Evening star., 1940-02-18
Finland in Hands
on Friends, Needs Aid
Now, Says Maj. Eliot
Length Of Defense
Held Question, Of
requirements

Requirements
BY MAJ. GEORGE FIELDING
ELIOT.
The terrible Finnish drama moves
On, seemingly with the inexorahle
march to doom of q Greek tragedy.
Yet there is still room for the mod
ern twist Of the surprise ending"
though the opportunity diminishes
with every passing day.
At the risk of being considered
unduly repetitious. it must be again
emphasized that Finland Is In the
hands Of her friends; that a nation
OF s,500,00O total population simply
has not the manpower to go on pro-
viding Indefinitely the necessary
battle requirements and reliefs for
even field force of six and q half
divisions.
The calling up of classes aged 43
and A is a sufficiently ominous IN
dication that in the matter of man
power, Finnish resources are nearing
their end. It was not until Septem-
ber, 1862, after nearly year and
half of fighting, that the Southern
Confederacy was compelled to raise
the age, limit for consumption above
IS; even though the South was then,
as Finland is now, on the whole VIC
torious on the ttlefield-McC Clellan
having just Tin july abandoned his
peninsula campaign, Pope sustained
his crushing defeat at second Bull
Run, and Lee having come off with
no worse than draw at Antietam,
while in the west Buell. had only
managed to save Louisville by the
skin Of his teeth, and Grants at
tempt upon Vicksburg was meeting
with little success and was soon to
be converted into a hasty retirement
on Memphis.
Firms Do Astonishingly Well.
On the battlefield Finland has so
far done well-astonishingly well.
Again this campaign has demon
strated the tremendous value of
training and Of competent leader
ship In war. The far-spreading
Russian campaign in the north has
been crushed, its various fragments
broken up and thrown back in Sc
ries Of defeats in detail. Repeated
Russian attempts to outf1ank the
main Finnish defenses by coming
round the north side of Lake Ladoga
have likewise been defeated. The
Russians have been compelled, as
previously predicted in these arti-
cles, to use their one advantage
the ability to replace their losses
in the one sector where their COM
munications permitted that advan-
tage to be capitalized upon, the Ka-
relian SthmuS, in a series of un-
remitting attacks regardless of cas-
ualties. These attacks have won
for them a considerable penetration
at one point of the Finnish de-
fenses.
1t was an axiom on the western
front in the last war that such pen
etrations could almost always be ef-
fected if the attacker was willing to
pay what was cheerfully referred to
as 'the butchers bill" But the
front of the penetration tended to
diminish, the deeper it went, due to
increasing pressure from the flanks;
this pressure was not only the fire
of the garrisons Of reserve-line
strong points, but in its more impor-
tant phases consisted of counter-at-
tacks by local reserves and on
larger scale by troops brought up
from general reserve. Unless these
counter-attacks could be met, and
the front of penetration widened by
the throwing in of additional re-
serves by the attacker, there was
little hope of a real success, the So
called "break-through": and it was
almost always the failure of these
troops to arrive at the right time and
place which brought offensives to an
end. The logical time for heavy
counter-attack was, of course, when
the penetration had advanced SO far
that the bulk of the supporting artil-
lery had to begin forward displace-
ment, which reduced the volume of
supporting fires: while at that time
the cooperation of air and ground
forces, and the technique of air
attack against ground targets, had
not been developed to point where
air forces could intervene with de-
cisive effect to fill in this gap.
Koivistc Fortress Holds Fast.
Viewed in the light of World War
experience, one would not be in
clined to think the Russian pene-
tration on the Summa sector-at
this phase of its Development
very serious matter. On the Rus
sian left, the strong fortress of
Koivisto, whose heavy guns are
so mounted as to have both land
ward and seaward arcs of fire, holds
fast and continues to inflict heavy
losses on the Russians. On the
Russian right, a series of lakes
extending to the Vuoksi River break
up the front and offer admifab
opportunities for local counter-at-
tack. If this were 1918, and If
the Firms disposed of ample re-
serves, one would now expect the
Russian right to be stabilized by
such counter-attacks, while against
their left, pushing forward up the
viipuri railway, one would antici-
pate the delivery of a powerful
counter -attack in force coming
from the general direction of
Heinjoki.
But this is not 1918, and the
Firms do not possess ample re-
serves. The Russians have thrown
in, according to reports, five hun
dred planes in support of their
advancing infantry-obviously to nm
in the gap" due to the forward dis
placement of their artillery-while
the Firms are calling up middle-aged
men in q desperate effort to re-
place their losses. It is still possible
nk1 Id ns,r