Winter War and The Interim Peace
When the Soviet invasion started the Winter War on 30 November 1939, Oesch continued as the Chief of the General Staff in the Finnish Supreme HQ under Mannerheim. Curiously enough, there's very little study of Oesch's role in the Supreme HQ, he is usually left in Mannerheim's and Airo's shadow.
Oesch got the opportunity to show his talents as front commander in March 1940. The Red Army had surprised Finns by crossing the frozen Bay of Viipuri and gained a foothold on its western shore. Mannerheim had created the Coast Group to repel the enemy, but its first commander Major General Kurt Martti Wallenius was dismissed in disgrace after holding the command only for three days. The situation was extremely critical, and Oesch was appointed to deal with it. Finnish defenses consisted mainly of badly equipped coast defense battalions manned by older reservists and battalions hastily transferred from Lapland. Oesch was able to hold this motley and worn force together until the end of the war on 13 March 1940, causing heavy losses for the Red Army and significantly slowing its advance. Mannerheim began to regard Oesch as a man who can deal with difficult situations.
During the ensuing peace, known as the Interim Peace by Finns, Oesch first returned to his previous post as the Chief of the General Staff for few weeks, until taking the command of II Army Corps in April 1940.
Read more about this topic: Karl Lennart Oesch
Famous quotes containing the words winter, war, interim and/or peace:
“When winter snows upon thy sable hairs,
And frost of age hath nipped thy beauties near;
When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withered that was held so dear,
Then take this picture which I here present thee,
Limned with a pencil not all unworthy;”
—Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)
“What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It’s a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)
“If I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support
By his dear absence. Let me go with him.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“come peace or war, the progress of America and Europe
Becomes a long process of deterioration—”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)