Word: suomussalmi
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...same tactics worked at Suomussalmi, past which a Russian column was thrusting across Finland's narrowest part toward Uolu on the Gulf. In a four-day battle the Finns cut the roads leading from Suomussalmi church to the frontier, then stormed into Suomussalmi village, routed Russian tanks, and trapped a Russian force they estimated at 10,000. If the Finns could prevent this force from working in conjunction with the columns to the north and south, Russia's Bothnian threat would be ended and the lost columns could be starved, frozen or carved to death...
...column reached Nurmes, cutting the railroad that runs diagonally across Finland from Tornio on the Swedish frontier to south Karelia and the isthmus. Farther north, another column took Suomussalmi and turned southward toward lisalmi, a rail junction in the centre of Finland. Still farther north, a third column bore down on the roadhead of Kuusamo. Most daring of all, the fourth division crossed the low mountains to Kuolajärvi and thence sped westward past Kemijärvi toward Rovaniemi, which lies on Finland's highway to the Arctic. From Rovaniemi this column might strike southward to Kemi...