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Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim has been preparing for war against Russia ever since his Government refused to let him lead a Finnish White Army against Petrograd in 1918. To his implacable hatred of everything Red may be attributed some of Stalin's nervousness over the security of the U. S. S. R., which was a remote cause of the present Russo-Finnish war. To it Finland certainly owes her continued independence, for the defense tactics that have so amazed the Russians and the world were planned long before Russia invaded Finland last fall. And the man who planned them—and whom the Finns revere—was the Mannerheim who served for 29 years in the Army of the Tsars and who ruthlessly won in Finland one of the bloodiest civil wars in history.
What Became of Gustaf. Baron Mannerheim has almost nothing in common with the average Finn except a highly developed individualism. The Finns came to their country from east of the Volga. They were trappers, woodsmen and farmers, people who never had much and could take a lot of punishment, who, though their country has been ruled by both Sweden and Russia, were never subdued by anybody. The first Mannerheim of record was a Swedish merchant named Marheim, of Dutch or German descent, who died in 1667. His grandson picked up a title and his son, who was named Carl Erik Mannerheim, moved to Finland as a major in an infantry regiment and was condemned to death (later pardoned) for participating in an officers' revolt against the Crown. The next Mannerheim was a judge and entomologist and the next one started out as a spoiled intellectual rebel and ended up as a tycoon with a rich wife. He had eight children, of whom the first, Sophia, became an internationally famed trained nurse. The third was named Carl Gustaf Emil. In him was a little of the tycoon, a little of the scientist, a great deal of the rebel. Wrote his mother to a friend: "I can feel secure about all the rest of my children, but what in heaven's name is going to become of Gustaf?"
Gustaf grew up on the family estate at Louhisaari, of which Sophia's biographer wrote: "The ceiling of the Church salon is decorated with paintings depicting Admiral Klaus Fleming's sea battles, while the murals of the Devil's Chamber depict a mellower 18th-Century splendor. . . . The park and gardens are especially well planned and cared for. . . . Behind the park glittered the bay of the sea. . . . That this kind of childhood home engendered refinement and sensitivity to beauty in its inhabitants is natural."