What happened after artillery fire "attacked" the village of Manila?

On November 28, 1939, the Soviet Union announced that the Finnish army had provoked on the border and shelled the village of Manila, causing the death of Soviet soldiers, creating the "Manila Incident". He then asked the Finnish government to apologize and withdraw its troops 20 to 25 kilometers, but the Finnish government refused. So the Soviet-Finnish War broke out.

In April 1938, the Soviet Union and Finland held diplomatic negotiations, hoping to unite with Finland to resist Germany, and hoped to exchange the northern territory of the Soviet Union for Finland’s territory outside Leningrad in order to achieve the purpose of protecting Leningrad. . However, the negotiations lasted for a year with no substantive results. By this time, the situation in Europe had begun to deteriorate. On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact. The treaty included a secret clause that divided spheres of influence among the Eastern European countries between the two countries, which included Finland as part of the Soviet Union. On September 1, Germany attacked Poland, and the Soviet Union subsequently sent troops to the east. In just a few weeks, Poland was divided between the two countries. In the autumn of that year, the Soviet Union once again asked Finland to move its border back 25 kilometers from Leningrad and lease the Hanko Peninsula for 30 years to build a naval base. In exchange, the Soviet Union ceded twice the territory of Karelia to Finland. However, the Finnish government at the time rejected the Soviet proposal. So the Soviet army created the "Manila Incident". The Soviet Union used this as an excuse to abrogate the Soviet-Finnish non-aggression pact and severed diplomatic relations between the two countries the next day. On November 30, the Soviet Union concentrated 23 divisions with 450,000 troops, 2,000 tanks, and more than 1,000 combat aircraft to launch a full-line attack on Finland, broke into Finland, and established a military base in its occupied territory of Terijoki The Finnish democratic government, headed by Kuusinen, claimed that the Red Army crossed the border at the request of the government. Under the unfavorable balance of forces, the Finnish army relied on the solid fortifications of the "Mannerheim Line" built on the Karelian Isthmus from 1927 to 1939, and took advantage of the favorable terrain of severe cold and swamp forests to launch counterattacks, positional warfare and It was a war of attrition and encirclement and annihilation. Therefore, in addition to rapid progress in the Bechamo and Sala areas of the Arctic Ocean, the Soviet army suffered heavy casualties in the Karelian Isthmus and Lake Ladoga, and was unable to attack the main Finnish army position for a long time.

Because the Soviet army did not have the equipment to fight in the forest in winter, it suffered heavy losses after entering the battle. About 23,000 people were killed at the beginning, while the Finnish side only lost about 800 people and captured 43 vehicles. Tanks, 71 anti-aircraft guns, 29 anti-tank guns, 260 trucks and 1170 horses as well as many small arms and supplies. The Soviet Air Force's poor training and rigid tactics were far inferior to the Finnish Air Force in combat effectiveness, resulting in heavy losses for the Soviet Air Force. At the same time, the actions of the Soviet Union caused many foreign groups to be dissatisfied with the Soviet Union and sent supplies and medicines to assist Finland. Many Finnish immigrants in the United States and Canada came back to fight. On December 17, the Soviet 7th Army ended its 10-day rest and resumed its attack on the Mannerheim Line of Defense. But their attack was not well coordinated, and Mannerheim called it "a poorly conducted, erratic orchestration." Without the cooperation of tanks, the Soviet infantry launched a "human sea tactic" charge. As a result, the Finnish army fired fiercely and the fields were littered with corpses. By the time the Soviet tanks appeared, they had lost the coordination of the infantry, allowing the Finnish army to easily approach the rear of the Soviet tanks. They stuffed frozen wood between the tracks and road wheels, and then used grenades and gasoline bottles to destroy the tanks. In just four days, the Soviet army lost 239 tanks and even more infantry. On December 20, the Soviet offensive was forced to stop.

The Finnish soldiers assembled in accordance with the emergency mobilization order. The biggest failure of the Soviet army occurred on the central front. They fell into the trap of the Finnish army's "woodpile tactics". They were cold and hungry. They could neither break out nor receive supplies. Even if they could light a fire to keep warm, they were worried that the Finns would ski out of the shadows and throw grenades into the firewood pile. From December 11, 1939 to January 8, 1940, two Soviet divisions were completely wiped out. The Finnish army counted 27,500 corpses. There were also countless corpses of Soviet officers and soldiers buried in the forest. Under the snow, it was discovered months or even years later. On the Finnish side, only 900 people were killed and another 1,770 were injured.

Such a result made the Soviet Supreme Command furious. The commander-in-chief of the Soviet army invading Finland was immediately replaced and replaced by Marshal Timoshenko.

In January 1940, the Soviet army reorganized its offensive and increased its total strength to 46 divisions. On February 11, it launched a general offensive on the isthmus with intensive artillery fire and heavy tanks. The Soviet Air Force carried out heavy bombings on the cities and transportation lines behind Finland, and broke through the Mannerheim Line of Defense on the 14th. The Finnish Army retreated to the Vyborg line on February 26. At this time, the Allies decided to assist Finland and considered landing 100,000 British troops and 35,000 French troops in northern Norway, passing through Sweden and entering Finland. But by December, Hitler had already informed the Swedish government that if the Allied troops set foot on Swedish soil, it would mean that Germany would immediately attack Sweden. At that time, neither the Swedish nor the Norwegian governments agreed to the Allies' demands.

By the end of February, Finland's military supplies were almost exhausted, and the Soviet Union had broken through the Mannerheim Line of Defense. On February 29, the Finnish government agreed to negotiate; on March 5, the Soviet troops advanced another 10 to 15 kilometers and approached the outskirts of Vyborg. The Finnish government demanded an armistice, but the Soviet troops did not stop attacking until the agreement was signed on March 12.

According to the Moscow Peace Agreement on March 12, Finland lost Karelia, including Finland's second largest city Vyborg, 10% of Finland's arable land, and 12% of Finland's total population lost their homes.

Finland also ceded the Ribach Peninsula in the Barents Sea, four islands in the Gulf of Finland, part of the Sala area, and leased the Hanko Peninsula to the Soviet Union as a naval base for 30 years.

Since the entire war was fought in the severe cold of winter, historians called it the "Winter War." Although the Soviet army got the land it needed, it also paid a huge price and at the same time exposed the Soviet army's weaknesses. The Soviet Army had a large organizational structure, modern mechanized troops, and a large amount of heavy equipment, but it was unable to function. Nazi German military observers watched the battle in Finland. Seeing how poor the Soviet army's winter combat capabilities were, they believed that the well-equipped and well-trained German army could defeat the Soviet Red Army within a few months.

The Finnish Olympic Games also died due to the Soviet-Finnish War. The 1940 Olympic Games was originally scheduled to be held in Tokyo, Japan. However, due to Japan's all-out war of aggression against China in 1937, the Olympic Committee changed the venue to Helsinki, the capital of Finland. But not long after, the Soviet-Finnish War broke out. On January 1, 1940, Finland notified the International Olympic Committee that it would voluntarily give up the right to host the Games.

Only one year after the "Winter War", Finland again broke out into a continuous war with the Soviet Union with the support of Germany.

After Hitler's Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Finland used the pretext of Soviet aircraft to bomb Finnish territory on the 25th, declaring that the country was in a state of war, and Finland and the Soviet Union restarted the war. Historians called it a "continuation of the war." ". The Finnish army launched a general offensive on June 28 and occupied Vyborg and other cities in September. On December 6, Finland announced that it had regained all the territory lost in the winter war. After the Soviet army achieved a decisive victory on the German-Soviet battlefield in 1944, it launched a fierce attack on the Finnish army's positions on June 9 and broke through the "New Mannerheim Line of Defense". On June 15, the Finnish army withdrew from East Karelia, and Vyborg fell on the 20th. On June 23, the Soviet Union urged Finland to surrender and ordered the Soviet army to continue to advance deeper into Finland. In July, the Soviet army reoccupied the Sala area, and the Finnish army lost the ability to fight again. In August, Finland was forced to sue for peace and announced on September 2 that it would sever relations with Germany; on September 19, it signed an armistice agreement and a provisional peace treaty with the Soviet Union in Moscow, and declared war on Germany.

On February 10, 1947, the Soviet Union and other allies signed a formal peace treaty with Finland in Paris. In addition to confirming all the provisions of the 1940 Soviet-Finnish Peace Treaty, the Paris Peace Treaty also returned Finland's Betzamo Province to the Soviet Union; leased the Pokhara Peninsula to the Soviet Union for 50 years; paid an indemnity of US$300 million, and was responsible for the trial of war criminals and restricted military Establishment and other obligations. During the two wars between Finland and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union ceded 45,840 square kilometers of land from Finland and moved the Soviet-Finnish border line in the Karelia region 150 kilometers north.