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Description
In which Finland kicked ass, but ultimately lost because Russia was a friggen BEAST.

This the colored version. My scanner is kinda crappy, and it looks a lot more washed out than it actually is. Line art here. [link]

I made a couple mistakes when I inked this, but I don't know if anyone will notice. It bothers me though.

Also, Russia's coat is a bitch to shade. I did all of the coloring and shading with pencils of both the regular and colored variety. I did brighten up the snowflakes on Paint though.

Also, Finland should have a hood, but seeing as his back is facing us, and he's upside down, it would completely cover his face.

And Finland should have a hood, but I didn't want to block his face.

Historical notes!

Russia invaded Finland in 1939, just after WWII started, and really had them out numbered. Russia had at least three times the men, and a hundred times the equipment, but their morale was pretty low. This happened right after Russia's Great Purge so most of the experienced officers were six feet under, and the unexperienced guys took the helm.

Also, Russia was really dumb in the fact they didn't paint their equipment white in a winter wonderland. It took almost half the war for Russia to catch on and paint their stuff white. This is one time that General Winter sided against the Russians, seeing as the Russians were unprepared and understocked.

The Fins on the other hand... they survived the cold because it was where they lived. They also had white equipment, and AMAZING SNIPERS.

If you've heard of Simo Hayah, this is where his legend was born. He has the most confirmed sniper kills ever: 505. And that doesn't even count his non sniper kills and his unconfirmed sniper kills. He was so epic, the Russians nicknamed him "White Death."

Russia expected a quick war; when they didn't get one, they had to work their propaganda machines double time, trying to explain to their people why they were still at war. They even said that the US had sent their 1000 of their best pilots.

Unfortunately, despite amazing Finnish resistance, and enormous Russian losses, Russia won the war.

I mean seriously. Russia lost five times more men than Finland did. Russia had the numbers to keep on trucking though, and eventually, enough pressure was put on the Finnish government that they had to sign the treaty.

So, basically, Russia won politically, but Finland won militarily.

EDIT: It's a lot more complicated than that. I ended up doing a research paper between then and now, so I have a lot more facts. I'll try and keep it short. I had a wall of text before, and then my computer ate it, so I'm doing a shorter version. Also, replace every instance of Russia above with "the Soviet Union." Russia technically didn't exist at that point in time.

Diplomatic background:

Molotov-Ribbentrop pact: Soviet Union and Nazi Germany non-aggression pact that split Poland, the Baltics and Finland between the two of them. I'm sure you've heard of it before, if you've spent any time in this fandom.

The Soviet Union demanded strategic areas in return for crap land. Finland drew out the negotiations and then went, "FUCK NO."

Soviet Union shelled their own border town, Mainila and blamed it on the Fins, even though it makes complete sense for a country of 3.5 million people to invade a country more than 30 times its population, even though Finland pulled back his guns precisely to prevent such things from happening.

Finland gained independence 22 years ago, right before going all up in a bloody civil war. Hard feelings stick around. 1 in 5 Finns are communist at this point in time.

Stalin thinks this is going to easy, creates a puppet government to split the population. It backfires, as every Finn now knows that any invasion is going to threaten Finnish independence, and they're all like, "Bros before power hungry communist dictators."

Military background:
Finland had no armored tanks. Lots of their stuff dated from WWI, now horribly obsolete. They had planes without covered cockpits. They had a couple of big guns from Sweden, though they didn't have enough of them, or ammo for them. They would have lasted a month.

Russia had tons of stuff. Giant industrial nation with the manpower and resources to replace pretty much everything lost in this war. Lots of anti-armor guns

GEOGRAPHY!

Click the [link]

As you can see, there is a super important capital right there, next to the Karelian Isthmus. Ladoga-Karelia has a shit load of lots of little lakes and forests. The northern wilds have a shit load of trees and snow and exactly one poor road. The only half way modern battlefield is on the Karelian Isthmus.

Ladoga-Karelia is also bigger. Soviets think- "More room to maneuver!!" Actually, all that space is already full of trees. Also population centers are in the south. There's pretty much nothing up north. Except for Finland's only ice-free port that would have allowed the western allies to reach Finland in the dead of winter. But it wasn't like it was well defended anyway, and the allies never even tried to come. Officially. There were volunteers.

Okay, rambling.

Anyway.

USSR plans to invade Finland via Ladoga-Karelia and "cut it in half at the waist." This is the theater of war where Simo Hayha wreaked his havoc. Any way, most of the Soviet troops were stationed in the South, so like Ukraine or Turkestan. They were all totally creeped out by these places.

For the first few days/weeks of the war, Finns lost. They were under-equipped, outnumbered, and unprepared to face the modern mass that is the Red Army.

Then they started winning, because the Finnish leaders were boss.

Fun Fact: Marshall Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, the leader of the Finnish Army, was the only soldier to receive the much coveted, Iron Cross award from Germany, that fought against Germany.

Soviets were all like- What? Why we losing?

1. All the experience officers had been offed in the Great Purges
2. They expected their men to become expert skiers without any training
3. Their men weren't prepared for this particular battlefield
4. Finns lived here. They could ski, and they were prepared to die for their country.
5. Propaganda kind of sucked.

This part is fun.

Soviet Propaganda on the Finnish side:

We're freeing you from the capitalist bourgeoisie pigs! We'll give you.... The eight hour work day!!!!

.... We already have an eight hour work day.

...

And when they couldn't get past the Mannerheim line which is here [link]

THE MANNERHEIM LINE IS AS STRONG AS THE MAGINOT LINE

Scared Russian Soldiers: .... I'm scared.

And then the Soviet Union was all like, I guess we should take this more seriously then.

And then the USSR won. The end. Finland lost stuff, but kept his independence. Then there was the Lapland war and the Continuation war that didn't end so well for Finland, but I don't know nearly enough about that stuff, so I'll stop right here.

I have homework unrelated to history anyway. I guess if you have any questions, you can leave a comment. And uh, sorry for the wall of text.

Description
In which Finland kicked ass, but ultimately lost because Russia was a friggen BEAST.

This the colored version. My scanner is kinda crappy, and it looks a lot more washed out than it actually is. Line art here. [link]

I made a couple mistakes when I inked this, but I don't know if anyone will notice. It bothers me though.

Also, Russia's coat is a bitch to shade. I did all of the coloring and shading with pencils of both the regular and colored variety. I did brighten up the snowflakes on Paint though.

Also, Finland should have a hood, but seeing as his back is facing us, and he's upside down, it would completely cover his face.

And Finland should have a hood, but I didn't want to block his face.

Historical notes!

Russia invaded Finland in 1939, just after WWII started, and really had them out numbered. Russia had at least three times the men, and a hundred times the equipment, but their morale was pretty low. This happened right after Russia's Great Purge so most of the experienced officers were six feet under, and the unexperienced guys took the helm.

Also, Russia was really dumb in the fact they didn't paint their equipment white in a winter wonderland. It took almost half the war for Russia to catch on and paint their stuff white. This is one time that General Winter sided against the Russians, seeing as the Russians were unprepared and understocked.

The Fins on the other hand... they survived the cold because it was where they lived. They also had white equipment, and AMAZING SNIPERS.

If you've heard of Simo Hayah, this is where his legend was born. He has the most confirmed sniper kills ever: 505. And that doesn't even count his non sniper kills and his unconfirmed sniper kills. He was so epic, the Russians nicknamed him "White Death."

Russia expected a quick war; when they didn't get one, they had to work their propaganda machines double time, trying to explain to their people why they were still at war. They even said that the US had sent their 1000 of their best pilots.

Unfortunately, despite amazing Finnish resistance, and enormous Russian losses, Russia won the war.

I mean seriously. Russia lost five times more men than Finland did. Russia had the numbers to keep on trucking though, and eventually, enough pressure was put on the Finnish government that they had to sign the treaty.

So, basically, Russia won politically, but Finland won militarily.

EDIT: It's a lot more complicated than that. I ended up doing a research paper between then and now, so I have a lot more facts. I'll try and keep it short. I had a wall of text before, and then my computer ate it, so I'm doing a shorter version. Also, replace every instance of Russia above with "the Soviet Union." Russia technically didn't exist at that point in time.

Diplomatic background:

Molotov-Ribbentrop pact: Soviet Union and Nazi Germany non-aggression pact that split Poland, the Baltics and Finland between the two of them. I'm sure you've heard of it before, if you've spent any time in this fandom.

The Soviet Union demanded strategic areas in return for crap land. Finland drew out the negotiations and then went, "FUCK NO."

Soviet Union shelled their own border town, Mainila and blamed it on the Fins, even though it makes complete sense for a country of 3.5 million people to invade a country more than 30 times its population, even though Finland pulled back his guns precisely to prevent such things from happening.

Finland gained independence 22 years ago, right before going all up in a bloody civil war. Hard feelings stick around. 1 in 5 Finns are communist at this point in time.

Stalin thinks this is going to easy, creates a puppet government to split the population. It backfires, as every Finn now knows that any invasion is going to threaten Finnish independence, and they're all like, "Bros before power hungry communist dictators."

Military background:
Finland had no armored tanks. Lots of their stuff dated from WWI, now horribly obsolete. They had planes without covered cockpits. They had a couple of big guns from Sweden, though they didn't have enough of them, or ammo for them. They would have lasted a month.

Russia had tons of stuff. Giant industrial nation with the manpower and resources to replace pretty much everything lost in this war. Lots of anti-armor guns

GEOGRAPHY!

Click the [link]

As you can see, there is a super important capital right there, next to the Karelian Isthmus. Ladoga-Karelia has a shit load of lots of little lakes and forests. The northern wilds have a shit load of trees and snow and exactly one poor road. The only half way modern battlefield is on the Karelian Isthmus.

Ladoga-Karelia is also bigger. Soviets think- "More room to maneuver!!" Actually, all that space is already full of trees. Also population centers are in the south. There's pretty much nothing up north. Except for Finland's only ice-free port that would have allowed the western allies to reach Finland in the dead of winter. But it wasn't like it was well defended anyway, and the allies never even tried to come. Officially. There were volunteers.

Okay, rambling.

Anyway.

USSR plans to invade Finland via Ladoga-Karelia and "cut it in half at the waist." This is the theater of war where Simo Hayha wreaked his havoc. Any way, most of the Soviet troops were stationed in the South, so like Ukraine or Turkestan. They were all totally creeped out by these places.

For the first few days/weeks of the war, Finns lost. They were under-equipped, outnumbered, and unprepared to face the modern mass that is the Red Army.

Then they started winning, because the Finnish leaders were boss.

Fun Fact: Marshall Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, the leader of the Finnish Army, was the only soldier to receive the much coveted, Iron Cross award from Germany, that fought against Germany.

Soviets were all like- What? Why we losing?

1. All the experience officers had been offed in the Great Purges
2. They expected their men to become expert skiers without any training
3. Their men weren't prepared for this particular battlefield
4. Finns lived here. They could ski, and they were prepared to die for their country.
5. Propaganda kind of sucked.

This part is fun.

Soviet Propaganda on the Finnish side:

We're freeing you from the capitalist bourgeoisie pigs! We'll give you.... The eight hour work day!!!!

.... We already have an eight hour work day.

...

And when they couldn't get past the Mannerheim line which is here [link]

THE MANNERHEIM LINE IS AS STRONG AS THE MAGINOT LINE

Scared Russian Soldiers: .... I'm scared.

And then the Soviet Union was all like, I guess we should take this more seriously then.

And then the USSR won. The end. Finland lost stuff, but kept his independence. Then there was the Lapland war and the Continuation war that didn't end so well for Finland, but I don't know nearly enough about that stuff, so I'll stop right here.

I have homework unrelated to history anyway. I guess if you have any questions, you can leave a comment. And uh, sorry for the wall of text.