Carl Gustaf Mannerheim

President of Finland (1944-1946)

• Born: June 4, 1867
• Birthplace: Askainen, Villnäs, Finland
• Died: January 27, 1951
• Place of death: Lausanne, Switzerland

Mannerheim dominated the political and military history of Finland from the time Finland became independent in 1917 until his retirement in 1946. He fought in both world wars as a military general. As a political figure, he served as president of his nation during a critical period of the 1940’s.

Early Life

Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (kahrl GEWS-tahf MAH-nuhr-him), of Swedish descent, was born into a prominent Finnish family. He entered military school at Hamina as a cadet in 1882 to prepare for a career in the Finnish army. Expelled in 1886, he succeeded in entering the prestigious Nicholas Cavalry School in St. Petersburg and was graduated in 1889. Fortunate assignments eventually placed him in the czar’s Chevalier Guards, and he participated in the coronation ceremonies of Czar Nicholas II. He married the daughter of a Russian general in 1892 and fathered two daughters but separated from his wife in 1902.

Following service in the guards and another intermediate assignment, Mannerheim took command (1903) of a squadron of the Officers’ Cavalry School in St. Petersburg. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Mannerheim eventually obtained reassignment to the Asian front and served in Manchuria in several campaigns before the Russian surrender. He finished the war with the rank of colonel. His next assignment was to embark on a two-year expedition across Central Asia and northern China, a journey of approximately eighty-five hundred miles. His task was to observe and report on the potential for military activities as well as on the political conditions in those regions. This ambitious and grueling journey (1906-1908) added to his reputation as an audacious and enterprising officer and showed his skill in gathering information about geographical features, archaeological information, and anthropological observations. (The copious records of the journey were published in 1940.)

Between 1909 and 1911, Mannerheim commanded the Thirteenth Vladimir Cavalry Regiment stationed in Poland. He was promoted to the rank of major general in 1911 and took command of another important cavalry unit based in Warsaw. He seems to have enjoyed his Polish experience, noting the problems that Poland and his native Finland had as subject regions within the Russian Empire. He anticipated the war and worked to prepare his forces for that possibility. In the campaigns of 1914-1915, he commanded units at various levels (brigade, division, and corps levels), primarily on the Polish front facing Austrian forces. His leadership and military successes, in what generally were Russian defeats and withdrawals, increased his reputation and led to significant military awards. In 1916, he was promoted to lieutenant general and commanded the Sixth Cavalry Army Corps, located on the Romanian front.

His support for the Russian army and government surprised many of his Finnish friends and relatives, but he felt a sense of loyalty to the Russian monarchy to whom he had taken the oath of service. He disagreed with the revolutionary elements that finally overthrew the monarchy in the winter of early 1917 and culminated in the victory of the Bolsheviks in the capital in November, 1917. In these deteriorating conditions, Mannerheim terminated his military service and decided to return to his native Finland, which was entering the throes of dissension and potential civil war. Finnish nationalists saw the chaotic period as the opportune time (December, 1917) to declare independence from Russia. The factions varied between socialists and Marxists on the Left and conservative elements on the Right. Mannerheim’s return coincided with this confusion in Helsinki and elsewhere in the country, and the Finnish senate commissioned Mannerheim to restore order by commanding the Finnish Civil Guards. This assignment began his famous career as a prominent figure in Finnish political and military affairs. At the age of fifty, a new and important future lay before him.

Life’s Work

The story of the Finnish War of Independence from Russia, and the battles between Mannerheim’s “White Guards” and the Finnish “Red Guard” sympathetic to Vladimir Ilich Lenin’s Bolsheviks, gave him the opportunity to show his qualities of leadership and careful planning. The war of liberation lasted from January to May, 1918, and included the use of Finnish forces trained in Germany during World War I. The capital city of Helsinki was finally recaptured in April from the Red Guards, thanks to German military efforts and their Finnish allies. Mannerheim entered Helsinki in May as a national hero but resigned as commander of the Civil Guards in a dispute over German control of Finnish military forces.

During October and November, 1918, Mannerheim carried out several diplomatic missions to Western European nations, seeking recognition and food supplies. In December, 1918, he was named regent of Finland, with virtually absolute civil and military power. He held this position until July, 1919, during the period of the final independence of Finland, the writing of a new constitution, and the holding of parliamentary elections. Mannerheim ran for office as president under the new constitution but was decisively defeated (July, 1919) by Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg. At age fifty-two, Mannerheim decided to return to private life. He gained a positive reputation for his civic and humanitarian efforts, which included the formation of a child welfare program (1920) using his name and financial support and his becoming the chair of the Finnish Red Cross (1922).

Mannerheim began to resume his political interests in the early 1930’s, supporting the Lapua movement for a time before its prohibition by the government for alleged fascist and totalitarian activities. At the same time, he accepted military and defense responsibilities on being named the chair of the Finnish Defense Council (1931). This assignment included the responsibility to act as commander in chief of Finnish forces in wartime. The government promoted him to the rank of field marshal in 1933. He oversaw the steady but slow improvements in the Finnish military, especially important in 1938, and a major defense line between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga was named in his honor.

Relations with the Soviet Union began to deteriorate in the later 1930’s, resulting in the Winter War (1939-1940). This war grew primarily out of Soviet demands for strategic portions of Finnish territory, including essential defense positions, but also resulted from the fundamental hostility that the Soviet Union felt toward its small independent neighbor that had been a part of the Russian Empire for more than a century. The Soviet attack began in November, 1939, and Mannerheim took command of all Finnish forces. A nation of four millon faced an enemy of 180 million. The outcome was never seriously in doubt, as overwhelming Soviet forces eventually overcame the Finns. Yet the unexpected duration of Finnish resistance shocked the Russians and gained the admiration of many Western governments and populations. The March, 1940, peace treaty with the Soviet Union ceded Finnish territory and also led to other restrictions on Finnish sovereignty. The Soviet Union also indicated its determination that Mannerheim should not be allowed to become the leader of the Finnish government in the future.

Finland’s peace was short-lived, however, with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941. In this new crisis, Finland took the opportunity to attempt to regain Karelia and other regions taken previously by the Soviet Union. Mannerheim considered moving farther into Soviet territory but eventually decided not to do so. These limited war aims are further revealed by his refusal to implement German orders for coordinated attacks, especially the order to attack Leningrad during the German siege of that city in the Nine Hundred Days (1941-1944). This new phase of a Russo-Finnish war, known as the Continuation War, also brought Finland into conflict with other nations. Great Britain declared war on Finland in December, 1941.

Mannerheim’s forces were generally successful in regaining territory lost in the 1939-1940 Winter War. The Finns also had to contend with getting German forces out of Finland, as the tide of battle turned against the Nazis on the eastern front. Major efforts to achieve this goal occurred in 1944, as Finland attempted to withdraw from involvement in the Russo-German War. (A curious side note on German-Finnish relations is that Adolf Hitler traveled to Finland on the occasion of Mannerheim’s seventy-fifth birthday in June, 1942, providing a rare instance of the German leader acknowledging the leadership, stature, and importance of one of the European figures whom he had met.)

Finland finally withdrew from the war with the Soviet Union in September, 1944, which once again led to the loss of Finnish territory to its neighbor. Mannerheim in this period attempted to follow a course with the Soviets and Germans that would be least injurious to his nation’s independence and territorial integrity. It was a no-win situation, but at that time and since Mannerheim and his associates have been given credit for achieving the best solution possible under the circumstances.

On the eve of the September, 1944, armistice with the Soviets, Mannerheim succeeded Risto Heikki Ryti as president in August, 1944. The preliminary peace and the official treaty (December) occurred during Mannerheim’s presidential term. At the time that he assumed the presidency, Mannerheim was seventy-seven years old. He held the position for nineteen months (to mid-March, 1946). During Mannerheim’s tenure as president, the Soviet Union required the Finns to hold war crimes trials for prominent Finnish leaders accused of pro-German collaboration or cooperation. Several former officials were sentenced to prison terms in what was an extraordinarily difficult period for the Finnish nation and its people.

After the trials had been completed, Mannerheim resigned in what was widely perceived as a sign of his sympathy with the accused. At seventy-eight, his age and failing health also were factors in his decision to resign before completing his term of office. Juho Kusti Paasikivi succeeded Mannerheim and continued the efforts to find a neutral course for Finland in the post-World War II years, especially in the light of Finland’s awkward geographic location adjacent to the Soviet Union. Mannerheim spent most of his last years in Switzerland, working with associates on his memoirs (first published in 1952), until his death in 1951 at the age of eighty-three.

Significance

Carl Gustaf Mannerheim’s ambivalence toward his Finnish homeland (sources indicate he did not learn to speak Finnish until he was in his fifties, relying instead on Swedish and Russian) in the first five decades of his life makes his later determination to serve his homeland during very difficult times even more remarkable and commendable. He did not seem to be driven by an irrational passion for power but certainly assumed power easily and used his leadership opportunities to full advantage. He steadfastly remained confident that his political and military contributions had to be respected and appreciated. Those close to Mannerheim saw him as an aloof and private person but also generous in his time and efforts to serve his nation when called to do so.

His relation to the history of Finland coincided with several of the most trying and critical points in that nation’s history in the twentieth century. In times of crisis, many looked to Mannerheim for leadership that was both stabilizing and inspirational in a small nation suffering from scarce resources and manpower. His enemies have characterized Mannerheim as the “White Butcher” (based on the 1918 War of Liberation events), and many of the Finnish Left saw him as an authoritarian conservative with few redeeming features as a national leader.

Today, he is buried in a place of prominence in a Helsinki military cemetery surrounded by those whom he led and those who served him. The main street in Helsinki is named in his honor, and a large equestrian statue of Mannerheim is a prominent sight in downtown Helsinki. Given the challenges that Finland faced, most agree that Mannerheim was a worthy leader of his nation.

Bibliography

Borenius, Tancred. Field-Marshal Mannerheim. London: Hutchinson, 1940. The author personally knew Mannerheim and used this knowledge in part as a basis for this laudatory biography. Includes some revealing letters from Mannerheim’s sister Sophie about her brother as well as numerous Mannerheim addresses and “Orders of the Day” to his armed forces in the War of Liberation and the Winter War.

Gellerman, Josef Egmond. Generals as Statesmen. New York: Vantage Press, 1959. Assessment of famous military figures to see the personal qualities of leadership. Overall the reader gets the message, not the author’s intention, that military generals are likely to be ineffective in political roles. The coverage of Mannerheim’s life is barely adequate, lacking sufficient detail or depth.

Jägerskiöld, Stig Axel Fridolf. Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. This English biography of Mannerheim is excellently balanced in description and assessment. Based on extensive work in the Mannerheim archives and abridged from the author’s eight-volume biography of the marshal.

Mannerheim, Carl Gustaf. Memoirs. Translated by Eric Lewenhaupt. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1954. Mannerheim’s recollections, written in his later years in retirement. Provides detailed coverage of military and political topics but does not include some of the more controversial aspects of his leadership and outlook. Virtually all English language accounts refer to this volume as an important source of information.

Rintala, Marvin. Four Finns: Political Profiles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Biographical account of four major figures (Mannerheim, Paasikivi, Ståhlberg, and Väinnö Alfred Tanner) in a brief but readable and informative book. Good assessment of political issues during the decades of the twentieth century in which Mannerheim was a player.

Rodzianko, Paul. Mannerheim: An Intimate Picture of a Great Soldier and Statesman. London: Jarrolds, 1940. Based on interviews with Mannerheim associates plus use of some of Mannerheim’s papers. A good example of biography written in the form of hero-worship. Chatty account, with some assumed conversations and thoughts from Mannerheim’s earlier life. Covers the period from his origins to the end of the Winter War.

Screen, John Ernest Oliver. Mannerheim. 2 vols. London: C. Hurst, 1970-2000. Two volumes that concisely and comprehensively chronicle Mannerheim’s life and career. The first book traces his life from his earliest years to the end of his service in the Russian army at the end of 1917. The second book in this set focuses on Mannerheim’s later conversion to Finnish patriot, including his military leadership during World War II, presidential administration, and final years.

Warner, Oliver. Marshal Mannerheim and the Finns. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967. A more than adequate biography of Mannerheim, covering his entire life from a very sympathetic viewpoint. Based on interviews and relevant documentary archival materials. Good balance of Mannerheim’s life and the conditions of Finland during this period of the twentieth century. A good introduction to the man and the marshal.