HITLER WARNS OF TOTAL WAR; NOW EXTENDS IRE TO FRANCE (1/31/40)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, McHenry Library, U.C. Santa Cruz | 1/31/40 | Otto D. Tolischus, Raymond Daniell, K.J. Eskelund

[CougarGA7]

Day 63 of the Winter War, January 31, 1940

Northern Finland: the Finnish defences repulse a massive Soviet offensive at Saija in the Kuhmo sector.
Photo: SA-KUVA

Enemy attacks ship carrying children to Sweden

• Northern Finland: the Finnish defences repulse a massive Soviet offensive at Saija in the Kuhmo sector.

• Lake Ladoga: the enemy carries out a number of assaults on islands in the lake.

• Northern Finland: Finnish troops defeat a Russian ski battalion at Silmälampi and Löytövaara. The enemy loses 160 men and a large amount of automatic weapons.

• The township of Rovaniemi suffers five dead in heavy bombing. The enemy is increasingly selecting civilian targets.

• Prime Minister Ryti sends Finland's response to continuing contacts with the Soviet Union to Chargé d'Affaires Erkko in Stockholm.

• A ship carrying children to Sweden is attacked by Soviet submarines.

• Another staffed field ambulance leaves Stockholm for Finland.

• Southern Ostrobothnia: the closing ceremonies for the 1939 session of Parliament begin in Kauhajoki with a church service at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The ceremonies end with the evacuee Parliament giving three cheers for Finland's freedom.

• Official figures suggest the enemy has conducted 643 air raids over Finland since the outbreak of the war, dropping over 20,000 bombs on a total of 207 different localities.

• Abroad: the Finnish pavilion at the New York World's Fair is also to be kept open for the 1940 exhibition.

• South African wine growers gift Finland 14,000 litres of wine and 7,000 litres of brandy.

[CougarGA7]

It should come already sealed with Mink Oil, shouldn’t it?

[PAR35]

They were still sore about the deal with Stalin, and they turned to the French to get arms to the Finns when Hitler blocked that. If they had been willing to cut a deal with Mussolini like they cut with Stalin at the end of the war (giving them the Balkans, a couple of chunks of Africa, etc), they might have come around.

[henkster]

The fighting north of Lake Ladoga in the past week or so intrigues me. I thought the Soviets threw their first massive thrust at the Finns, got bloodied and then licked their wounds for a while in preparation for Timoshenko’s offensive. Looks like there are still some active operations, and they are still not going well for the Soviets.

[CougarGA7]

I was also a bit surprised by the continual fighting and drubbing the Fins were handing the Soviets. I was like you and though there was one major offensive that was a disaster then a long pause in the action before the next major offensive in late February that resulted in the peace that was bartered.

Down the road when we are no longer rooting for the Fins they only really made an effort to reclaim the lands they lost in the peace and in the process missed an opportunity to exit the war with their 1939 border back (Interesting diplomatic exchange really). The German’s were really hoping they were going to be more aggressive. It may have made Leningrad a different story that’s for sure.

[Canedawg]

Wow, it was a busy newsday.

among the other,larger articles was that interesting tidbit about Germany using psyops against the Turks.

Thanks for the post.

[BroJoeK]

"Probably means that it is almost impossible to start "

When I was a small boy, an uncle had a Nash, and now that you mention it, that IS what I remember most about it. ;-)

[BroJoeK]

"You have to wonder if better diplomacy at this point might have flipped the Italians."

Mussolini had already been flipped -- in the mid-30s -- from the allies to the Nazis.

The reason was Mussolini's desire to build a new "Roman Empire," beginning in Ethiopia. The Brits & French would not agree, but Mussolini found more sympathy in Germany.

Later the allies' timidity in the face of German aggression in the Rhineland and Austria convinced Mussolini to go with the stronger power.

[henkster]

We can still root for the Finns. The United States never declared war on Finland.

[CougarGA7]

True, we didn’t, but they did throw their lot in with the Germans. Makes it all the more a shame that when at the end of 1941 when they had an opportunity to get out of the war with their pre-1939 border plus some that they didn’t. They were too influenced by the other major power that at the time appeared to be winning among the two around her. Even after the war Finland found itself biased to the major power around it, in this case just the Soviet Union. The term for a smaller country that designs its policy to match the needs of a large neighboring power is even called “Finlandization”