Word: viipuri
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...stood firm under fresh concatenations of heavy Red artillery, replying with their own shells to break up the enemy's attempts to advance. At the Mannerheim Line's right centre, north of its gaping break-through at Summa, the Red juggernaut inched forward. In the suburbs of Viipuri, out on the ice and islands of the bay, and southwest along the coast where the Reds had won a few footholds, fighting raged as the 105th morning wore on. The Russians claimed that now Viipuri. where the first shots for Finnish independence were fired in 1918, was in Russian...
...Final maneuver in the cracking of Finland's defense was a simple one for any commander with superior numbers of troops: extension of the front. When the Russian generals finally won their opening they deployed their forces westward over the ice in front of Viipuri. By repeated attacks, now here, now there, along the coast line, they finally obtained footholds which the Finns, strung out in small groups, could not dislodge. These grips were points at which strength could soon have been built up to encircle Viipuri, and to start a drive on Helsinki. But again, this maneuver could...
Cities are an obstacle of great strength to advancing infantry. In a place like Viipuri, a focus, where concentration can be met with concentration, the overwhelming superiority in Russian numbers makes little immediate difference. Hammer meets steel...
...extended front, along which heavy Russian forces can strike, one dawn at one point, the next 50 miles to the west, now here, now there, unexpectedly. Along such a front the Finns must scatter thinly, and be continually vigilant. The new sector: the northwest shore of Viipuri Bay and along the Gulf of Finland, on a front of 60 miles -halfway to Helsinki. Across the ice of the bay a great Russian sickle swept again & again. It hit some stumps and some stones, but it cut down a lot of grass...
...still the hordes came on, and at week's end even the Finns had to admit the Russians had several footholds on the coastal front. Obvious aim was to penetrate inland and cut the vital lines of communication from Helsinki to Viipuri, then sweep around behind the Finns' last-ditch defenses in the Mannerheim Line. Many a Finn was constrained to admit that a moderately honorable peace would be preferable to gradual strangulation by Joseph Stalin's Molasseskrieg...