1940 Fighting along the Mannerheim Line

Italian Newsreel No. 1620. March 8, 1940. Unlike the French Maginot Line and other similar forts made with huge bunkers and lines of dragon's teeth, the Mannerheim Line was mostly built by utilizing the natural terrain. Many natural things such as fallen trees and huge boulders were used as defensive positions. The Finns also mastered camouflage techniques, which they put to use when building this defensive line.In the Winter War the Line halted the Soviet advance for two months. Fort Saarenpää was attacked by the Soviet battleships Marat and Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya several times during December 1939 and January 1940, but repelled the attacks, even damaging one ship badly enough to force a return to its base.During the war both Finnish and Soviet propaganda considerably exaggerated the extent of the line's fortifications: the former to improve national morale, and the latter to explain their troops' slow progress against Finnish defenses. Consequently, the myth of the "heavily fortified" Mannerheim Line entered official Soviet war history and also some Western sources. However in reality, the vast majority of the Mannerheim Line was comprised merely of trenches and other field fortifications. Bunkers along the line were mostly small and thinly spread out, and the Line had hardly any artillery.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Finland
• USSR
• Soviet
• Union
• Mannerheim
• Line
• Talvisota
• Winter
• War
• Karelia
• 1940
• Finnish
• Army

[jglammi]

@kosiak10851 Finland never gave up despite Soviet aggression.

[imapownall]

thanks skoblin for posting so many videos of finnish history! im finnish and know most of this but this shows me that many countrys cared about finland even many didnt really help in arms

[virtanenl]

Winter, continuation, heritage, we are more than the light wieght sobs we left behind

[virtanenl]

American Finns remember the country we left to preserve the children.

[dinnemesis]

@kosiak10851 The main reason to why the RKKA didn't exterminate Finland was because the finns won

a streak of 8 victories in battle. Making RKKA take heavy losses and tie up large forces.

Roosevelt and Churchill didn't want to see a democratic nation fall for communism so they persuaded

Stalin to concentrate his forces on the Germans. Stalin tried with a coup 1948 but failed.

[JapaninArmeija]

@kosiak10851

Stalin gave up, he had to shift the troops towards Berlin, and then to far-east. That you mention EXTERMINATION sounds a reasonable cause to say no thanks.

[kosiak10851]

@jglammi Yes fins had all chanses to be exterminated by RED army. So why can't you just thank Soviet Union for letting you finish this war as neutral in 1944. They gave up and they shiould thank Stalin for this chance

[kosiak10851]

Leningrad never gave up. City of Lenin lives!

[Briselance]

@MobiusDragon89

Non andava bene ai filocommunisti ? Forse.

Mi chiedo perchè le conseguenze non hanno mai stato studiate.

Stesse ragione, puo darsi.

[MobiusDragon89]

E' una vergogna che la Guerra d'Inverno e le sue conseguenze vengono praticamente ignorate dai libri di Storia italiani. L'importanza di tutti questi eventi è indiscutibile.

Cosa è successo ai libri di Storia? La forza che i finlandesi hanno dimostrato nella loro lotta contro i russi non andava bene ai filocomunisti? Mah...