"Hit Them in the Belly"

On the north shore of Lake Laatokka lies the busy sawmill town of Sortavala, strategically as important a town as there is in all of Finland. Sortavala is the junction of two railroads, one leading north to Finland's waist, which the Russians have been trying to cut, the other going southwest to Viipuri and the Mannerheim Line, which the Russians have been trying to storm. Through this town pass Finnish troops withdrawn from one front to reinforce the other. If Russia had Sortavala, the mobility of the Finnish Army would be dangerously curtailed and Russia would have a railroad on which to drive toward Viipuri. For two months the Russians have been trying to take this town. Last week their effort had developed into one of the bitterest battles of the war.

All week long the Russians pounded at the Finnish lines along the Aittojoki and the Kollaanjoki (joki is Finnish for river), northeast of Sortavala. They fought valiantly, desperately, for behind them the Finns were beginning to close in, ahead of them the Finns had already trapped two divisions of their comrades. These two beleaguered Russian divisions were at Kitela, only 24 miles east of Sortavala, and had been there for weeks. Using the same tactics that had won at Suomussalmi (TIME, Jan. 22), the Finns had first retreated, then made a stand at Kitela, while encircling forces cut the Russian supply lines. Their food gone, the Russians had to live on provisions dropped by parachute. But last week help was no nearer than the Kollaan and Aitto rivers, and the two divisions at Kitela, their morale sapped by hunger and cold, could not even flee back to Russia.

Shells from the Finnish Fort Mantsi barred their retreat by road. And to the northeast, between the trapped divisions and their would-be rescuers, the woods were full of Finns. The relief forces, reported to be led by Russia's famed, swashbuckling Marshal Simeon Budenny, pounded the Finns' granite defense lines with artillery until the frozen earth was a morass of mud and slush, but every time they tried to break through they were caught in a murderous cross fire. As the Russian attacks grew weaker, the Finns took the offensive, capturing tanks and armored cars. Russian casualties mounted. The Finns, too, left many dead, but the Russian push was so disorganized that the Finns began to talk of the battle as the "biggest victory" of the war. Foreigners in Helsinki, who had doubted that the Finns could resist a determined drive to flank the Mannerheim Line, were amazed at the strength of the Finnish mobile defense. To the Finns it was just another example of the efficacy of their Commander in Chief's standing order to his Army: "Hit them in the belly." Well does Field Marshal Mannerheim know that supply is Russia's weakness in this war, as it has been in all of Russia's wars.

Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim has been preparing for war against Russia ever since his Government refused to let him lead a Finnish White Army against Petrograd in 1918. To his implacable hatred of everything Red may be attributed some of Stalin's nervousness over the security of the U. S. S. R., which was a remote cause of the present Russo-Finnish war. To it Finland certainly owes her continued independence, for the defense tactics that have so amazed the Russians and the world were planned long before Russia invaded Finland last fall. And the man who planned them--and whom the Finns revere--was the Mannerheim who served for 29 years in the Army of the Tsars and who ruthlessly won in Finland one of the bloodiest civil wars in history.

What Became of Gustaf. Baron Mannerheim has almost nothing in common with the average Finn except a highly developed individualism. The Finns came to their country from east of the Volga. They were trappers, woodsmen and farmers, people who never had much and could take a lot of punishment, who, though their country has been ruled by both Sweden and Russia, were never subdued by anybody. The first Mannerheim of record was a Swedish merchant named Marheim, of Dutch or German descent, who died in 1667. His grandson picked up a title and his son, who was named Carl Erik Mannerheim, moved to Finland as a major in an infantry regiment and was condemned to death (later pardoned) for participating in an officers' revolt against the Crown. The next Mannerheim was a judge and entomologist and the next one started out as a spoiled intellectual rebel and ended up as a tycoon with a rich wife. He had eight children, of whom the first, Sophia, became an internationally famed trained nurse. The third was named Carl Gustaf Emil. In him was a little of the tycoon, a little of the scientist, a great deal of the rebel. Wrote his mother to a friend: "I can feel secure about all the rest of my children, but what in heaven's name is going to become of Gustaf?"

Gustaf grew up on the family estate at Louhisaari, of which Sophia's biographer wrote: "The ceiling of the Church salon is decorated with paintings depicting Admiral Klaus Fleming's sea battles, while the murals of the Devil's Chamber depict a mellower 18th-Century splendor. . . . The park and gardens are especially well planned and cared for. . . . Behind the park glittered the bay of the sea. . . . That this kind of childhood home engendered refinement and sensitivity to beauty in its inhabitants is natural."

Gustaf (who probably liked the Devil's Chamber better than the Church salon) was packed off to the Hamina Cadet School at the age of 14 and immediately established himself as a leader. He went on to the Nikolaev Cavalry School in Russia proper and came out a second lieutenant in 1889, aged 22. Two years later he wangled a transfer to the Tsar's Chevalier Guard. After his marriage to Anastasia, daughter of Major General Nikolai Arapov of the Tsar's suite, Lieutenant Mannerheim's advance was rapid. He became a first lieutenant in 1893, a second captain in 1899, a captain of cavalry in 1901. In 1904 he went off to fight in the Russo-Japanese War as a lieutenant colonel of dragoons, returned two years later a colonel with three decorations. Meanwhile his wife had moved to the south of France, where she lived until she died.

By 1906 Colonel Mannerheim was marked as a coming man in the service of the Tsar. That year he was picked to head a sort of glorified spying expedition through Asia to Peking. Purpose of the trip was to learn how hostile mandarins and officials had accepted the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War, to pick up useful military data for possible future use. The Mannerheim party traveled 8,750 miles on horseback, lost two Cossacks from the hardships of the journey, had many adventures. Colonel Mannerheim kept the Dalai Lama waiting to receive him while he carefully shaved and dressed, made his peace with the gift of a revolver, which he showed the Lama how to use. At Lhabrang Monastery he was hissed and stoned by pilgrims. The expedition took two years, gave Colonel Mannerheim a reputation as a scientist as well as a soldier, made him a commander of Uhlans. In 1913 he rose to be commander of the Tsar's Uhlan bodyguard. When the war broke out he was a major general.

Next month he was at Opatow protecting Russian mobilization. When the division of which his brigade was a part was attacked by strong Austro-German forces, his general, Delsal, sent him orders to retreat to the right. Major General Mannerheim retired to the left, guarded the only road of retreat, saved the division. He got the order of St. George for that, with a special commendation for disobedience.

From 1915 to 1917, he was on the Bessarabian and Rumanian fronts. After the March Revolution in Russia, Disciplinarian Mannerheim began to have trouble with his younger officers, tried to punish them for insubordination, was overruled by the General Staff. No democrat, but an officer who had been close to the Tsar, he was in a ticklish position. Conveniently developing a sprained foot, he left the front on a doctor's orders, was met" in Odessa by a telegram relieving him of his command. On Dec. 6, 1917, the Finnish Diet declared that region's independence from Russia and Mannerheim started for home. Stories differ as to how he got there. One version says he wore his dress uniform and commandeered a train. Another that he disguised himself as a porter.

Red War, White Terror. Accounts also differ as to the details of General Mannerheim's conduct in Finland's civil war, but the bold outlines are clear. When he reached Helsinki he found the city, and Finland, in chaos. Rioting had been going on since March. A Red Guard had sprung up in support of the Social Democrat Party, which had just lost its majority in the Diet. A White Guard was also being organized around officers of the old Imperial Army, had succeeded in getting arms & ammunition smuggled into the port of Vaasa, on the Gulf of Bothnia. Mannerheim went to Vaasa. Late in January the Social Democrats seized the government, proclaimed Finland a Socialist Workers Republic. Instead of the coup d'etat they had planned, they got a civil war. A few White members of the Senate escaped from Helsinki to Vaasa, proclaimed themselves the legal government of Finland, appointed Mannerheim Commander in Chief.

Stiffened by a Jaeger Battalion from Germany (Finns who had joined the German Army), Mannerheim moved on Tampere, the Reds' northern stronghold. Although he had been promised more help from Germany (German troops this time), his reinforcements failed to arrive on schedule and he laid siege to Tampere alone. Helped by lack of discipline among the Reds, he took his time, encircled the city, waited for food to run low. When the Reds were thoroughly disorganized he stormed the city, took 10,000 prisoners.

Meanwhile 12,000 Germans under Gen eral Graf Rudiger von der Goltz had landed in Finland. They took Hanko for the Whites, moved on to Helsinki, pushing the Reds back toward the Karelian Isthmus. The Whites took Vuepuri, the Reds fled into Russia, and on May 16, 1918, Mannerheim rode into Helsinki in triumph.

Of the White Terror that followed the civil war there are many conflicting stories, but nobody denies that Reds were executed by the thousands, that thousands of others died in concentration camps and many more thousands fled to Russia. The Communist press claims 30,000 were executed, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says 15,000. Finnish Government sources put the figure at 2,000 executions, 10,000 dead of flu. Whatever the cause and the figure, they got rid of the Finnish Workers Republic.

His work in Finland accomplished, irrepressible General Mannerheim wanted to march his army into East Karelia and move on Petrograd in conjunction with the British Murmansk expedition. But the White Government, grateful to Ger many for her help in the civil war and thinking she was winning the World War, vetoed any cooperation with England. Mannerheim resigned in a huff and the newly elected Regent, Per Svinhufvud, asked the Kaiser to name one of his sons King of Finland. The Kaiser proposed his brother-in-law, Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse, who was promptly elected by the Finnish Diet. Next thing the Finns knew, the Allies had won the war and Finland was caught with its pants down. The only man who could get them up was Mannerheim.

Mannerheim drove a hard bargain. The two principles that had caused him to quit the previous May were accepted by the group in power: 1) no rapprochement with Germany; 2) retention of a strong Finnish Army. Mannerheim went to London and Paris, dickered for recognition. When he returned to Helsinki, Regent Svinhufvud resigned, Prince Friedrich Karl renounced his right to the throne, and Mannerheim became Regent of Finland.

He might have become its first President after the Republic was established five months later, if he had not kept clamoring for war against the Bolsheviki and vengeance against the Reds still in prison. Finland was tired of war, sick of vengeance. On a platform of amnesty for the Reds, Professor K. J. Stahlberg was elected President by 143 Parliamentary votes to 50 for General Mannerheim. The hard-bitten soldier (he was 52 then) retired to Louhisaari, to be heard from often again.

As a private citizen he devoted himself with single-minded zeal to bulldozing his country into preparedness. He wrote four textbooks on defensive tactics, one for each season of the year. He hounded the Government into increasing each year the 12% of its budget it originally appropriated for the military. He organized the Civic Guard, 100,000 strong, as a permanent reserve force. In 1931 his old sidekick, Per Svinhufvud, then President, made him President of the Council of Defense. Two years later he became Finland's only Field Marshal. Mannerheim threatened to wash his hands of the whole business of defense unless the Government established conscription. It did.

Even before he became head of the Defense Council, he had spied out promising young officers in the Army, had them sent to France and Germany to study military science. Back in Finland, these men rose quickly to key positions, worked out in detail the tactics Mannerheim laid down. When the war began and he returned as Commander in Chief of all of Finland's armed forces, they knew what they had to do.

Three O's. No one man's triumph has been the brilliant defense put up by the Finns so far. Close to the Field Marshal in mapping strategy is Major General Karl Lennart Oesch, Chief of Staff of the Army and one of the bright young men Manner heim had sent to Germany for training.

Another is General Hugo Ostermann, Commander in Chief of the Army and the man credited with directing most of the quick thrusts and counter-thrusts that have so disorganized the Russians. He fought for Germany in World War I. And in charge of the Karelian Isthmus is General Harald Ohquist, who helped to design the series of positions that have come to be known as the Mannerheim Line. Finns say he knows every boulder on the isthmus. So well has he defended it against terrific frontal assaults that the Finns thought up a story about it. A Russian soldier knocks at the gates of Heaven and St. Peter opens the gates. "So you're dead now?" says St. Peter. "Oh, no," says the Russian. "According to the official communique, I'm still advancing on the Karelian Isthmus."

But General Mannerheim and his men were none too sanguine last week. Grateful as they were for the help they have received, they know it will not be enough if the Russians keep on pounding. With the Allies pledged to their support, the Finns may have enough men and materials to fight Russia on almost equal terms in the spring, but spring may be too late. Last month General Mannerheim gave to the Allies a clear warning that they could not delay too long. To a correspondent of Paris-Soir he said: "If our foresight, de termination and the unlimited courage of our men have halted the first wave of savage columns of the invader, I desire that nobody forget for long that we fight against 50 to 1."

And if help does not arrive in time, Baron Mannerheim has no doubt about what will happen to his country. Added the 72 -year-old Generalissimo: "We shall fight to the last old man and child. We shall burn our forests and houses, destroy our cities and industries, and what we yield will be cursed by the scourge of God."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.