In an act of revenge, fifteen minutes before the cease-fire was to begin on March 13, the Soviets opened up with a massive artillery bombardment. Stalined a third time.
The Soviets got their land, so in a limited sense they won the war. But enough victories like this can destroy a country. The Russians suffered about 250,000 dead and a similar number of wounded. The Finns had about 25,000 dead, a ratio of ten Russians per Finn. The Finnish wounded amounted to about 43,000. In a one-hundred-day war, that was solely a sideshow as 2,500 Russians died each day. They suffered so many casualties that after the war a Russian general grimly joked that they had won “just enough land to bury our dead.”
The biathlon became an Olympic sport in 1960. A Finn grabbed the silver medal, just beating out an opponent from — guess where — the Soviet Union. And he didn’t even have to shoot him.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER
The spectacle of the little Finns bravely fighting the Russian bear fascinated the world. World leaders delivered outraged tongue-lashings at the evildoing Russians with the level of indignity rising in direct relation to their distance from the action.
In a bizarre twist, Stalin’s paranoid delusion about Finnish aggression turned true as the Finns joined hands with the Nazis in 1941 and invaded the Soviet Union, with Mannerheim once again leading the army. Mannerheim refused to advance beyond the 1939 border, and the fighting quickly stalled. Teaming with the Nazis destroyed the good will that Finland built with the West — and it was from then on treated like a friend of Hitler’s. By 1944 Stalin’s troops were once again pushing back the Finns, and Mannerheim became president of Finland. He negotiated a peace with the Russians and fought to rid the country of Germans. He resigned in ill health in 1946 and retired to write his memoirs in Switzerland. For decades thereafter Finland lived under the heavy hand of the Soviets, who kept a keen eye on their neighbor.
While the massive casualties suffered in the war did impress upon Stalin the need to reform his army, the biggest impact was to let Hitler know that the once-feared Red Army was beatable. Hitler mocked Stalin by privately offering to subdue the Finns. Hitler no longer feared the Russians.
Stalin led the Soviets through the war that killed some 20 million Russians and, to everyone’s relief, died in 1953.
TEN.
ROMANIA FIGHTS BOTH SIDES IN WORLD WAR II: 1941
Choosing the wrong friends can lead to unpaid loans, unpleasant dinner parties, and possible jail time. In a war, choosing the wrong friends can be much, much worse.
On the eve of World War II Romania faced a decision of who to befriend. In a spasm of nationalist doltishness, Romania joined hands with the Nazis in the hope that Hitler would hand them the gift of Transylvania, their ancestral homeland.
To achieve this goal and make Adolf happy, Romania’s Hitler-wannabe dictator Ion Antonescu decided to attack Russia, the largest and only undefeated country on earth. As Ion would painfully learn, any war plan based on the idea of making Hitler full of smiles and puppy love needs a thorough reevaluation.
But taking a moment to reflect on this decision apparently never occurred to the Romanian strongman. His decision led little Romania to eventually duke it out with the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and Germany, all in the same war. Romania fought so hard and inflicted so much damage to its allies and/or enemies that when the war ended, no one knew how to treat it. The West abandoned Romania and left it to rot under Soviet control for decades.
Romania’s role in the war was so fickle and so bizarre that during World War II it had the dubious distinction of being the third most powerful Axis country and the fourth most powerful Allied army. Romania allied itself with everybody at the party but still went home with no friends.
THE PLAYERS
Ion Antonescu — this brutal dictator of Romania, known as the “Conducător,” led Romania into the attack on the Soviet Union to regain Transylvania, stolen the year before by the wily Hungarians.
Skinny — Personal slogan was “Death before Dishonor.” He managed to obtain both.
Props — Hitler loved him. He got the big picture about who really should be controlling the world, the Germans and the Romanians.
Pros — Had blue eyes so Hitler assumed he came from good Aryan stock.
Cons — Eager participant in the Holocaust.
Lt. General Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz — one of the most decorated air commanders in U.S. history, he held the title of Commander of the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe and was the architect of the strategic bombing raids on the Axis countries.
Skinny — Prepped Europe for its postwar revitalization by bombing its cities flat.
Props — Was present at the surrender of all three Axis powers.
Pros — Never promised to bomb an enemy back to the Stone Age despite directing the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan.
Cons — Became a writer after the war.
King Mihai of Romania — He became the Romanian king at age nineteen in 1940 when Ion booted his anti-German father King Carol from the country.
Skinny — Did nothing as king for four years as his country fought a devastating war.
Props — Last surviving head of state from World War II. Great-great-great grandson of Queen Victoria of England.
Pros — Before his country got crushed by the Russians he surrendered to them.
Cons — He assumed the Soviets would forgive Romania for invading, looting, pillaging, and killing. Wrong! Also assumed the Americans and British would give him credit for taking on the Germans at the end of the war. Wrong Wrong!!
THE GENERAL SITUATION
It was not easy being Romania in 1939. On one side the German menace, aggressively looking to stomp on anything that moved. On the other side the growling bear of the Soviet Union. In this tough neighborhood it was important to make the right friends.
Romania, in its first attempt at making friends and influencing people, had shrewdly waited until World War I was three years old before joining the Allies, hoping to cherry-pick from the victors’ spoils. The vastly more powerful Germans and Austrians smashed the Romanians. But like the little engine that could, Romania did not give up. Instead, the tiny country manned it out and lost more territory to the Germans before finally calling it quits in early 1918. When Germany collapsed later that year, Romania regained its fighting mojo and again joined the fray, hoping it would be easier to defeat an already conquered enemy. This short second fling so impressed the hard-pressed Allies that Romania won itself a seat at the peace talks in Paris where the spoils were carved up, and it walked away with an outsized share of the local swag. In this case, the minuscule country got enough territory, including Transylvania, to create Great Romania. All was well. Romania had chosen right.