The Alliance Wasn’t Always Grand

Britain’s declaration of war against Finland on December 5, 1941, was a typically humiliating moment of allied warfare. Invaded in November 1939 by Soviet forces, Finland fought tenaciously against overwhelming odds through a brutal winter. In a 1940 broadcast, Winston Churchill declared "Only Finland—superb, nay, sublime—in the jaws of peril—Finland shows what free men can do." Yet without aid, Finnish defeat was as inevitable as the harsh treaty Stalin imposed after his hefty losses. Was anyone surprised the Finns took the opportunity of Hitler’s invasion of Russia in 1941 to regain the territory it ceded and more? Yet this aligned Finland with Nazi Germany, a country that ironically had aided the original Soviet invasion. And, more irony, Soviet and British interests were suddenly aligned, with Churchill deciding Britain would do all it could to keep the Russians fighting. Among Stalin’s many demands was a declaration of war on Finland. The British government duly obliged.

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