White Finland is an often-used term referring to one of the two parties in the Finnish Civil War (January to May 1918), the other one being 'the Reds', or the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. The Whites were supported by the White Guards, Jäger troops and the political right. They also received military support from Germany.
The Whites had no clear political aims in common, other than stopping the revolutionary Reds from taking power and returning to constitutional rule by the Senate (the government of the Grand Duchy) which was formed by the non-socialist parties of the Eduskunta (parliament) and returning to the Rule of Law. The provisional head of state of White Finland was Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, chairman of the senate at the time, and its military was commanded by Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim.
Famous quotes containing the word white:
“The birch stripped of its bark, or the charred stump where a tree has been burned down to be made into a canoe,—these are the only traces of man, a fabulous wild man to us. On either side, the primeval forest stretches away uninterrupted to Canada, or to the “South Sea”; to the white man a drear and howling wilderness, but to the Indian a home, adapted to his nature, and cheerful as the smile of the Great Spirit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)