Talk:Continuation War

"The Continuation War was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany, as co-belligerents"

That Finland and Germany were "co-belligerents" represents the official position of the wartime Finnish government and is actually a controversial statement. It does not reflect the German or Soviet POV. It also does not reflect the position of majority of historical commentators on this topic, particularly from outside Finland, who often simply state that Finland was an Axis country, fighting on the German side, albeit with caveats about them never having signed the Tripartite pact. Whilst we do open up this subject in the main body of the article I think it wise not to state in the voice of Wiki that this was actually the case - therefore I propose to simply edit this sentence to read:

"The Continuation War was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1941 to 1944, during World War II."

We can explain that Finland was, officially, according to the wartime Finnish government, not a German ally, later on, as well as other POVs that Finland was basically a German ally (including that in the 1947 Peace treaty signed by Finland - meaning that the official Finnish position at least at that point was that Finland had been a German ally). FOARP (talk) 08:36, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

FOARP Congrats, a very expertly done edit!! And couldn't agree more. 212.239.136.225 (talk) 11:07, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Distance to Leningrad

I find this part of the third paragraph misleading:

"By September 1941, Finland had regained its post–Winter War concessions to the Soviet Union [...] However, the Finnish Army continued the offensive past the pre-1939 border [...] halting only around 30–32 km (19–20 mi) from the centre of Leningrad"

It is true that the Finnish army advanced some distance past the pre-1939 border on a section of the Leningrad-facing front (allegedly to straighten the front to make it more defensible), but as far as I can tell, this advance did not bring them any closer to Leningrad than the pre-1939 border had already been, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. In other words, the closest the Finnish army was to Leningrad, the 30-32 km mark mentioned in the article, was on the pre-1939 border; at no point did the Finnish front advance closer to Leningrad than their original border had already been at its closest, contrary to what the wording of the excerpt above implies. --91.153.206.21 (talk) 14:04, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

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Motives for Finland Joining the Invasion of the USSR

The introduction states confidently that Mannerheim wanting East Karelia and the president wanting a Greater Finland were among the possible explanatory factors for Finnish entry to the war. No source is provided.

I tried verifying this in both English and Swedish, and found no credible source corraborating this. I did manage to make a couple of relevant observations, one of which I have a source for.

1) It is unclear and a matter of debate whether Mannerheim wanted East Karelia as stated in the introduction, or just to regain its pre-Winter War borders. Source in Swedish, link goes directly to a PDF, I promise it's safe!

2) I am simply unable to find a reputable well-cited source on wether the President wanted a Greater Finland. There might well be a source out there using that term, but it is very misleading to, withouth any qualifiers, link to the Wikipedia site on Greater Finland. This could for a reasonable reader imply that the president wanted to annex both St. Petersburg and Estonia. This is clearly not the case. It is therefore important to establish what precisely the Finnish president wanted to gain from the Soviet Union. It might be that he only wanted its lost territory back, as is possible for Mannerheim.

The introduction currently gives the reader an impression that the Finns were not only irredentist but also revisionist and expansionist. The Finns were, as far as I am aware, very serious about their war being a very limited one (not joining the Siege of Leninggrad as the common example) This is problematic if this turns out to be untrue; it would also mischaracterize two key Finnish leaders.

I would suggest removing these claims from the introduction until better source-material is found. This should include the unsourced implication and inference that Finnish participance in the war was partly due to the Soviet bombing raid on Finnish cities. A simple observation stating that the USSR bombed Finland before hostilities broke out can probably stand, but needs a "source-needed".

Also - if anyone finds a decent source providing some better answers, please share it as it is relevant for a project I am working on. I just created a Wikipedia-account, so I hope I will be forgiven for making some suggestions without actually editing the text in the main article. I want to make sure I learn a little more about Wiki before I start doing that. Skuggigkul (talk) 19:07, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Skuggigkul - No source will be provided in the introductory section of the article, which is only intended to summarise what is said in the body-text of the article in which citations are provided. I see numerous citations provided for that assertion lower down - is it your assertion that these are not correct? FOARP (talk) 15:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)