Sää Sodatkin Estää
A Finnish lotta, a member of the Lotta Svärd
women organization, watching the skies for Soviet aircraft
during January 1940 in northern Finland
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women organization, watching the skies for Soviet aircraft
during January 1940 in northern Finland
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This is the first and probably the last time I will ever mention the word "Twitter", but an interesting project came to my attention tonight: Real Time WWI. Tonight, it's the Soviets invading Finland. Finland was the first country to pay back it's war debts to the U.S.
The NYT ran the project in Arts Beat. It began 31 Aug with Hitler's invasion of Poland, and will continue to the bitter end. Well, if you have more time than you know what to do with (I don't know who that might be), you might want to take a look.
It is a curiosity.
Labels: real time WWII, soviets invade finland
posted by Lisa at 6:08 PM
7 Comments:
The Soviets invading Finland was one of those classic blunders. Yes, the Soviets did eventually manage to bumble out a win through overwhelming force where Finland had to give Stalin 10% of their territory for peace, but the Soviets had to call the proceedings to a halt far before obtaining their objective of a complete annexation of Finland because of the poor performance of the Red Army, which suffered horrendous losses. Once Hitler saw how poorly the Red Army performed against a real (if far outgunned) enemy, he was practically rubbing his hand in glee and ordering his Liebensraum project to full speed.
Of course, if Hitler had paid attention to *why* the Red Army performed poorly -- i.e., the poor performance of their gear in the winter weather, poor mobility in the snow, etc. -- he would have realized that the German army had the same problems. But Hitler wasn't much of a military genius, thankfully... I say "thankfully" because if he hadn't invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and instead had concentrated on consolidating the European economies and building up the assets to take out Airstrip One (a.k. the UK) and eliminate its use for future strategic bombing of Europe, I don't know how he could have been dislodged. The Red Army took out over 75% of the Wehrmacht, and if those troops had remained breathing and above ground, any attempt to invade Europe from North Africa (the most likely place such an invasion would have been mounted from if Britain had fell) would have been a disaster.
Ah yes, alternate history... where we get to assume things like, "Hitler competent" with a straight face. Luckily he wasn't.
- Badtux the History Geek Penguin
It certainly is a big deal in Finland! One of my FB friends is a Finn and she put this up after I put your linked article up on her wall.
http://www.suomussalmi.fi/Resource.phx/sivut/sivut-suomussalmi/matkailu/english/attractions/raate/history.htx
bb
click on "winter war" in menu on the left side.
bb
Thank you so much, bb. My great grandparents are Finnish, and they are a very proud people.
Agreed, BT.
bb,
I just saw your post on Sibelius @ milpub . . . you DO like the Finns :)
Erittäin hyvä.
OK now here read more: Application Essay Writing
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