Unconditional Surrender & Finland

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Karelia
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Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#1

Post by Karelia » 06 Nov 2013, 22:45

[Split from "Unconditional Surrender"]
sebas379 wrote:Finland managed to broker a peace when the German line broke, since they knew they could not stop the russians on their own, not even half as effective as they had done in 1939-40.
The USSR demanded unconditional surrender of Finland in the summer 1944. Only after all soviet attacks had been stopped in July-August - with some German help - did the USSR accept peace.

Naturally the Finnish government knew, that in the long run Finland could not resist the soviets - at least not without the German supplies - but in August 1944 the Finnish Defence Forces were all time strongest. Finland could had been fighting for months, but most likely that would not have eventually helped.

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Re: Unconditional Surrender

#2

Post by Alixanther » 02 Dec 2013, 21:40

Karelia wrote:
sebas379 wrote:Finland managed to broker a peace when the German line broke, since they knew they could not stop the russians on their own, not even half as effective as they had done in 1939-40.
The USSR demanded unconditional surrender of Finland in the summer 1944. Only after all soviet attacks had been stopped in July-August - with some German help - did the USSR accept peace.

Naturally the Finnish government knew, that in the long run Finland could not resist the soviets - at least not without the German supplies - but in August 1944 the Finnish Defence Forces were all time strongest. Finland could had been fighting for months, but most likely that would not have eventually helped.
I'd say this is wrong. Since Finland was no member of the Axis and had a "separate war" with USSR I'd say it's a 90 % chance if not 100 % chance that Western Allies declare war or at least provide support to Finland against the Soviet. Most people ask when was the moment when Germany politically lost their war. Well, this was the moment, when Finland sued separate peace. If Finland kept fighting, England would not have accepted to bring down Germany only to face the Soviet juggernaut rolling towards Western Europe as Stalin expected.
Not to mention that even if Stalin orders his troops to attack the West there's a fat chance the puppet regimes in Eastern Europe defect once again and cut their supply off. That should be a Europe to wonder: nobody would know who is fighting anymore. Would Stalin prop-up former nazis to form a 5th column to help him bring down the West before any more A-bombs are thrown into production? Would England rally former Wehrmacht divisions to a new Anglo-German alliance against the Soviets? Would Russian State go back into an anarchy just like in WW1 and Soviet troops, lacking provisions, begin plundering just like Mongol hordes? Would that situation ressemble a pan-European civil war?


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Karelia
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Re: Unconditional Surrender

#3

Post by Karelia » 12 Dec 2013, 19:48

Alixanther wrote: I'd say this is wrong. Since Finland was no member of the Axis and had a "separate war" with USSR I'd say it's a 90 % chance if not 100 % chance that Western Allies declare war or at least provide support to Finland against the Soviet. Most people ask when was the moment when Germany politically lost their war. Well, this was the moment, when Finland sued separate peace. If Finland kept fighting, England would not have accepted to bring down Germany only to face the Soviet juggernaut rolling towards Western Europe as Stalin expected.
Not to mention that even if Stalin orders his troops to attack the West there's a fat chance the puppet regimes in Eastern Europe defect once again and cut their supply off. That should be a Europe to wonder: nobody would know who is fighting anymore. Would Stalin prop-up former nazis to form a 5th column to help him bring down the West before any more A-bombs are thrown into production? Would England rally former Wehrmacht divisions to a new Anglo-German alliance against the Soviets? Would Russian State go back into an anarchy just like in WW1 and Soviet troops, lacking provisions, begin plundering just like Mongol hordes? Would that situation ressemble a pan-European civil war?
Well - an interesting thought, but unfortunately I don't believe it. The Finnish faith was already decided in Teheran. The Western Allies would not have been supported Finland against the Soviets, which they were allied with. Especially FDR considered Stalin as a "reasonable" and "realistic" leader, who were allowed to "take care" of Finland.

The World would have needed more Pattons...

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Re: Unconditional Surrender

#4

Post by jeger » 11 Jan 2014, 19:36

Good thing Finland had Mannerheim
Jeger

Alixanther
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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#5

Post by Alixanther » 15 Jan 2014, 00:54

If Finland keeps on fighting the Soviets until FDR dies, maybe the outcome of the war in the East is gonna be different...

The real question is: could the Finns keep on fighting for more than half a year?

I think that both Finnish peace and Romanian capitulation were instrumental in Stalin political decisions. Should these countries have kept up the fighting (maybe doing a scorched earth policy), he might refrain from going straight to Berlin. However, flanks being assured, he could go in a detour move through Balkans, then Hungary, Austria then Berlin.

It's obvious that any peace with the Soviets prior to the end of the war could have bypassed the "Unconditional Surrender" condition. If Antonescu had stayed in power long enough, he might have negociated a similar peace to the Finns. Similar, not identical - I'm aware the conditions would have been harsher. What happens after the war is a different thing, though. It really depends on what's happening in Western Europe.

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#6

Post by jeger » 15 Jan 2014, 21:15

The Soviets i 1944 had to bring the war in Finland to a standstill in order to be able to concentrate upon Berlin and East Europe.
Remember the peace treaty between Finland and Soviet-Rusland was not signed in 1944 as some people seem to think, but in Paris in 1947 after the war was over.
Jeger

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#7

Post by Alixanther » 16 Jan 2014, 23:26

jeger wrote:The Soviets i 1944 had to bring the war in Finland to a standstill in order to be able to concentrate upon Berlin and East Europe.
Remember the peace treaty between Finland and Soviet-Rusland was not signed in 1944 as some people seem to think, but in Paris in 1947 after the war was over.
Jeger
Well the peace maybe yes, but the armistice does count, doesn't it? If you don't get an armistice in 44' to secure flanks, you cannot launch an attack on the center. The fact is the Red Army followed its part of the armistice, otherwise the Finns could have opt to fight on. If Romania could have gotten another armistice, well, the only way the Red Army could attack was on center.
Do you think only the Western Allies wanted to get closer to Berlin than the Russians? My perspective is that Stalin envisaged a bitter fighting on flanks and wanted to avoid it. He also might have decided to "breathe more air" and put a soft end to ostilities with the Germans. He always considered the West as his true enemies (although these considered him as an "ally") than the Germans. Remember they were socialists, too. Maybe he expected them to hold a little more so he could spare them a little to fend off the Western Allies, while he could build up enough force to smash all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Why didn't he want to lead the Victory Parade? Because that was no victory for him.
Stalin always wanted the war to last longer, not shorter. Bleeding the West was his reason of supporting the Germans. In 43 he could be confident about winning the war against Axis. But that's not his only war.
Creating some apparent stalemate conditions in 44 could have been a devious way of using the Deutsches Reich as a "buffer state", weak and incapable of challenging USSR, but strong enough to keep the allies at bay until Soviet Union mounts its final assault.
Most of the time the Soviet Union wanted to appear weaker than they were, because this ruse was their usual disguise. From '44 on they switched to boasting and threatening, as they did with minor eastern nations. Why? Because they understood they have been exposed. The Polish exile government was going to break diplomatic ties with Soviets, a lot of other nations joined the antibolschewik war effort and, provided the Reich was not going to lead such a coalition, there was "the danger" that a lot of European minor states could go rogue upon Soviet Union, unconditionnal surrender or not. They had nothing to lose. In fact, a lot of them wanted the Western Allies to come and militarily occupy them. Just to be sure the Soviets don't.
So Stalin suddenly has a lot to gain if Hitler stays more in power (I think the Wehrmacht fully understood that, that's why they got as close as getting against Hitler as they could) so the Soviet Union can get out of its attrition war and prepare for the "real war" they had in mind: the war against the West.
My thoughts about Hitler's suicide is as follows: he wasn't afraid of Russians killing him or torturing him physically. He was afraid of them "killing" him politically - because he wanted to remain as an ideological inspiration after his death. He feared the most that Stalin could get and put him as "kommisar" for Germany, effectively killing his alleged "legend" and making him hated by the Germans on the spot. He never understood that the Germans were not the national-socialists he wanted them to be.
Stalin could have kept him as a governor of defeated Germany until he was deemed as not needed anymore and could have been disposed by trial and execution, or forced labour for life as "redemption". That was "the communist way".

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#8

Post by Hanski » 26 Jan 2014, 21:36


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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#9

Post by Alixanther » 31 Jan 2014, 22:33

Thanks. Could you please expand towards a personal point of view?

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#10

Post by Hanski » 02 Feb 2014, 15:00

I think my personal points of view are represented clearly enough in my remarks after each translated part of the text for the proposed treaty on unconditional surrender.

"To sum up, accepting this document would have meant exposing the nation entirely at the mercy of the occupier, completely sealed off from the outside world, deprived of leadership and all conceivable means of self-defence. It is not hard to imagine the consequences…"

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#11

Post by Alixanther » 02 Feb 2014, 22:13

Hanski wrote:I think my personal points of view are represented clearly enough in my remarks after each translated part of the text for the proposed treaty on unconditional surrender.

"To sum up, accepting this document would have meant exposing the nation entirely at the mercy of the occupier, completely sealed off from the outside world, deprived of leadership and all conceivable means of self-defence. It is not hard to imagine the consequences…"
Well, I agree completely to your point of view but I may not be aware of all its implications. Does that mean Finland could find its inner strength to fight on until the death of FDR, hoping for a better peace outcome?

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#12

Post by Anne G, » 02 Feb 2014, 22:19

Alixanther wrote:
jeger wrote:The Soviets i 1944 had to bring the war in Finland to a standstill in order to be able to concentrate upon Berlin and East Europe.
Remember the peace treaty between Finland and Soviet-Rusland was not signed in 1944 as some people seem to think, but in Paris in 1947 after the war was over.
Jeger
Well the peace maybe yes, but the armistice does count, doesn't it?
I wasn't only an armistive, but a temporary peace treaty which had exactly the same conditions as the peace treaty in Paris - with one excepotion: in 1944-7, the Allied (i.e. Soviet) Control Commission observed that the Finns fulfilled the treaty (and in practice had the supreme power over the Finnish government), but after the Paris treaty was ratified, it left Finland.

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#13

Post by Alixanther » 02 Feb 2014, 22:26

Anne G, wrote:
Alixanther wrote:
jeger wrote:The Soviets i 1944 had to bring the war in Finland to a standstill in order to be able to concentrate upon Berlin and East Europe.
Remember the peace treaty between Finland and Soviet-Rusland was not signed in 1944 as some people seem to think, but in Paris in 1947 after the war was over.
Jeger
Well the peace maybe yes, but the armistice does count, doesn't it?
I wasn't only an armistive, but a temporary peace treaty which had exactly the same conditions as the peace treaty in Paris - with one excepotion: in 1944-7, the Allied (i.e. Soviet) Control Commission observed that the Finns fulfilled the treaty (and in practice had the supreme power over the Finnish government), but after the Paris treaty was ratified, it left Finland.
I'm confused. Jeger says exactly the opposite. I'm with you, because I consider superfluous whether you call it a peace, a temporary peace or an armistice (the definition of an armistice is practically a temporary peace).
That's why I believe this "temporary peace" of bigger impact (or importance) than the '47 Treaty of Paris.

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#14

Post by John Hilly » 03 Feb 2014, 14:49

Anne G, wrote:I wasn't only an armistive, but a temporary peace treaty which had exactly the same conditions as the peace treaty in Paris - with one excepotion: in 1944-7, the Allied (i.e. Soviet) Control Commission observed that the Finns fulfilled the treaty (and in practice had the supreme power over the Finnish government), but after the Paris treaty was ratified, it left Finland.
Maybe supreme power, but without occupating troops.
Alixanther wrote:That's why I believe this "temporary peace" of bigger impact (or importance) than the '47 Treaty of Paris.
In a way yes, but Finns were really releaved when the Control Comission finally left. After that Soviet threath of occupation was less likely than before. Difficult questions the Finns had to cope with though.

With best,
J-P :milwink:
"Die Blechtrommel trommelt noch!"

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Re: Unconditional Surrender & Finland

#15

Post by Alixanther » 03 Feb 2014, 22:29

John Hilly wrote:
Alixanther wrote:That's why I believe this "temporary peace" of bigger impact (or importance) than the '47 Treaty of Paris.
In a way yes, but Finns were really releaved when the Control Comission finally left. After that Soviet threath of occupation was less likely than before. Difficult questions the Finns had to cope with though.

With best,
J-P :milwink:
Of course they were relieved. :) The Soviet Union had no more casus belli for a further invasion of Finland territory. Although there's a long list of countries the Soviets didn't bother with petty things of minor significance (joking of course) like casus belli, everybody including Finland expected Soviet Union to take the full Control Commission consideration into account.
Any other problems were of secondary importance mainly because - in the due time - they could be solved. And they were. Romania had to cope with Russian occupation for a while and even longer with a communist regime... :(

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