(4 of 6)
Red War, White Terror. Accounts also differ as to the details of General Mannerheim's conduct in Finland's civil war, but the bold outlines are clear. When he reached Helsinki he found the city, and Finland, in chaos. Rioting had been going on since March. A Red Guard had sprung up in support of the Social Democrat Party, which had just lost its majority in the Diet. A White Guard was also being organized around officers of the old Imperial Army, had succeeded in getting arms & ammunition smuggled into the port of Vaasa, on the Gulf of Bothnia. Mannerheim went to Vaasa. Late in January the Social Democrats seized the government, proclaimed Finland a Socialist Workers Republic. Instead of the coup d'état they had planned, they got a civil war. A few White members of the Senate escaped from Helsinki to Vaasa, proclaimed themselves the legal government of Finland, appointed Mannerheim Commander in Chief.
Stiffened by a Jaeger Battalion from Germany (Finns who had joined the German Army), Mannerheim moved on Tampere, the Reds' northern stronghold. Although he had been promised more help from Germany (German troops this time), his reinforcements failed to arrive on schedule and he laid siege to Tampere alone. Helped by lack of discipline among the Reds, he took his time, encircled the city, waited for food to run low. When the Reds were thoroughly disorganized he stormed the city, took 10,000 prisoners.
Meanwhile 12,000 Germans under Gen eral Graf Rudiger von der Goltz had landed in Finland. They took Hanko for the Whites, moved on to Helsinki, pushing the Reds back toward the Karelian Isthmus. The Whites took Vüpuri, the Reds fled into Russia, and on May 16, 1918, Mannerheim rode into Helsinki in triumph.
Of the White Terror that followed the civil war there are many conflicting stories, but nobody denies that Reds were executed by the thousands, that thousands of others died in concentration camps and many more thousands fled to Russia. The Communist press claims 30,000 were executed, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says 15,000. Finnish Government sources put the figure at 2,000 executions, 10,000 dead of flu. Whatever the cause and the figure, they got rid of the Finnish Workers Republic.
His work in Finland accomplished, irrepressible General Mannerheim wanted to march his army into East Karelia and move on Petrograd in conjunction with the British Murmansk expedition. But the White Government, grateful to Ger many for her help in the civil war and thinking she was winning the World War, vetoed any cooperation with England. Mannerheim resigned in a huff and the newly elected Regent, Per Svinhufvud, asked the Kaiser to name one of his sons King of Finland. The Kaiser proposed his brother-in-law, Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse, who was promptly elected by the Finnish Diet. Next thing the Finns knew, the Allies had won the war and Finland was caught with its pants down. The only man who could get them up was Mannerheim.