Word: finnish
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...bringing Sweden's armed forces to 150,000. The fortress of Boden, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, was reinforced with reserves. Here was the greatest Russian threat to Sweden, marked by the steady progress of a Russian column across Finland toward Tornio on the Swedish-Finnish frontier. Some 4,000 Swedes volunteered for the Finnish Army and several hundred of them last week managed to cross the frontier and join up. Even more important were the supplies rushed to Finland by Sweden's great Bofors armament works, which sent gratis 25 anti-aircraft guns originally...
...Russia tried and spectacularly failed to conquer Finland before Alexander I won it from Sweden in 1808-09. Alexander had two big advantages: 1) he made a deal with the Swedish gentry in Finland promising them self-government; 2) he waited until February to begin his invasion, when the Finnish lakes were frozen fast and he could bring up supplies by sledge. Even then it took him 19 months to quiet the Finns...
...press exploded in wrath. Wrote Nikolai Virta in Pravda (from Terijoki, where Russia has set up its joke People's Government): "When our tired men wanted to drink, they found all the village wells filled with earth. . . . Hardly had the first Red fighter set foot on Finnish soil when an explosion rent the air-a mine! Mines are everywhere." Even the Russian soldiers were indignant. Writer Virta quoted one as saying: "What cads! . . . They are masters of foul play. How well they make such nastiness...
...Finns used some of their limited supply of planes to bomb the Russian base at Baltiski, Estonia. This was not pure cockiness, as it seemed, because the Russians are short on seaplanes and need land bases from which to operate. If these bases could be destroyed, Helsinki and other Finnish cities would be spared many terrors...
...fortifying the Aland Islands and had mined their approaches. There was no protest from Sweden, which alone might object to the proximity of big guns to Stockholm. Russia announced her blockade of the Gulf of Finland, and Finland said it was illegal. There were some sporadic exchanges between Finnish coastal batteries and Russian warships in the Gulf (the Russians shelled Hanko without much effect), and Finland suspected Russia of planning to land troops before the Gulf begins to freeze around Christmas...