mora: Some corrections:
- Well we didn't quite stop at the old borders. We did not however participate in the siege of Leningrad.
History gets the more strange and unexpected the more one learns the details of it.
Apparently, when Germans attacked USSR on June 22, 41, Finland declared neutrality but Russian attacked the Finnish military ships from air, bomber Finnish territory were bombardment from the base Hanko and invaded Finland territory in several places. Few hundred soviet aircraft bombed finnish cities and airfields on June 25.
It is quite possible that Finland would not have participated in WWII otherwise.
I've read the memoirs of several german generals. According to them, finns would not conduct offensive operations on their front of the blockade which allowed soviets to leave it bare and concentrate available troops against the germans.
Finns would also not advance to cut off the the Leningrad's supply line across Lake Ladoga (yes, Leningrad was in constant supply over water and over the ice-top road in wintertime) nor participate actively in its interdiction.
When germans wanted to take over the finnish positions in order to complete the blockade, conclude the siege and free the troops, the finnish command refused to let german troops into or through their positions!
I am inclined to believe the accusations that finns concluded a secret deal with Stalin where they would abstain form action in return for preservation of their independence after Germany was defeated.
It was clear pretty soon that german's desperate preemptive invasion of USSR was doomed to failure and the finns were actually in the best position to know the military abilities of the Soviet State* - not the least its willingness to lose the troops (whict it had unexaustable supply) in a single-minded pursuit of a goal.
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* After all the finns built the defensive Line of Mannergheim (here is one foresighfull genius the western world outside of Finland does not appreciate as much as he deserved) over the period of 20 years and manned it with troops superbly prepared, highly motivated and thoroughy familiar with the local conditions - troops that were probably the best the world had to offer at the time on such a massive scale. (We are not talking about special forces here but about tens of thousands regular and irregular troops).
Besides the usual advantages favoring the defender, the terrain was the worst for offence and logistical conditions (sacrce rail and roads, forest/swamp lanscape, a lot of rivers, lakes and brigdes, heavyly mined approaches, etc.) precluded adecvate supply of more than a handfull of divisions by the soviets while the communications were easily disrupted by roaming finnish detachments.
Nevertheless, the soviets managed to break through in the dead of the sub-polar winter, without significant air support due to weather conditions. Sure, they lost whole divisions dead - frozen and starved, but no one turned back or rebelled. 15% casualties might be a debilitating ratio for a western army but whlie comissars were in control, the soviet serf-soldiers stood and died until there were none left.
miko
