Background
The Finnish government received the first tentative peace conditions from the Soviet Union (through Stockholm) on 31 January. Until then, the Red Army had fought to occupy all of Finland. By this point, the regime was prepared to temper its claims. The demands were that Finland cede the Karelian Isthmus, including the city of Viipuri, and Finland's shore of Lake Ladoga. The Hanko Peninsula was to be leased to the Soviet Union for 30 years.
Finland rejected these demands and intensified its pleas to Sweden, France and the United Kingdom for military support by regular troops. Although Finland in the long run had no chance against a country fifty times its size, the reports from the front still held out hope for Finland, anticipating a League of Nations intervention. Positive signals, however inconstant, from France and Britain, and more realistic expectations of troops from Sweden, for which plans and preparations had been made all through the 1930s, were further reasons for Finland not to rush into peace negotiations. (See Winter War#Foreign support for a detailed account.)
In February 1940, Finland's Commander-in-Chief marshal Mannerheim expressed his pessimism about the military situation, prompting the government to start peace negotiations on 29 February, the same day the Red Army commenced an attack against Viipuri (now Vyborg).
Read more about this topic: Moscow Peace Treaty
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