Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was a Finnish military commander and statesman. He served as the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, as regent of Finland, as commander-in-chief of the Finnish Defence Forces during World War II, and as the president of Finland. He became Finland's only field marshal in 1933 and was appointed honorary Marshal of Finland in 1942.
Born into a Swedish-speaking aristocratic family in the Grand Duchy of Finland, Mannerheim made a career in the Imperial Russian Army, serving in the Russo-Japanese War and the Eastern Front of World War I and rising by 1917 to the rank of lieutenant general. He had a prominent place in the 1896 coronation ceremonies for Emperor Nicholas II and later had several private meetings with him. After the Bolshevik coup of November 1917 in Russia, Finland declared its independence on 6 December, but soon became embroiled in the 1918 Finnish Civil War between the Whites, who were the troops of the Senate of Finland, supported by troops of the German Empire, and the socialist Reds.
A Finnish delegation appointed Mannerheim as the military chief of the Whites in January 1918, and he led them to victory, holding a triumphal victory parade in Helsinki in May. After spending some time abroad, he was invited back to Finland to serve as the country's second regent, or head of state, from December 1918 to July 1919. He secured the recognition of Finnish independence by multiple Entente powers and, despite being a monarchist, formally ratified the republican Constitution of Finland. He then ran against K. J. Ståhlberg in the first Finnish presidential elections in 1919 but lost and quit politics. Mannerheim helped found the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare in 1920 and headed the Finnish Red Cross from 1922 to his death. He was restored to a central role in national defence policy when President Svinhufvud appointed him as the Chairman of the Finnish Defence Council in 1931, tasked with making preparations for a potential war with the Soviet Union. It was also agreed that he would temporarily take over as commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces should there be a war.
Accordingly, after the Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939 in what became the Winter War, Mannerheim replaced President Kyösti Kallio as commander-in-chief, and occupied the post for the next five years. He became a unifying symbol of the war effort and part of the core leadership of the country. He personally participated in the planning of Operation Barbarossa and led the Finnish Defence Forces in an invasion of the Soviet Union alongside Nazi Germany known as the Continuation War. In 1944, when the prospect of Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II became clear, the Parliament of Finland unanimously appointed Mannerheim as the President, and he oversaw peace negotiations with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, leading to the Lapland War. Already in declining health, he resigned the presidency in 1946 and spent much of his remaining life in a sanatorium in Switzerland, where he wrote his memoirs, and where he died in 1951.
Participants in a Finnish survey taken 53 years after his death voted Mannerheim the greatest Finn of all time. During his own lifetime he became, alongside Jean Sibelius, the best-known Finnish personage at home and abroad. According to historian Tuomas Tepora,:fi:Tuomas_Tepora| a cult of personality began to be built around Mannerheim after the civil war.
Given the broad recognition in Finland and elsewhere of his unparalleled role in establishing and later preserving Finland's independence from the Soviet Union, Mannerheim has long been referred to as the father of modern Finland, and The New York Times called the Finnish capital Helsinki's Mannerheim Museum, memorializing the leader's life and times, "the closest thing there is to a national shrine".
Early life and military career
Name
As Carl was a common name in Mannerheim's family, he was known by his middle name Gustaf. Because he disliked his third name, Emil, he wrote his signature as C. G. Mannerheim, or simply Mannerheim. He often signed letters as Field Marshal G. Mannerheim, Field Marshal Mannerheim or G. Mannerheim.During his career in the Russian military, he was known as Gustav Karlovich Mannergeim in official documents, and while serving as Regent of Finland, he used the finnicised form of his name, Kustaa Mannerheim, but later abandoned it. His first names are most commonly shortened as C. G. E., as reflected on his tombstone.
In a military fashion, he often signed military documents by just his military rank and surname.
Ancestry
The Mannerheims, originally from Germany as Marhein, became Swedish noblemen in 1693. In the latter part of the 18th century, they moved to Finland, which was then an integral part of Sweden. For a long time, it was thought that the Mannerheim family came from the Netherlands. King Charles XI of Sweden ennobled Augustin Marhein in 1693 at which time the family name Marhein was changed to Mannerheim.After Sweden lost Finland to the Russian Empire in 1809, Mannerheim's great-grandfather, Count Carl Erik Mannerheim, son of the Commandant Johan Augustin Mannerheim, became the first head of the executive of the newly-autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, an office that preceded that of the contemporary Prime Minister. His grandfather, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, was an entomologist and jurist.
Mannerheim's father, Count Carl Robert Mannerheim, was both a playwright and industrialist, with modest success in both endeavours. He was an exception to the family's tradition as he never became a soldier or an official. Carl Robert Mannerheim was known for his radical political views, and when he inherited the title of Graf from his father, the officials disapproved of him, thinking of him as political satirist. As a man with a sharp wit, Carl Robert Mannerheim clearly expressed his view of the Russian authorities. He spent a lot of time abroad, but after turning 50 years old, he moved to Helsinki, founded a shop selling office machinery of the "Systema" brand, and proved to be a busy and systematic businessman.
In 1862 Carl Robert Mannerheim married Hedvig Charlotta Hélène von Julin, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, John von Julin. The Julin family had also moved to Finland from Sweden. The Mannerheim couple had seven children, four sons and three daughters: Sophie Mannerheim, Carl Mannerheim, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Johan Mannerheim, Eva Sparre, Anna Mannerheim and August Mannerheim. Carl Robert Mannerheim had a further daughter by his second wife Sofia Nordenstam, Marguerite Gripenberg.
Childhood
Gustaf Mannerheim was born in the Louhisaari Manor of the Askainen parish on 4 June 1867. After Mannerheim's heavily indebted father left the family in 1880 for his mistress, a daughter of Baron and General Johan Mauritz Nordenstam, the young Mannerheim's mother and her seven children went to live with her aunt Louise; but Mannerheim's mother died the following year. Mannerheim's maternal uncle, Albert von Julin, then became his legal guardian and financier of his later schooling. The third child of the family, Mannerheim inherited the title of Baron.Mannerheim is said to have enjoyed playing military games and "leading the troops". He was first taught by a female Swiss home teacher, and at the age of seven he started going to school in Helsinki, where he lived with his father. From 1874 to 1879 he and his brother Carl attended the Böök private lyceum, where he was expelled for a year in autumn 1879 for throwing stones at the windows.
Education
From 1881 to 1882 Mannerheim went to a school in Hamina preparing students for the Hamina Cadet School, a state school educating aristocrats for the Imperial Russian Army. The Hamina Cadet School was the only school to give military education in Finland at the time. However, Mannerheim felt hatred towards the city of Hamina, which was also evident from his behaviour.Mannerheim was accepted to the Hamina Cadet School in 1882 at the age of 14. This can be seen as the start of his military career.
However, Mannerheim was left behind in class for one year because he managed to score only seven points of twelve in an examination in June 1883. This extra year was of help, as in the next year Mannerheim was moved to the first general class with the second-best grades. He did best in French and Swedish as well as history, but did worse in Russian and Finnish. Among other students of his age and younger cadets Mannerheim was in a clear leadership position. The handsome young Baron towered over his classmates, standing.
Mannerheim's financial situation was poor, and he often had to borrow money from his caretaker Albert von Julin. He also did not like his time at the Hamina Cadet School: he could not tolerate the atmosphere at the school or its tight regulations, and he was punished often.
Mannerheim had hoped that after the Hamina Cadet School, he would get to the Page Corps military academy in Saint Petersburg, which was one of the most prestigious military academies in the country. The academy only allowed students with a hereditary noble title. Another requirement was that the student's father, grandfather or great-grandfather had a military rank of at least lieutenant general or an equivalent civilian rank. Civilian ranks were contrasted to military officer ranks according to a system devised by Peter the Great. Mannerheim got his father Carl Robert Mannerheim to leave an application to the Page Corps, but the academy's director major general Neovius did not recommend Mannerheim to the academy claiming his skills in French and Russian were not good enough. Because of Neovius's letter, Mannerheim's application to the academy was rejected, and he fell into a deep depression.
His future is indeed bleak. He does not seem to have any ambition, nor any understanding to improve himself and to attend the Cadet School so he could support himself.
Mannerheim's depression also manifested as rebellion towards the Hamina Cadet School, and he was expelled on 22 July 1886. According to his memoirs, Mannerheim had left without permission and spent the night at the home of a registrar he knew, the 35-year-old deputy judge Hugo Elfgren. In the next morning, he was discovered there by a warrant officer at the Cadet School. According to education committee at the cadet board Mannerheim had "left later in the night with a person of ill repute to the countryside to this person's residence". The person this referred to was the chief of the telegraph station Agathon Lindholm, who was known to be possibly homosexual. The letter also mentioned Mannerheim's "immoral aberrations and degrading lecherousness". The school could have put the strictest form of its expulsion policy into use, which would have prevented Mannerheim from studying at any Finnish school or university ever again, but the board held a vote and decided to use a more lenient policy on the condition that Mannerheim's family would leave a voluntary application for him to leave the school.
Mannerheim next attended the Helsinki Private Lyceum, where he passed the university entrance examinations in June 1887. From 1887 to 1889, Mannerheim attended the Nicholas Cavalry College in Saint Petersburg. Mannerheim was recommended to the Nicholas Cavalry College by the general Johan Fredrik Gustav Aminoff, who was friends with the college's director Pavel Adamovich von Plehwe. The entry requirements to the college were practically having a noble title and having graduated from cadet school or matriculated. On the best applicants were selected to the college and the entry requirements were strict.
Mannerheim graduated from the Nicholas Cavalry College on 10 August 1889. His graduation examination had gone well, and especially his grades in Russian had improved. In the spring of the same year, before being promoted to cornet, Mannerheim had been promoted to a porte d'épée Junker. This rank corresponded to the rank of a soldier promoted from the rank and file to a junior officer, who could serve as the warrant officer of a troop.
In January 1891, Mannerheim joined the Chevalier Guard Regiment in Saint Petersburg.