finnish social liberal and the eventual first President of Finland, Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg wrote: "It is urgent to get the life and development in this country back on the path that we had already reached in 1906 and which the turmoil of war turned us away from." Moderate social democrat Väinö Voionmaa agonised in 1919: "Those who still trust in the future of this nation must have an exceptionally strong faith. This young independent country has lost almost everything due to the war." Voionmaa was a vital companion for the leader of the reformed Social Democratic Party, Väinö Tanner.

The chief ideologue of the Agrarian League, Santeri Alkio supported moderate politics. His party colleague, Kyösti Kallio urged in his address on 5 May 1918: "We must rebuild a Finnish nation, which is not divided into the Reds and Whites. We have to establish a democratic Finnish republic, where all the Finns can feel that we are true citizens and members of this society." In the end, many of the moderate Finnish conservatives followed the thinking of National Coalition Party member Lauri Ingman, who wrote in early 1918: "A political turn more to the right will not help us now, instead it would strengthen the support of socialism in this country."

Together with the other broad-minded Finns, the new partnership constructed a Finnish compromise which eventually delivered stable and broad parliamentary democracy. The compromise was based both on the defeat of the Reds in the 1918 war and the fact that most of the Whites' political goals had not been achieved. After foreign forces left Finland, the militant factions of the Reds and the Whites lost their backup, while the pre-1918 cultural and national integrity and the legacy of Fennomania stood out among the Finns.

The weakness of both Germany and Russia after World War I empowered Finland and made a peaceful, domestic Finnish social and political settlement possible. The reconciliation led to a slow and painful, but steady, national unification. In the end, the power vacuum and interregnum of 1917–1919 gave way to the Finnish compromise. From 1919 to 1991, the democracy and sovereignty of the Finns withstood challenges from right-wing and left-wing political radicalism, the crisis of World War II and pressure from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

In popular culture

A Grave for Red soldiers and civilians in North Haaga, Helsinki

Between 1918 and the 1950s, mainstream literature and poetry presented the 1918 war from White victors' point of view of the, such as the "Psalm of the Cannons" (Finnish: Tykkien virsi) by Arvi Järventaus in 1918. In poetry, Bertel Gripenberg, who had volunteered for the White Army, celebrated its cause in "The Great Age" (Swedish: Den stora tiden) in 1928 and V.A. Koskenniemi in "Young Anthony" (Finnish: Nuori Anssi) in 1918. The war tales of the Reds' were kept in silence.

The first neutrally critical books were written soon after the war: "Devout Misery" (Finnish: Hurskas kurjuus) written by the Nobel Prize laureate Frans Emil Sillanpää in 1919, "Dead Apple Trees" (Finnish: Kuolleet omenapuut) by Joel Lehtonen in 1918 and "Homecoming" (Swedish: Hemkomsten) by Runar Schildt in 1919. They were followed by Jarl Hemmer in 1931 with the book "A Man and His Conscience" (Swedish: En man och hans samvete) and Oiva Paloheimo in 1942 with "Restless Childhood" (Finnish: Levoton lapsuus). Lauri Viita's book "Scrambled Ground" (Finnish: Moreeni) from 1950 presented the life and experiences of a worker family in the Tampere of 1918, including a point of view from outsiders in the Civil War.

Between 1959 and 1962, Väinö Linna described in his trilogy "Under the North Star" (Finnish: Täällä Pohjantähden alla) the Civil War and World War II from the viewpoint of the common people. Part II of Linna's work opened the larger view and the tales of the Reds in the 1918 war, and had a significant mental effect in Finland. At the same time, a new outlook of the war was opened by Paavo Haavikko's book "Private Matters" (Finnish: Yksityisiä asioita), Veijo Meri's "The Events of 1918" (Finnish: Vuoden 1918 tapahtumat) and Paavo Rintala's "My Grandmother and Mannerheim" (Finnish: Mummoni ja Mannerheim), all published in 1960. In poetry, Viljo Kajava, who had experienced the Battle of Tampere at the age of nine, presented a pacifist view of the civil war in his "Poems of Tampere" (Finnish: Tampereen runot) in 1966. The Battle of Tampere is described also in the novel "Corpse Bearer" (Finnish: Kylmien kyytimies) by Antti Tuuri from 2007.

Väinö Linna's trilogy turned the general tide, and after it several books were written mainly from the Red viewpoint in: The Tampere-trilogy by Erkki Lepokorpi in 1977, Juhani Syrjä's "Juho" in 1998, "The Command" (Finnish: Käsky) by Leena Lander in 2003 and "Sandra" by Heidi Köngäs in 2017. Kjell Westö's epic novel "Where We Once Went" (Swedish: Där vi en gång gått), published in 2006, deals with the period of 1915–1930 from both the Red and the White sides. Westö's book "Mirage 38" (Swedish: Hägring 38) from 2013 describes post-war traumas of the 1918 war and the Finnish pre-World War II mental atmosphere. Many of the stories have been utilized in motion picture and in theatre.

See also

• Eastern Front (World War I)
• Lotta Svärd
• History of Finland
• Finnish War
• Winter War
• List of Finnish wars
• Ukrainian Civil War
• Mensheviks

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