"Soldiers, Arise!"

"The Russian troops the Kremlin High Command has thrown against the eastern side of the Karelian bottleneck are probably the most miserable-looking creatures to be seen in uniform in this part of Europe since Napoleon's half-starved soldiers straggled back from Moscow. This is not anti-Bolshevist propaganda, but hard fact."

So wrote Correspondent Leland Stowe of the Chicago Daily News last week after interviewing a batch of prisoners brought in by the unconquered Finns. Correspondent Stowe found them "helpless, tragic wretches. . . . The Russians wore Army overcoats of a cheap, part-wool mixture and uniforms of quilted cotton. . . . None of the men we saw had high boots, but they had ordinary shoes--and several of them, as a result, had feet so frozen they could hardly walk. . . . All said they were reservists, mostly of the class of 1925, and had been called up only three months ago. Most of these men were between 37 and 40. . . . The Finnish colonel said: 'Such infantry we have never seen. . . . They are cannon fodder, but no soldiers.' "

These details, corroborated by other correspondents did much to explain the bog-down of Russia's would-be Blitzkrieg. What possessed Joe Stalin to hurl such cannon fodder at the well-trained Finns could only be guessed. Perhaps he thought cannon fodder could win. Perhaps he is trying to wear down Finnish resistance with inferior troops, saving his best troops to mop up. In any case, by this week fresh thousands of Russians had been thrown into battle on three fronts, attacking the Finns day & night, in wave after wave, trying by sheer force of numbers to beat down their resistance.

Southern Front. After two weeks of holding off repeated thrusts at their Mannerheim defenses in the Karelian Isthmus, the Finns last week began to retake ground previously lost to the Russians. By week's end detailed accounts of fighting became available. Trying to flank the Mannerheim Line, the Russians organized a big attack along the west bank of Lake Laatokka, where the Taipale River flows into the lake. First they had to cross the river, and a Finnish soldier told the United Press's Webb Miller what happened to 500 Russians there.

"They pushed out into the river there. The boats were swarming with men. Our artillery had been held in reserve. It had not fired and the Russians did not know where it was. We opened up on them when they got to the middle of the river. They had gone 100 yards and had 100 more to go. All their boats were blown to pieces. The river was full of dead and wounded and drowning men. The drowning ones screamed. Their heavy overcoats and equipment made it impossible for them to swim. We machine-gunned the masses of them and picked them off with rifles. Nearly every man was drowned or shot."

Balked in this movement, the Russians tried again to get around the north shore of Lake Laatokka between Loimola and the lake. After heavy shelling, their armored cars, tanks and infantry went into action, only to be beaten back by the Finns' own anti-tank guns.

In the middle of the isthmus, near Punnuojoki, the Russians attacked in waves. The Finns stood their ground behind their granite-slab defenses, finally sent them running. The Finns said they took 33 tanks at Loimola and on the isthmus, three of them null In 17 days' fighting they claimed to have captured 250 Russian tanks.

As for the Finns, they continued to harass the invaders, refused to start an offensive which might cost them valuable man power. Their sharpshooters picked Russian observers out of trees. At night, raiding parties of three, armed with their light machine guns, crossed the lakes and rivers in boats, slipped up on the Russians in bivouac and slaughtered them.

Central Front. Russia's most potent threat to Finland came, not from the isthmus, but from four columns which penetrated the 485-mile frontier between Lake Laatokka and the Arctic Circle, striking westward at Finnish railheads and roadheads, trying to reach the Gulf of Bothnia. Last fortnight one of these columns was reported to have captured Kemijaervi and to be bearing down on Rovaniemi, which lies on Finland's Arctic Highway. Last week the Finns rushed troops north from the isthmus and in a surprise attack recaptured Salla, cutting this Russian column off from its base, leaving it marooned somewhere on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

The same tactics worked at Suomussalmi, past which a Russian column was thrusting across Finland's narrowest part toward Uolu on the Gulf. In a four-day battle the Finns cut the roads leading from Suomussalmi church to the frontier, then stormed into Suomussalmi village, routed Russian tanks, and trapped a Russian force they estimated at 10,000. If the Finns could prevent this force from working in conjunction with the columns to the north and south, Russia's Bothnian threat would be ended and the lost columns could be starved, frozen or carved to death.

At Tolvajaervi, where Finland bulges into Russian East Karelia, the Finns fought a three-day battle in which they reported that two Russian regiments were "almost entirely destroyed." The Finnish communique added that "our troops are following the retreating enemy," and unofficial reports had it that they had chased Stalin's cannon fodder back into Russia and were striking toward the Leningrad-Murmansk railway, Russia's main supply line to its whole northern front.

Northern Front. There the Russians, evidently using better troops, made their only important gains, but these were serious enough for the Finns. Sweeping down from Petsamo, the Russians took the nickel-mining town of Salmijaervi, but not before the Finns had blown up the mines and set every shack afire. The Finns retreated towards Pitkajaervi, where they prepared themselves for a stand. At week's end fires burned in the Arctic night along

40 miles of the Finnish-Norwegian frontier, while all along that same line the desperate Finns were battling to delay the swift Russian advance. The Russians had cut off Finland's only outlet to the Arctic Ocean, were holding the northern end of the Arctic Highway, and were again threatening the Finnish supply lines from Sweden by a swift southward thrust on the highway.

Diplomatic Front. Still woefully weak in both man power and material, the Finns left nothing undone to get aid. To keep their U. S. reputation as good debtors (which privately they consider highly amusing) they paid the $234,693 installment on their loan. Tickled pink by the League of Nations' expulsion of Russia (see p. 75), the Finnish delegation to the League got busy drawing up a list of needed supplies. Heading this list must be airplanes and artillery, without which Finland cannot hope to win--especially if Coach Stalin sends his first team into the game. More to keep Finland's slate clean than through any hope of success, Foreign Minister Vaino Tanner appealed to Russia's Premier V. M. Molotov by radio (the only medium by which he can address him), offering Russia "even greater concessions."

To the Russian Army, the Helsinki radio appealed in the best tradition of the U. S. S. R.: "Soldiers, arise! Destroy the provocateurs responsible for this war!"

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