Word: svinhufvud
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Died. Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, 82, President of Finland from 1931 to 1937; in Finland. Big, bald, bristling Svinhufvud (translation: pig head) was the typical Finnish national hero; a strong man, consistently pro-German and anti-Russian. In 1901 Svinhufvud became a judge under the Czarist regime, fought Imperial Russian ukases until 1914, when he was banished to Siberia. On his return to Finland in 1917 he picked Germany as a good thing, next year asked the Kaiser to name one of his sons King of Finland. When the Allies won the war, Svinhufvud resigned, General Baron Mannerheim came to power...
Suddenly another venerable character was revived: Per Evind Svinhufvud, 79, Finland's President 1931-37. He arrived in Stockholm by plane, bound for Berlin, maybe Rome, and peace. An old fighter whose name means "Pig's Head," Per Svinhufvud observed: "When the road gets rough, the old cart is pulled out of the barn." He never got to Rome, and did nothing important in Berlin...
...move on Petrograd in conjunction with the British Murmansk expedition. But the White Government, grateful to Ger many for her help in the civil war and thinking she was winning the World War, vetoed any cooperation with England. Mannerheim resigned in a huff and the newly elected Regent, Per Svinhufvud, asked the Kaiser to name one of his sons King of Finland. The Kaiser proposed his brother-in-law, Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse, who was promptly elected by the Finnish Diet. Next thing the Finns knew, the Allies had won the war and Finland was caught with its pants...
...hard bargain. The two principles that had caused him to quit the previous May were accepted by the group in power: 1) no rapprochement with Germany; 2) retention of a strong Finnish Army. Mannerheim went to London and Paris, dickered for recognition. When he returned to Helsinki, Regent Svinhufvud resigned, Prince Friedrich Karl renounced his right to the throne, and Mannerheim became Regent of Finland...
...textbooks on defensive tactics, one for each season of the year. He hounded the Government into increasing each year the 12% of its budget it originally appropriated for the military. He organized the Civic Guard, 100,000 strong, as a permanent reserve force. In 1931 his old sidekick, Per Svinhufvud, then President, made him President of the Council of Defense. Two years later he became Finland's only Field Marshal. Mannerheim threatened to wash his hands of the whole business of defense unless the Government established conscription...