The Jäger March from 1917 was written by the Finnish Jäger Heikki Nurmio (1887-1947) in Libau, Prussia, where a competition was held on the best lyrics for a mach song. The lyrics were smuggled to Finland, where Sibelius received them from his ear doctor, Dr Wilhelm Zilliacus. Sibelius was enthusiastic of the proposal and composed the march in three days in his villa Ainola in Järvenpää, according to his own account overwhelmed by highly patriotic emotion.
The march was presented for the first time in Libau on 28 November 1917 in a leisure occasion for the staff of the Battalion. It was published in December 1917 as written for a male choir and piano, without mentioning the writer of the lyrics or the composer. In Finland, the march was apparently presented for the first time to a larger audience in a celebration of the New Day Club of the advocates of independence in restaurant Ylä-Oopris in Helsinki on 8 December 1917. The proper debut of the Jäger March was in Helsinki on 19 January 1918, by the choir of Akademiska Sångföreningen, led by Olof Wallin. On the same day, the first battles broke out in Karelia between the Reds and the Whites, related to the weapons supplies to the Reds from St Petersburg.
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Deep is our blow, invincible our hate,
we have no mercy, no homeland.
All our luck is in the tip of our sword,
our breast cannot feel tender.
Our cry of war rings thrilling to the land
that is breaking apart its shackles.
Our defiance can never get tired
before the Finnish nation is free.
As the heads of the rest of the nation and land bowed down
we Jägers still held belief.
There was night in the breast, a thousand pains,
but a single thought so proud and holy:
we shall rise as the revenge of Kullervo*
it will be fair to meet the fates of war.
A new tale will now be born on Finland,
it will grow, it will charge, it will win.
Häme, Karelia, the coasts and land of Viena,
there will be a single great rule of Finland.
Its idea cannot be removed by violence
away from under the sky of the North.
Its Lion Flag will be carried by
the strong arms of Jägers,
over the roaring fields with blood
towards the shore of the rising Finland.
* Kullervo is a tragic hero of
Kalevala, the national epos of the Finns, and this detail, a single word of the lyrics, is packed with strong sentiment to anyone familiar with Kalevala.
Kullervo, the son of
Kalervo, is an orphan, whose whole family has been murdered by sword of the men of
Untamo, Kalervo's foe. Only a maid was left alive and taken as a slave, but she gave birth to this son of Kalervo. The boy is put to work but he proves of no use, they try to kill him but fail in it. Finally Kullervo is sold to
Ilmarinen. He sends Kullervo to shepherd cattle, but his wicked wife, the daughter of
Pohjola (North), bakes a stone inside the bread that is packed as a meal for Kullervo. When cutting the bread, Kullervo breaks against the stone his
puukko knife, his only heritage of his father, and infuriated by this he swears revenge. In his relentless, fierce hate of the unjustly oppressed, he puts a magical spell on the bears and wolves of the forest, driving them to kill all the cattle and the wicked wife as well.
