CHRONOLOGY

1917
November 7:	Bolshevik revolution breaks out in Russia.
December 6:	Finland declares independence from Russia.
1918
January–May:	Civil war in Finland, following leftist coup d’état. Ends with a crushing victory by the White forces under Mannerheim (with substantial aid from Imperial Germany).
1919
July 17:	Finland adopts a democratic constitution, among whose principles are: a president elected for a six-year term by a 300-member electoral college; a prime minister, to be chosen by the president; and a 200-member single-chamber parliament, elected through universal suffrage to a four-year term and to which both the prime minister and the cabinet are held accountable.
1920
October 14:	Russia and Finland sign the Treaty of Tartu, which provides for mutual de jure recognition and a settlement of the Karelian borders, including demolition of all preexisting tsarist-era border fortifications.
1932
January:	Russia and Finland negotiate a nonaggression pact.
1939
August 24:	Russo-German nonaggression pact signed; secret protocol places the Baltic region, including Finland, within the USSR’s sphere of interest.
September 17:	USSR invades Poland.
September 22:	Estonian foreign minister invited to Moscow.
September 29:	USSR-Estonian “mutual assistance pact” signed.
October 1:	Latvian foreign minister invited to Moscow.
October 3:	Lithuanian foreign minister invited to Moscow.
October 5:	USSR-Latvian “mutual assistance pact” signed; USSR invites Finnish negotiators to Moscow to discuss “territorial adjustments.”
October 9:	Helsinki government orders mobilization.
October 10:	USSR-Lithuanian “mutual assistance pact” signed.
October 11–12:	Finnish delegation meets with Kremlin leaders in Moscow and receives stunning demands for concessions.
October 14:	Finnish delegation offers counterproposals, which Moscow rejects.
October 31:	In a speech before the Supreme Soviet, Molotov asserts Russia’s right to adopt strong measures in the name of security; again, concessions are demanded of Finland.
November 3:	Finns make their final offer to Russians.
November 13:	Negotiations are broken off in Moscow—on a ludicrously jolly note by Molotov—and Stalin orders plans for an immediate offensive against Finland.
November 26:	Russians fabricate a pretext for war by staging the so-called Mainila shots incident and accusing Finland of a “hostile act.”
November 27:	Finland denies firing the shots, submits eyewitness accounts that claim the rounds were fired from the Soviet side of the border. Moscow renounces the existing nonaggression treaty.
November 29:	Moscow breaks diplomatic relations with Helsinki.
November 30:	Helsinki bombed; Soviet columns totalling about 600,000 men cross Finnish border; Mannerheim assumes command of Finnish armed forces; a state of war exists.
December 1:	The puppet government of the “Democratic Republic of Finland” is conjured in the village of Terijoki, under old-time Finnish Bolshevik O. W. Kuusinen.
December 3:	Finland makes eloquent, but futile, appeal for intervention by the League of Nations.
December 7:	Russians reach main line of Finnish resistance on the Karelian Isthmus.
December 14:	Russia expelled from League of Nations.
December 22:	Having repelled all Russian attacks against the Mannerheim Line, the Finns launch an ill-considered and badly organized counterattack, with negligible results.
1940
January 8:	Finns win their most spectacular victory of the war, at Suomussalmi, encircling and annihilating two Russian divisions.
February 1:	Start of Russians’ all-out offensive on the Karelian Isthmus.
February 5:	Britain and France agree to intervene in Scandinavia, ostensibly to help Finland but mainly to seize control of Norwegian ports and Swedish iron ore.
February 11:	Russians score decisive breakthrough of Mannerheim Line in the Lähde sector.
February 12:	Finnish cabinet authorizes government to seek peace terms.
March 1–5:	Furious, seesaw fighting in and around Viipuri; last Finnish reserves committed.
March 5:	Finnish delegation departs for Moscow to begin peace negotiations.
March 9:	Finns evacuate last toeholds in Gulf of Viipuri.
March 12:	Peace agreement signed in Moscow; Russia receives 16,000 square miles of Finnish territory.
March 13:	Cease-fire goes into effect at 11:00 A.M., after a final savage bombardment by the Russians.
1941
June 22:	Finland attacks USSR as “cobelligerent” with Germany; “Continuation War” begins.
December 6:	Great Britain declares war on Finland, to soothe Stalin’s feelings, and then, apart from a single token air raid, does absolutely nothing to prosecute it.
1944
September 19:	Soviet-Finnish armistice; Finns lose everything they lost in 1940 all over again and become economically and politically indentured to the USSR. Finns undertake to drive remaining German troops from northern Finland, which they do—almost—after some additional fighting and considerable destruction.