Finland's Arms Methods

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 30, 19 January 1940, Page 3

Finland's Arms Methods

Finland’s overwhelming military success is still one of the wonders of this age. That her small but efficient army could check and defeat the Russian armies is one of the great stories of the present conflict. Back in 1808 Alexander I. of Russia forced the Karelian Peninsula, scene of intense fighting at present, but it took 17,000 men to do it. Along the frontier and its many lakes, the Finns of to-day have flooded what lowlands they could, leaving only narrow passageways between the lakes. Along the routes they built anti-tank defences of jagged rocks. Above the roads, wherever possible, they poised enormous rocks which could be released by cutting the cords which held them. the snow-covered forests the Finns hid, ready for attack. When the Russian ‘tanks appeared they were put out of action by anti-tank guns, firing from ‘snow-covered mounds. Finnish soldiers camouflaged with white capes and caps also waited for the Russian soldiers, attacking them with knives. Many tanks foundered in the broken ice of the lakes. That was some weeks ago. Since then the cables have reported further successes for the Finns. Russia’s railway line to Murmansk, the only one running to that allimportant Northern port, is one of Finland’s objectives. Those who have read Negley Farson’s "Way of a Transgressor," will remember his description of this railway during the last war and the awful confusion which reigned there because of the lack of organisation,