War of Liberty (Mannerheim's Finland)

Escalation of War The escalation towards war began in early January 1918, as each military or political act of the Reds or the Whites resulted in a corresponding counteraction by the opponent. Both sides justified the acts as defensive measures, particularly to their own supporters. On the left, the vanguard of the war was the active, urban Red Guards from Helsinki, Kotka and Turku; they led the rural Reds, and convinced the socialist leaders who wavered between peace and war to support revolution. On the right, the vanguard of the conflict was the Jägers who had been moved to Finland by the end of 1917, and the active volunteer White Guards of Viipuri province in the southeastern corner of Finland, southwestern Finland and southern Ostrobothnia. The first local battles were fought during 9–21 January in southern and southeastern Finland, mainly to win the race for weapons and for controlling the Viipuri town. The Svinhufvud Senate and the Parliament decided, on 12 January 1918 to create a "State power of internal order and discipline", leaning on the White forces. On 15 January, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a competent former general of the Imperial Russian Army, was appointed supreme commander of the White Guards. He established a major power base in Vaasa-Seinäjoki area. The Senate renamed the White Guards, the Finnish White Army and the White Order to engage was issued, on 25 January. The Whites gained weaponry by disarmament of Russian garrisons during 21–28 January, in particular in southern Ostrobothnia. The Red Guards, led by Ali Aaltonen, refused to recognise the Whites Guard's power status, and decided to establish a military authority of their own. Aaltonen placed the Red power base in Helsinki. The Red Order of Revolution was issued on 26 January 1918, and a red lantern, a symbolic indicator of the Uprising, was lit in the tower of the Helsinki Workers' Hall. The large scale mobilization of the Reds began in the late evening of 27 January, with the Helsinki Guard and some of the Guards located along the Viipuri-Tampere railway having become active between 23–26 January, in order to safeguard vital positions and escort a heavy railroad shipment of Bolsheviks' weapons from Petrograd to Finland.

Initiation
At the beginning of the war, a discontinuous front line ran through southern Finland from west to east, dividing the country into White Finland and Red Finland. The Red Guards controlled the area to the south, including nearly all the major towns and industrial centres, and the largest estates and farms with high numbers of crofters and tenant farmers. The White Army controlled the area to the north, which was predominantly agrarian with small or medium-sized farms and tenant farmers, and where crofters were few, or held a better social position than in the south. Enclaves of the opposing forces existed on both sides of the front line: within the White area lay the industrial towns of Varkaus, Kuopio, Oulu, Raahe, Kemi and Tornio; within the Red area lay Porvoo, Kirkkonummi and Uusikaupunki. The elimination of these strongholds was a priority for both armies in February 1918. Red Finland, called also the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic, was led by the People's Delegation, established on 28 January, in Helsinki. The delegation sought democratic socialism based on the Finnish Social Democratic ethos; their visions differed from Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat. Otto Ville Kuusinen formulated a proposal for a new constitution, influenced by those of Switzerland and the United States. Political power was to be concentrated to Parliament, with a lesser role for Senate. The proposal included a multi-party system, freedom of assembly, speech and press, and the use of referenda in political decision making. In order to ensure the power of the labour movement, the common people would have a right to "continuous revolution". The socialists planned to give marked part of property rights to the state and local administrations. All these plans, including the new constitution, remained unfulfilled, as the Reds lost the 1918 war.

Finnish Whites
The government of White Finland, Pehr Evind Svinhufvud's first senate, was called the Vaasa Senate after relocation to the west-coast city of Vaasa, acting as the capital of the Whites from 29 January to 3 May. In domestic policy the White Senate's main goal was to return the political right to power in Finland. The conservatives planned a monarchist political system, with a lesser role for Parliament. A section of the conservatives had always supported monarchy and opposed democracy; others approved parliamentarianism since the revolutionary reform of 1906, but after the crisis of 1917-1918 concluded, that empowering the common people would not work. Social liberals and reformist non-socialists opposed any restriction of parliamentarianism. They initially resisted German military help, but the prolonged warfare changed their stance.

In foreign policy, the Vaasa Senate leaned on the German Empire for military and political aid, in order to defeat the Finnish Red Guards, end the influence of Bolshevist Russia in Finland, and expand Finnish territory to Russian/East Karelia, which held geopolitical significance, and was home to people speaking Finno-Ugric languages (Irredentist campaigns/Heimosodat). The weakness of Russia induced an idea of Greater Finland among the expansive factions of both the right and left; the Reds had claims concerning the same areas. General Mannerheim agreed on the need to take over eastern Karelia and for German weapons, but opposed German intervention in Finland. Mannerheim recognized the lack of combat skills of the Finnish Red Guards, and he leaned on the high military skills of the Finnish Jägers. As a former Russian army officer, Mannerheim was well aware of the demoralization of the Russian army. He co-operated with White Russian officers in Finland and Russia.

Red Nationals
A Finnish-Russian Red treaty and peace agreement was signed on 1 March 1918. The negotiations for the treaty revealed, that, as in World War I in general, nationalism was more important for both sides than the principles of international socialism. The Red Finns did not accept alliance with the Bolsheviks and major disputes appeared e.g. over demarcation of the border between Red Finland and Soviet Russia. The bargaining sides exchanged land areas; an artillery base, Ino, located in the Karelian Isthmus, was transferred to Russia, while Finland received Petsamo in north-eastern Lapland. The significance of the Russian-Finnish Treaty evaporated soon, due to the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between the Bolsheviks and the German Empire on 3 March 1918.

Finnish Bolsheviks
Although influential though few in number and favoured annexation of Finland by Russia, the question of annexation, in the aftermath of World War I, was resolved by the defeat of Red Finland and weakness of Russia.

Battle of Tampere (15th March - 6th April 1918)
The most famous and the heaviest of all the Finnish Civil War battles. The aftermath was particularly bloody as Whites executed hundreds of capitulated Reds and took 11,000 prisoners placed in the Kalevankangas camp.

Battle of Helsinki (12th - 13th April 1918)
Fought between the German troops and Finnish Whites against the Finnish Reds. Together with the battles of Tampere and Vyborg, it was one of the three major urban battles of the Finnish Civil War. The Germans invaded Helsinki despite the opposition of Mannerheim who wanted to attack the capital city with his own troops after Tampere had fallen on 6 April. However, the Germans had their own interests of taking Helsinki as quick as possible and then moving further east towards the Russian border. The city had been under Red control for 11 weeks since the beginning of the war.

The German Baltic Sea Division landed Finland on 3 April and entered the Helsinki area eight days later. In the city centre, the defending Reds did not have defensive lines or barricades but were fighting inside single buildings and blocks, which the Germans then had to take one by one. During the battle, the life in Helsinki went on as usual. The shops and restaurants were open, the public transportation was in function and the factories were running. The curious spectators were wandering so close that the Germans had to told them move back. The White supporters considered Germans as liberators and handed them flowers as well as tea, coffee and snacks to eat.

Nearly 500 people were killed in the battle. The number includes about 400 Red Guard fighters who were killed in action or executed after capitulation, 54 Germans and 23 White Guard members. The number of executed Reds is unclear, but the it is estimated between 20 and 50. After the battle, from 4,000 to 6,000 Red Guard members or supporters was arrested.

Battle of Lahti (19th April - 1st May 1918)
Fought between the German troops and Finnish Whites against the Finnish Reds. The German unit Detachment Brandenstein, commanded by the colonel Otto von Brandenstein, attacked Lahti on 19 April, taking the town by the next evening. At the same time, a column of tens of thousands of Red refugees was approaching Lahti from the west. On 22 April, the Reds launched a counterattack in order to break through the German lines and clear way for the fleeing people. The attempt failed and the Reds finally surrendered on 1 May. As a result, the Whites and Germans captured about 30,000 Reds and their family members who were placed to a concentration camp in the outskirts of Lahti.

Battle of Vyborg (24th - 29th April 1918)
Fought between the Finnish Whites against the Finnish Reds in Vyborg. The bloody aftermath resulted in Whites executing up to 400 non-aligned military personnel and civilians of Russian and associated ethnicities in an effort to kill all of the suspected Red Guards.

Consolidation
With the majority defeat of the Finnish Red Guard, the remaining forces were pushed to Petrograd on 25 April 1918. The escape of the Red leadership imbittered the Red troopers. Thousands of them, without true leadership, tried to flee to Russia, but most the refugees were besieged by the White and the German troops. The remaining Red forces in Finland surrendered 1-2 May.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had placed the both the Baltic states and Finland under the German Empires sphere of influence. Although the conservative senate relied heavily on German intervention, something Mannerheim appreciated as a necessity in order to overcome the Reds but reluctuntly cooperated.

Mannerheim felt ignored in his desires to push further into Russian terrority by White Finnish Government. In particular, to secure Finnish independence by controlling the geopolitical significance and natural defence of the three Isthmus areas east of Finland. Mannerheim had previously been part of the Imperial Russian Army. He understood the signifance the lack of morale the Bolshevik army had. It was also imperative to support White Russians which coincided with the ambitions of the conversative democracy that was apparent in Finland.

A monumental defeat to the Reds in Finland meant the White Army could use the momentum they had gained in their capture of Vyborg and For t Ino to move towards Petrograd. He tried to argue to Government that this also coincides with the desires of the German Empire to secure a land route for it's Sphere of Influence to Finland through the Baltic states and further weakens Russia's western influence through lack of a Baltic harbour.

The Government reluctantly agreed yet expressed to Mannerheim that German intervention in this offensive would be next to minimal due to their recent signing of Brest-Litovsk treaty. He would however have access to full use of German surplus supplies stationed in Helsinki and operations would be managed with cooperation of Rüdiger von der Goltz, leader of the German Empire's forces in Finland.

Petrograd Campaign
The battle of Vyborg had been arranged by an 18,000 strong White Army led by Ernst Löfström. This would be the majority force that would march onto Petrograd.

Mannerheim was in communication with Imperial Russian turned Russian White General Nikolai Yudenich. Yudenich claimed he need more time over the summer period in order to mass a larger army to attack Petrograd. Mannerheim stated that time was of the essence and an attack needed to be orcastrated earlier before Bolshevik reinforcements arrive to bolster the former capitals defence. He claimed a bolder, pincer attack from both the north and south would squeeze the defending forces out of Petrograd and prove fatal to the Bolshevik cause. Yudenich stated it was simply impossible to fight for both the