Talk:Continuation War

BRD on 6:06 AM vs. 06:06

With these [1] [2] repeated reverts, an editor is insisting on "06:06" instead of "6:06 AM". I've favored the "AM" version, per MOS:COMMONALITY, as American English doesn't understand the "06:06" version to always indicate a 24-hour clock, while both British and American English understand the "AM" version. Yes, it's a minor thing, but the editor isn't responding to invitations avoid more WP:EW and follow WP:BRD. So, here we are. Comments? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 17:35, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

With no counterpoint for over a week, reinstating "6:06 AM", per BRD. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 15:33, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Starting GA build-up

I'll slowly start cleaning, building, editing etc. this article to GA-level similar to what I did at Winter War. Will mean drastic structural changes, archiving unreferenced stuff to talk, heavy copyediting etc. etc. Hopefully done by the end of March for a GA nomination. Cheerio! Manelolo (talk) 15:14, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Just about finished. So far 1) full copyedit 2) full restructuring 3) added new bits of prose e.g. order of battle, Siege of Leningrad pondering, peace process, aftermath 4) checkrf pictures for licences, add new HD ones and balance out 5) full source review and fixing. Most likely will be GAN on the weekend. Manelolo (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Ah, all done and nominating for GA! 231 edits in total and 29,232 bytes added. More than happy to receive critique and amend stuff if I've erred. Manelolo (talk) 14:53, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Ping to editors Whiskey, Wanderer602, Illythr, YMB29 and Germash19 to notify of GAN as well. Manelolo (talk) 16:03, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Actually withdrew GAN for now since a GOCE c/e was suggested. Will nominate again after c/e. Manelolo (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

• The article lacks a section on the trial of Finnish politicians in November 1945. --Germash19 (talk) 11:16, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

  The topic has its own article which is mentioned in the Aftermath section here: "In addition to the original peace terms of restoring the 1940 border, Finland was required to ... conduct domestic war-responsibility trials ..." Manelolo (talk) 11:22, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

• Continuation War is a propagandistic name. In the article, you can tell a little bit about the history of the origin of this name. --Germash19 (talk) 11:40, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

  Added Vehviläinen's history on the term 'Continuation War' within the note just after the name in the lede as well as into the section 'Aspirations, war effort and international relations'. Manelolo (talk) 12:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

• Why in the article Leningrad is depicted in a photo of 2017? There are many old images.--Germash19 (talk) 13:20, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

  It's a gorgeous picture classified as featured on Commons and adds nice bit of colour, splash and continuity to the modern age for the article. Old pictures are abundant in the article as well as other articles of the time. Manelolo (talk) 13:28, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

  In my opinion it's a strange solution. --Germash19 (talk) 18:35, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

  I'm okay with any other solution, f.ex. deleting it. I liked it. :-| And in actuality it's very hard to find good pictures of Leningrad from those days that have a free license on Commons. Manelolo (talk) 16:22, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

• «...past the old border, around 30–32 km (19–20 mi) from Leningrad». There are maps of the front line. There are maps of the borders of Leningrad. The shortest distance from Beloostrov occupied by the Finns to the borders of Leningrad is 16 km.--Germash19 (talk) 19:43, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

  Here's a good map and even Russian! I think that 30–32 km (19–20 mi) is always measured from the city center. Would it be a good compromise if it said "around 30–32 km (19–20 mi) from the center of Leningrad"? I agree that it was around 16 km from the northern outskirts or suburbs from Leningrad (as that map shows), but outskirts or suburbs is always less accurate than center. Also, I could only find exact sources for "30–32 km (19–20 mi)". Manelolo (talk) 14:33, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

  This map does not show the border of the city. The official borders of the city are precise, as well as the state border. :) Agree with «center of Leningrad».--Germash19 (talk) 20:25, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

  Ah, I stand corrected! "Center of Leningrad" it is then. Manelolo (talk) 09:39, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Archive of uncited material

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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• On 21 June, Finnish units began to concentrate at the Finnish-Soviet border, where they were arranged into defensive formations. Finland mobilized 16 infantry divisions, one cavalry brigade, and two jäger brigades, which were all standard infantry brigades, except for an armoured battalion in the 1st Jäger Brigade. Separate battalions were mostly formed from border guard units and were used mainly for reconnaissance. Soviet military plans estimated that Finland would be able to mobilise only ten infantry divisions, as it had done in the Winter War, but they failed to take into account the materiel Finland had purchased between the wars and its training of all available men. Two German mountain divisions were stationed at Petsamo and two infantry divisions at Salla. On the morning of 22 June, the German Mountain Corps Norway began its advance from northern Norway to Petsamo. Finland did not allow direct German attacks from its soil into the Soviet Union. On the same day, another German infantry division was moved from Oslo to face Ladoga Karelia.
• At the same time, Soviet artillery stationed at the Hanko base began to shell Finnish targets, and a minor Soviet infantry attack was launched over the Finnish side of the border in Parikkala.
• Finnish headquarters halted the offensive in Ladoga Karelia on 25 July after reconquering the area of Ladoga Karelia lost to the Soviet Union in 1940 and after advancing as far as Vitele. The Finnish offensive then shifted to other sections of the front.
• The Finnish offensive in East Karelia started in early July in the northern section of the front. In early September, the attack in the northern section reached Rukajärvi (Ругозеро, Rugozero) village and Finnish headquarters halted the offensive there. On August 27, Finnish headquarters ordered the offensive in the south to reach the Svir River. Finnish troops cut the Kirov railroad on 7 September, crossed the Svir on 15 September, and then halted the offensive. Advance troops reached the shores of Lake Onega on 24 September. The town of Petrozavodsk was captured on 1 October after the Soviets withdrew to avoid encirclement. On 6 November, Finnish headquarters ordered their forces to capture Karhumäki and then shift to defense. The Finnish forces captured the area of Karhumäki and Povenets, and halted the offensive in early December.
• The German–Finnish troops were ordered on 17 November to move to defensive operations, when attempts to reach the Murmansk Railway had failed.
• Germany was alarmed by this, and reacted by drawing down shipments of desperately needed materials each time. The idea that Finland had to continue the war while putting its own forces in the least possible danger gained increasing support, perhaps in the hope that the Wehrmacht and the Red Army would wear each other down enough for negotiations to begin, or to at least get them out of the way of Finland's independent decisions. Nationalist elements, including the IKL, may also have continued to hope for an eventual victory by Germany.
• Finland's participation in the war brought major benefits to Germany. The Soviet fleet was blockaded in the Gulf of Finland, so that the Baltic was freed for the training of German submarine crews as well as for German shipping, especially for the transport of vital iron ore from northern Sweden and nickel and rare metals (needed in steel processing) from the Petsamo area. The Finnish front secured the northern flank of the German Army Group North in the Baltic states. The sixteen Finnish divisions tied down numerous Soviet troops, put pressure on Leningrad (although Mannerheim refused to attack it directly), and threatened the Murmansk railway. Additionally, Sweden was further isolated and was increasingly pressured to comply with German and Finnish wishes, though with limited success.
• Although the Soviet Red Banner Baltic fleet started the war in a strong position, German naval mine warfare and aerial supremacy and the rapid advance by German land forces forced the Soviet Navy to evacuate its bases to Kronstadt and Leningrad. The Soviets' evacuations from Tallinn and Hanko proved to be very costly operations for them. As the Soviet Navy withdrew to the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland, it left nearly the whole Baltic Sea, as well as many of the islands, to the German and Finnish navies. Although Soviet submarines caused some threat to German traffic on the Baltic, the withdrawal of the Soviet Navy made the Baltic Sea a "German lake" until the second half of 1944. Although the Soviet Navy left in a hurry, the naval mines it had managed to lay before and during the evacuations caused casualties both to the Germans and the Finns, including the loss of one of the two Finnish coastal defence ships, the Ilmarinen.
• Despite Finland's contributions to the German cause, the Western Allies had ambivalent feelings, torn between residual goodwill for Finland and the need to accommodate their vital ally, the Soviet Union. As a result, Britain declared war against Finland, but the United States did not. With few exceptions, there was no combat between these countries and Finland, but Finnish sailors were interned overseas. In the United States, Finland was denounced for naval attacks made on American Lend-Lease shipments, but received approval for continuing to make payments on its World War I debt throughout the inter-war period.
• Because Finland joined the Anti-Comintern Pact and signed other agreements with Germany, Italy, and Japan, the Allies characterized Finland as one of the Axis Powers, although the term used in Finland is "co-belligerence with Germany", emphasizing the lack of a formal military alliance.
• As in the Winter War, Swedish volunteers were recruited. Until December 1941, these formed the Swedish Volunteer Battalion, which was tasked with guarding the Soviet naval base at Hanko. When it was evacuated by sea in December 1941, the Swedish unit was officially disbanded. During the Continuation War, the volunteers signed up for three to six months of service. In all, over 1,600 Swedish volunteers fought for Finland, although only about 60 remained by the summer of 1944. About a third of the volunteers had previously participated in the Winter War. Another significant group—about a quarter of the men—were Swedish officers on leave.
• From 1942 to 1944 there was also a Schutzstaffel (SS) battalion of volunteers on the northern Finnish front recruited from Norway, then under German occupation, and similarly, some Danes. About 3,400 Estonian volunteers took part. On other occasions, the Finns received a total of about 2,100 Soviet prisoners of war in return for those Soviet POWs they turned over to the Germans. These POWs were mainly Estonians and Karelians who were willing to join the Finnish army. These, as well as some volunteers from occupied Eastern Karelia, formed the Kinship Battalion (Finnish language: Heimopataljoona). At the end of the war, the USSR requested members of the Kinship Battalion to be handed over. Some managed to escape before or during transport, but most of them were either sent to the labor camps or executed.
• Throughout the war, German aircraft operating from airfields in northern Finland attacked British air and naval units based in Murmansk and Archangelsk.
• This sum constituted half of Finland's annual gross domestic product in 1939.
• There are two views of the number of Finnish prisoners of war. The Soviet and Russian view is that of 2,377 Finnish prisoners of war who reached the prison camps 1,954 were returned after the Moscow Armistice. The Finnish view is that of the original approximately 3,500 Finnish prisoners of war, only about 2,000 were returned (more than 40% perished). The difference can be at least partially explained by the Soviet practice of counting only the prisoners who survived to reach a prison camp.
• The territory of Estonia would have provided the Soviet army a favourable base for amphibious invasions and air attacks against Finland's capital, Helsinki, and other strategic targets in Finland, and would have severed Finnish access to the sea. The initial German reaction to Finland's announcement of ambitions for a separate peace was limited to only verbal opposition. However, the Germans then arrested hundreds of sailors on Finnish merchant ships in Germany, Denmark, and Norway.
• Previously, in return for critically needed food and defense materiel from the Germans, President Ryti had personally committed, in writing, that no separate peace with the Soviets would be attempted. Accordingly, it became clear that he must resign, paving the way for a separate peace. Finland's military leader Mannerheim was appointed president in an extraordinary procedure by the Finnish parliament. In agreeing to take office, he accepted responsibility for ending the war.
• Nevertheless, in contrast to the rest of the Eastern front countries, where the war was fought to the end, a Soviet occupation of Finland did not occur and the country retained sovereignty. Neither did the Communists rise to power as they had in the Eastern Bloc countries. A policy called the Paasikivi–Kekkonen line formed the basis of Finnish foreign policy towards the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991.
• Finland adopted the concept of a "parallel war" whereby it sought to pursue its own objectives in concert with, but separate from, Nazi Germany, as "co-belligerents".
• The subsequent Soviet and Allied advances towards Germany drew away the interest in military operations from Northern Europe, hastening the end of the Continuation War.
• On 4 September 1944, the cease-fire ended military actions on the Finnish side. The Soviet Union ended hostilities exactly 24 hours after the Finns. An armistice between the Soviet Union and Finland was signed in Moscow on 19 September. Finland had to make many concessions: the Soviet Union regained the borders of 1940, with the addition of the Petsamo area (now Pechengsky District, Russia); the Porkkala peninsula (adjacent to Helsinki) was leased to the USSR as a naval base for fifty years; and transit rights were granted. Finland's army was to be demobilized with haste, but Finland was first required to expel all German troops from its territory within 14 days. As the Germans did not leave Finland by the given deadline, the Finns fought their former co-belligerents in the Lapland War. Finland was also required to clear the minefields in Karelia (including East Karelia) and in the Gulf of Finland. Retreating German forces had also mined northern Finland heavily. The demining was a long operation, especially in the sea areas, lasting until 1952. One-hundred Finnish army personnel were killed and over 200 wounded during this process, most of them in Lapland.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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RFC: Scope of "result" included in the infobox

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the infobox's "result" parameter include subsidiary bullet points as "Finland retains independence" and "(more...)", or not? RedUser (talk) 09:41, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

No: As per Talk:Winter_War#RFC:_Scope_of_"result"_included_in_the_infobox and Winter War, the wisest option seems to be to just have "Moscow Armistice (See Aftermath)" with both appropriately linked. (Interestingly, the aforementioned RFC was initiated by Bertdrunk, which now redirects to Berty688, with amazingly similar language as RedUser above.) Manelolo (talk) 15:35, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

See also Talk:Battle_of_France#RFC_-_"Decisive" for an RFC on a somewhat similar issue. Manelolo (talk) 14:44, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

No: we do not list all consequences of a war include in the infobox. (Furthermore, I am not sure that the maintenance of the independence of Finland is a result of the war.) Borsoka (talk) 04:49, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

No Soviet victory and the Moscow armistice explain the result. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:35, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Aftermath and death toll of Siege of Leningrad

Currently the article, in the Aftermath section, lists the dead civilians from Siege of Leningrad among the casualties of the Continuation war, from what I see and hear, only Russians view Finland as a (willing-) participant in the siege of the city, as such I am not sure whether inclusion of the dead from the Siege in this article, or the very least that particular section, is proper. Ape89 (talk) 00:27, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

@Ape89: The issue is not simple by any means and I tried to write the whole siege issue as neutrally as possible. Some authors say Finns did participate, some say they didn't. Some use different variations of the word 'participate', such as "cut supply routes", some use different tones. IMHO, keeping the casualties there is transparent and per WP:NEUTRAL. See also Talk:Continuation_War/Archive_16#Proposed_infobox_modifications. (although I removed civilian casualties from both sides in the infobox since an infobox is usually an open ground for edit wars due to its simplicity).

Thus, I added a large-ish disclaimer in front of the casualties to prevent any future flames of war from either sides of the aisle. See if you have any suggestions what would be better! Manelolo (talk) 01:16, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Is it only the Russians that can look at the map? The controversy, imho, is not whether or not Finland participated in the infamous siege, but to what degree was their role compatible to that of their "co-beligerents" the nazis. Mudriy zmei (talk) 03:05, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

The key word here is the "Willing" in "willing participant", Finland would have been a participant in the siege no matter where the Finnish Army halted its advance in 1941. Ape89 (talk) 07:12, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Война-продолжение in preamble

Removed «Война-продолжение». This is a translation from Finnish (English) to Russian. But here the section is in English, not in Russian, and the translation is not needed. This war in Russian was not called «Война-продолжение». The title of this war in Russian (not translated from another language) is available in the article. For an example of an article with a similar situation: Eastern Front (World War II), Siege of Leningrad.--Germash19 (talk) 14:04, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Manelolo (talk) 08:21, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Lead citations

What's the rationale for having so many citations in the lead? They look awful. --John (talk) 16:58, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:CITELEAD etc. (see also Talk:Winter_War#Citations_in_the_lead and Talk:Winter_War#rfc_AD71249). Manelolo (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

This is not a rationale for having them. --John (talk) 18:35, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Rationale added within hidden comment. Manelolo (talk) 21:26, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Making short citations consistent

I have done about half of the work necessary to make the short citations consistent. They were using a mix of "Lastname 2001" and "Lastname (2001)", among other problems, and were using very awkward internal HTML-style anchors to link to full citations. I am converting them to use {{sfn}} for consistency and ease of future editing. If you have any objections, please make them here before I put another couple of hours into this tedious (but rewarding) work. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:53, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

This conversion is done. Please let me know if I have made any errors. Here's a diff showing all of my changes, plus a few intervening copy edits. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:35, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Amazing work, thank you immensely! Manelolo (talk) 08:12, 16 March 2018 (UTC)