The Year of the Masters of War
Part 7: The German Campaign in Finland II, March 20 – December 28, 1944
Even as the Italians were preparing for, and initiating, their great gamble in southeastern Europe, the Germans were engaged in a struggle of their own against the Soviets and the Finns. The struggle in Finland was, for all its subsidiary nature, nearly on par with the clash in the Balkans in size. The German force in the far north approached perhaps two hundred brigades in size, with combined Soviet and Finnish forces possibly even greater than that. In comparison, the entire Italian army comprised only about one hundred and fifty brigades, counting all commitments. Four hundred thousand Germans and their allies were waging war in Finland, or spread across Scandinavia in garrisons. Their enemies in all likelihood matched, and perhaps exceeded, their numbers. Thus, while subsidiary to the main front, the conflict in Finland was a great struggle in its own right nonetheless, and perhaps even larger than that which was to take place in southeastern Europe.
The Germans had reached the apex of their advance in late March. They hit upon their culminating point of victory. This was due more, in Mussolini’s opinion, to their lack of operational competence more than any other factor. Helsinki had been so close to falling, but then the Germans were slowly battered back. By late April, Turku had been recaptured by the Finns and the Soviets. To the east, the Germans had been pried away from the shielding lakes and some minor elements of the Wehrmacht were in danger of encirclement. In the center, the Germans had lost sight of Helsinki. A minor but sharp German counterattack recovered Turku by the 8th of May, but Finnish and Soviet successes elsewhere more than made up for this minor victory. The German position in eastern Finland was being eviscerated and a number of units were in the vice of imminent encirclement. In the southwest, a Soviet dagger was driving northward, pushing a number of German formations into an ever more crowded salient. Control had passed to Germany’s enemies, and the shock of such a sudden turn of events seem to have stunned the German commanders in the theater.
The Germans being significantly pushed back by the 8th of May.
The eastern encirclement was wiped out by the 19th of May, leaving the Finns back in control of the entire southeastern segment of Finland. Finnish and Soviet formations began driving into the center of Finland, pushing the Germans back there as well. The scratch German defense of that area was putting up a fight, but it was unknown how long it would hold. In the south, the Soviet dagger had expanded and Turku was surrounded by enemy guns, held by a solitary armored division. The Germans were trying to withdraw to even out their line, but without abandoning the salient into which they were being pushed. The end of May saw the central section of the German defenses battered into submission, and in places nothing lay between the Finnish and Soviet formations and the Gulf of Bothnia. To the south, the German salient lost valuable support and was in grave danger of turning into a terrible and isolated cauldron of fire and death. The Soviets, who had been funneling greater and greater forces into the theater, were smelling blood and pushed their advantage, dragging the Finns after them. By mid-July the Gulf of Bothnia had been reached, and the German forces in the far north were split into three parts: Turku, still standing defiantly; a great pocket stretching along the Finnish coast from Isojoki to Kokkola; and finally the main forces, being pushed ever northward. The German positions were being worked hard, the Soviets keen to inflict a major defeat on their enemies in the north.
The German positions by mid-July, having lost most of the gains they had gained between January and late March.
The Italian offensive by this point was in full swing, and so Mussolini began neglecting the Finnish front in favor one more important to him, and closer to Rome. Nevertheless, he continued to check upon it, only to witness a continuing roll of defeat. By the end of July Turku remained in German hands, but that was the only German position in Finland south of Kokkola. The great pocket on the Finnish coast had been utterly destroyed, save perhaps some of the formations in its northernmost stretches, which may have been saved. Nonetheless, the Germans had been dealt a heavy blow. In acknowledgement of this stark fact, the Soviets had already begun denuding the Finnish front of their formations in favor of committing them elsewhere. What little Soviet support remained was sufficient for the Finns to push slightly north along the coast and at the Finno-Soviet border, but these were only minor gains at the extremities. Stalemate set in as neither the Germans nor the Finns seemed to have the manpower or will to try to break it. The Soviets withdrew the last of their formations from Finland proper by the end of the year, having need of them elsewhere.
Stalemate in Finland.
The year’s end saw the German campaign in Finland in an ignominious state. At the beginning of 1944, the Germans were pushing into central Finland and prospects looked good for success. By March 20th, the Germans were standing at the very doorstep of victory, Helsinki was the last significant Finnish city still defiant to the power of German arms. By mid-July, the tide had decisively turned in Finland and the German position irrevocably broken. By the end of the year, stalemate in Finland’s northern reaches. It was a shocking turn against German fortunes. The Wehrmacht actually shrank during the year, losing a stunning hundred and fifty brigades—over hour hundred thousand men! The Germans had to further dilute their forces in the main front, stretching from the Baltic Sea to Hungary, to reinforce the Finnish front with another thirty or so divisions; at the beginning of 1945 there were between 80 and 90 German formations on that front, surely to the detriment of German capabilities elsewhere. Germany was scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of manpower, even with all its conquests the bereft country had little left to give to the slaughter. Germany had largely shot its bolt, frivolously in a subsidiary theater. Following such a defeat, only Italy could now employ decisive weight in the war.
