Word: finnish
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Mobilization & Mannerheim. Finnish President Kyösti Kallio and Premier Aimo Cajander took hard-headed measures of preparation for actual war with the Soviet Union, should it be forced upon them, while at the same time behaving with utmost politeness to Joseph Stalin, showing complete readiness to cooperate in friendship with Russia if the Bolsheviks want to be sincerely friendly...
...until this capital of 300,000 was half empty. Viipuri was also evacuated and blacked out nightly to match Helsinki, as though Soviet bombing raids were expected. A fleet of 21 Soviet planes was seen roaring over the Gulf of Finland, with Soviet warships cruising just outside Finnish territorial waters, and President Kallio promptly closed all Finnish ports in the Gulf. The entire Finnish merchant marine-Finland has the largest fleet of sailing ships of any nation-was ordered to take refuge away from the Gulf in ports opposite Sweden...
Meanwhile, Finland's efficient Army-every Finnish male receives more than two years' military training beginning at 21 and remains in the Reserve or the Territorial Army up to his 52nd year-was brought up to a strength of 300,000 last week. Its Commander in Chief, Lieut. General Hugo Viktor Osterman, personally took the field on the Soviet frontier of Finland, a frontier of such numberless lakes, forests and marshes that if Russia should choose to strike with mechanized forces these would have to roll directly up from Leningrad into the narrow, flat Finnish terrain between...
Every Finn looked not so much to General Osterman as to the greatest of living Finnish commanders, Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, 72, now National Defense Council President, who remained quietly at Helsinki. In the sporadic fighting between the Finnish Army and the Red Army in the months just after the Russian Revolution Baron Mannerheim "saved Finland," and for a time he was Regent when it was not yet sure that the country would become a Republic. In the 19th Century Finland was a Grand Duchy with the Tsar of Russia as its Grand Duke...
...Modern neutrality is active neutrality," declared Finnish Foreign Minister Eljas Erkko in Helsinki. "If a neutral cannot defend itself against threats then it no longer is neutral and independent. . . . I am convinced that the Russian Government does not want anything to happen any more than...