The Continuation and Lapland Wars 1941-45

Finland at War: The Continuation and Lapland Wars 1941-45,
Vesa Nenye, with Peter Munter, Toni Wirtanen and Chris Birks.
Osprey Publishing, 2016, 336p, £30.00, ISBN: 978-1-4728-1526-2

This volume explores Finland's part in World War II and is a continuation of the 2015 book on the Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40 by the same researchers. The ‘Interim Peace' which the Soviet Union imposed on Finland in 1940, involved the loss to Finland of most of the strategic area of Karelia and the use of Baltic ports. Fearful that Stalin would launch further war to conquer Finland fully and avenge the humiliations that the Red Army had suffered at the hands of the far less numerous Finns, the country looked for allies. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the only support came from Nazi Germany, where Hitler was planning ‘Operation Barbarossa' - the attack on Soviet Russia, which took place in June 1941. The Germans, appreciating Finland's geographical proximity to Russia's second city, Leningrad (now St Petersburg) and the Finnish desire to recapture Karelia, modernised and re-equipped the Finnish army. The Russians provoked Finland into joining the German attacks and a grim, ultimately unsuccessful, war was launched in 1941. As in the previous volume, Vesa Nenye and his colleagues have produced an impressive work of research. There are detailed biographies of the leaders involved and impressive archival photographs and accounts to illustrate the events. Useful maps show the action in an area which will not be familiar to many readers. As the Germans failed to capture Leningrad, the tide of war turned against them, which threatened total disaster for the brave Finns by 1944. Because Stalin needed his troops for invading Germany, Finland was able to secure peace and rather more limited independence from 1945. This book explains how this was achieved and, like the first, sheds an interesting light on a World War II conflict.