Finland's Continuation War
Against Russia 1940-45

Conclusion

by Brian R. Train, Victoria, British Columbia

The complete armistice agreement was signed on 19 September, but a formal peace treaty was not concluded until February, 1947. More fighting lay ahead for the Finnish Army as they tried to hustle the Germans out of Finland in stages, in a conflict known as the Lapland War. There were still 200,000 men in 20 Mountain Army, making it one of the largest and least damaged of the German field forces, and the last of them did not leave Finnish soil until April, 1945. As in the Winter War, Finland had fought hard and effectively against the USSR but had ended up worse off in the end.

Even though they ended the fighting on the Russian side of the 1940 borders, they lost more territory through having to cede the valuable nickel mines of Petsamo and 55,000 soldiers had been killed in the four years of the Continuation War.

Alone among the Eastern European nations that had fought alongside the German armies, only Finland kept its political and territorial independence, though even this would be tempered by a paranoid caution in its affairs that forced this small country into an uneasy neutrality, in a process called "Finlandization."

Finland had succeeded in being a special case among Germany's allies, and for its part the USSR had also treated it in a way very different from Romania and Hungary. Even Stalin saluted the efforts of this brave nation when, in 1948, he toasted them with these words: "Nobody respects a country with a poor army, but everybody respects a country with a good army. I raise my toast to the Finnish Army."

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