Finnish Army


The Finnish Army is the land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces. The Finnish Army is divided into six branches: infantry, field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineers, signals, and materiel troops. The commander of the Finnish Army as of 1 January 2022 is Lieutenant General Pasi Välimäki.

Role

The duties of the Finnish Army are threefold. They are:
  1. Defence of the land area of the realm
  2. Support of civilian authorities
  3. International military crisis management operations
In addition to these tasks, the army is responsible for conscription and personnel management of the reserve.
The current army is, as it has been since the end of Second World War, in peacetime training formation. This means that its brigades are not meant to be operational combat units but training formations. According to the "troop production" doctrine, peacetime units will train each batch of conscripts they receive for a specific wartime unit. After the end of training, the conscripts are demobilised into the reserve. During regular refresher exercises and in case of a crisis, the reserve unit will be activated and deployed in the formation it trained in during conscription. Thus, the peacetime structure of the army does not give any meaningful information about its mobilised structure or about the areas where units would be used.

History

On 24 February 1555, Swedish King Gustav Vasa ordered the establishment of a Swedish Army unit consisting of Finns. Finland at that time was part of the Swedish Kingdom. This was the first such unit in the Swedish Army, and 24 February is now celebrated as the Finnish Army's anniversary.
Between 1809 and 1917 Finland was an autonomous state ruled by the Russian Empire as the Grand Duchy of Finland. Between 1881 and 1901 the Grand Duchy had its own army.
The Grand Duchy inherited its allotment system from the Swedish military organization. However, for several decades, Russian rulers did not require military service from Finland; operations and defence were mostly taken care by Russian troops based in the Grand Duchy. As a result, officer benefits of the allotment system became practically pensions, as payment was based on passive availability, not on actual service.
During the Napoleonic Wars three 1200-man regiments were formed in Finland and Topographic Corps in Hamina. In 1821 the Topographic Corps was transformed into the cadet officers school. In 1829 one of the training battalions was transformed into the Young Guard Battalion, the Finnish Guards.
During the Crimean War, 1854, Finland set up nine sharpshooter battalions based on a rota system. Conscription was introduced in Finland in 1878. The Finnish Guard took part in fighting to suppress the 1830 November Uprising in Poland and participated in the Russo-Turkish War, after which it gained the status of Old Guard of the Russian Emperor.
The Finnish Army was gradually broken up during the "oppression years" just after the turn of the century. As Finnish conscripts refused to serve in the Russian Imperial Army, conscription ended in Finland and it was replaced with a tax paid from the Finnish Senate to the Imperial treasury.
At the end of the 19th century the Russian empire was weakening, and this was reflected in a reduced capacity of the Russian troops to keep public order. Voluntary defence organizations disguised as fire brigades were formed by the Finnish people, especially during the strikes during and after the Russo-Japanese War.
There were socialist Red Guards and conservative, anti-socialist Protection Guards. Also, during the First World War activists secretly travelled to Germany to receive military training and to be trained as Jäger troops.
After independence and the beginning of the Finnish Civil War the White government declared the White Guards as government troops, and the war was fought between the Red Guards, assisted by Communist Russians, and White Guards added with the Jägers and assisted by the German Empire.
After the war in 1919, the Protection Guards became a separate organization. Therefore, strictly speaking, there is no continuity between the White Guards, which became a voluntary organization, and the Finnish Army, which was a cadre army based on conscription. However, Jägers gained important positions in the army, and German tactics and military principles were adopted.
The ground forces were organized according to a regional system after the report undertaken by Lieutenant Colonel Aksel Airo in 1930. The wartime field army mobilization and regional administration tasks were now taken over by the Civil Guard, forming the local structure according to which the wartime field army would be established. From 1934 the peacetime ground forces would be organized under the command of an Army Corps headquartered in Viipuri under which there was three divisions and one cavalry brigade. These forces would form the cadre body of wartime protective forces.

Peacetime structure before the Winter War

  • Army Corps Headquarters
  • *1. Division, Helsinki
  • **Finnish White Guard Regiment, Helsinki
  • **Pori Regiment, Turku
  • **Uusimaa Regiment, Helsinki
  • **Field Artillery Regiment 1, Hämeenlinna
  • **Field Artillery Regiment 4, Helsinki
  • **Separate Armoured Company, Hämeenlinna
  • **Helsinki Assignment Company, Helsinki
  • **Helsinki Car Company, Helsinki
  • **Helsinki Commandant's Office, Helsinki
  • **Canine Kennel, Hämeenlinna
  • *2. Division, Viipuri
  • **Karelian Guards Regiment, Viipuri
  • **Tampere Regiment, Lahti
  • **Central Finland Regiment, Kouvola
  • **Bicycle Battalion 1, Terijoki
  • **Bicycle Battalion 2, Valkjärvi
  • **Field Artillery Regiment 2, Viipuri
  • **Anti-Air Regiment, Viipuri
  • **Signals Battalion, Viipuri
  • **Separate Pioneer Company, Kellomäki
  • **Supplies Battalion, Viipuri
  • **Viipuri Commandant's Office, Viipuri
  • *3. Division, Mikkeli
  • ** Savo Jaeger Regiment, Käkisalmi
  • ** Viipuri Regiment, Jaakkima
  • ** Pohja Regiment, Kuopio
  • ** Bicycle Battalion 3, Mikkeli
  • ** Vuoksi Jaeger Battalion, Sakkola
  • ** Pioneer Battalion, Koria
  • ** Field Artillery Regiment 3, Riihimäki
  • *Cavalry Brigade, Lappeenranta
  • ** Uusimaa Dragoon Regiment, Lappeenranta
  • ** Häme Cavalry Regiment, Lappeenranta
  • ** Cavalry NCO School, Lappeenranta
  • ** Signals Squadron, Lappeenranta
  • ** Mounted Battery, Mikkeli
  • ** Cavalry School, Ypäjä

    Winter War

The Finnish Army consisted of 9 field divisions, 4 brigades and a number of small independent battalions and companies at the beginning of the Winter War, which began on 30 November 1939 when the Soviet Union invaded Finland. During the war, the army was organised into three corps. The II and III Corps were organised into the Army of the Isthmus which was located on the Karelian Isthmus, the likely location for the main Soviet attack. The IV Corps defended the area north of Lake Ladoga. The defence of the rest of the border up to Petsamo by the Arctic Ocean was given to the North Finland Group which consisted of a handful of independent battalions.
In order to organize replacements for the units, a Field Replacement Brigade of nine battalions was formed. But due to the severity of the Soviet attack the battalions had to be used as combat troops. In addition, three Replacement Divisions or Home Replacement Divisions were formed from the available reservists. As the situation became more alarming, the 1st and 3rd Replacement Divisions were reformed into the 21st and 23rd Divisions and sent to the front on 19 December. The 2nd Replacement Division was deployed as individual regiments to Northern Finland.
The Winter War ended on 13 March 1940. Finland ceded 9% of its territory via the Moscow Peace Treaty, but successfully resisted Soviet conquest.

Order of battle

Army of the Isthmus

Four delaying groups, named for their location, were stationed immediately by the border on the isthmus.

Independent formations

The Finnish Army Headquarters was formed by the order of the General Headquarters on the 19th March 1940 by renaming the Army of the Isthmus. The new echelon overseeing the ground forces was short lived, since it was disbanded by August 1940. The peacetime forces now consisted of five Army Corps under which there were among others, fifteen infantry brigades. The brigades could be reinforced with reservists, forming the cadre body of an wartime division. Overall, the amount of wartime divisions was increased to sixteen.

Continuation War

The Army of Karelia was formed on 29 June 1941 soon after the start of the Continuation War. There were seven Finnish corps in the field during the war: the I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII. During the war, the Finnish Army was responsible for the front from the Gulf of Finland to Kainuu. The front in Northern Finland was the responsibility of the German AOK Norwegen. During summer and autumn 1941, the Finnish Army re-conquered the areas lost to the Soviet Union in the Winter War and pushed deep into Soviet territory in East Karelia. In winter 1942, the Finnish political leadership ended offensive action and the front stagnated for over two years.
The relatively inactive period of stationary war ended abruptly in June 1944, as the Soviet Union started its Fourth Strategic Offensive. As a result, the Finnish Army lost large areas of the Karelian Isthmus, most importantly Viipuri, a major city, and was forced to retreat from East Karelia. However, in the decisive Battle of Tali-Ihantala, the Soviet advance was halted. The Soviet Union concentrated its forces on the battles in Central Europe, and Finland made a separate peace in September 1944.