German Pressure To Attack Leningrad and The End of Offensive
At August 20, General W. Erfurth notified Mannerheim that Field Marshal W. Wilhelm Keitel would send a letter describing where Finns were asked to attack Leningrad. Mannerheim explained practical difficulties of the proposal and presented the opposition of both the political and military leadership to this attack. The government had decided beforehand that Finland would not attack Leningrad, and only after the pressure of military leadership they accepted a small advance across the old border to capture better defensive positions. The social democrats especially opposed crossing the border. When Keitel's letter came, Ryti and Mannerheim together prepared a negative answer. On August 31, Erfurth contacted Mannerheim again and proposed that Finns should cancel the attack to East Karelia and instead attack Leningrad. Ryti and Mannerheim again refused. On August 31 Mannerheim gave the order that the attack be stopped at the line from the mouth of the river Rajajoki to Ohta. The exact line between Ohta and Lake Ladoga would be ordered later, when the Finns had reached the old border there. That would shorten the frontline without the need to attack Soviet fortifications north of Leningrad (KaUR). In this last phase, the Soviets had six infantry divisions and a number of separate battalions and regiments defending Leningrad from the north, but all of them were at half strength due to the hard fighting with the Finns.
12.D had reached the target already on September 1, but elsewhere the attack started on September 2. 18.D captured Mainila at the same day and Valkeasaari (now Beloostrov) at next day. By September 7 both 18.D and 2.D had reached their targets between River Rajajoki and Ohta. The commander of I Corps, Colonel Mäkinen, ordered his troops to advance to the line Ohta-Lake Lempaalanjärvi-Old border at Lake Ladoga with an addition, that if strong defences were met, the offensive could be stopped there. At September 4 the attack began, and at September 6 10.D managed to encircle and destroy Soviet IR941 at Kirjasalo. Finally at September 9 the ordered line was reached everywhere and Finnish forces moved to the defensive.
The Soviet military leadership quickly learned of lessened Finnish pressure, and already at September 5 two divisions were transferred from Karelian Isthmus to the south of the city, against the Germans. Although the Finnish troops on the Karelian Isthmus didn't actively participate in the Siege of Leningrad, merely just their existence contributed to the siege by hampering the supply of the city around and across the Lake Ladoga.
Half of the Finnish part of the Isthmus was reconquered by the Soviet Union in the Fourth strategic offensive in 1944.
Read more about this topic: Finnish Reconquest Of The Karelian Isthmus (1941)
Famous quotes containing the words german, pressure, attack and/or offensive:
“Frankly, I do not like the idea of conversations to define the term “unconditional surrender.” ... The German people can have dinned into their ears what I said in my Christmas Eve speech—in effect, that we have no thought of destroying the German people and that we want them to live through the generations like other European peoples on condition, of course, that they get rid of their present philosophy of conquest.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“The mother whose self-image is dependent on her children places on those children the responsibility for her own identity, and her involvement in the details of their lives can put great pressure on the children. A child suffers when everything he or she does is extremely important to a parent; this kind of over-involvement can turn even a small problem into a crisis.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“Remote and ineffectual Don
That dared attack my Chesterton.”
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)
“People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that the trade of the whole country will be benefitted thereby, and the men running the ships will of course make a reasonable profit.... Unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)