NORTHERN THEATRE: Such Nastiness
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Finland's Chances depended on what she was playing for. Failure to crack the Mannerheim Line had already hurt Russia's prestige. (In twelve days Germany had taken every major Polish city but Warsaw and Lwow.) Effective help from Italy, Great Britain and especially Sweden (which was most threatened by her traditional enemy's advance) might enable the Finns to hold off the Russians for many months, and in many months many things could happen. One thing that happened this week was a U. S. credit of $10,000,000 to Finland. But if no further military help was forthcoming, the Finns could hope only to sell their country for much Russian blood. This they were prepared to do. Cried Premier Risto Ryti in a nationwide broadcast: "The Finnish people at this moment are fully united, firm as steel and ready for the greatest sacrifices in behalf of their independence and their existence. ... If compelled to do so, we shall fight to the end—even after the end."
*The Finn gets emotional only after much brooding, and usually without much logic. Today he forgets that under Tsars Alexander I, II and III his people were the best-treated minority in the world. Instead, he remembers the blundering misrule of Nicholas II. Even the fact that in 1918 many Red Finns fought hand-in-hand with their Russian comrades against Finnish and Russian Whites cannot change his traditional hatred and contempt for the Slav.
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