Aunus expedition The Aunus expedition was an attempt by Finnish volunteers to occupy parts of East Karelia in 1919 , during the Russian Civil War . " Aunus " is the Finnish name for Olonets Karelia . This expedition was one of many Finnic " kinship wars " ( " heimosodat " ) fought against forces of Soviet Russia after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and during the Russian Civil War . Background . In February 1918 general Mannerheim , the commander of the anti - communist White Guard s , wrote his famous " sword scabbard order of the day " , in which he said that he would not put his sword into the scabbard until East Karelia was free of Russian control . After the Finnish Civil War there was much public discussion about joining East Karelia to Finland , although the Russian East Karelia never was a part of the Sweden - Finland or the Grand Duchy of Finland . Earlier attempts in 1918 to Petsamo and White Karelia ( Viena expedition ) had failed , partly due to a passive attitude of the Karelians . Later the British occupied White Karelia . During the summer of 1918 , the government of Finland received various appeals from East Karelia for joining the area to Finland . Especially active were the inhabitants of the parish of Repola , which had held a vote to join Finland . The Finnish Army occupied the parish in the fall of 1918 . In January 1919 a small expedition of volunteers occupied the parish of Porajärvi , but was quickly repulsed by Bolshevik forces . Porajärvi held a vote on January 7 to also join Finland . In February 1919 Mannerheim made clear to the Western powers and the White Army that Finland would attack the Bolsheviks in Saint Petersburg if it would receive material and moral support . During the same time the plans for the Aunus expedition were prepared and the Jaeger - Major Gunnar von Herzen was chosen as the commander of the troops . He thought that the expedition would succeed with a thousand Finnish volunteers , but only if the Karelians would join the fighting . Mannerheim approved the plan , but demanded that Britain would also have to approve of it before it would proceed . The Expedition . The expedition crossed the border on the night of April 21 , 1919 . The goals were to capture Lodeynoye Pole , Petrozavodsk and the Murmansk railroad . The troops were divided into three groups and were made up of 1000 volunteers . The southern group advanced to Lodeynoye Pole in just three days , but was pressed back behind River Tuulos by Bolshevik troops . The northern group captured Prääsä . At this time it became obvious that there weren ' t enough troops to complete the goals of the expedition . A new round of recruiting 2000 new volunteers was started and Mannerheim made Aarne Sihvo the new commander of the expedition . Major Paavo Talvela ' s regiment started an attack aimed at Petrozavodsk on June 20 , but was beaten by Red Army and Finnish Red Guard forces just outside the town . The British troops that operated along the Murmansk railroad were quite close by , but did not participate . The Finns had hoped that the Karelian population would have joined the troops as volunteers but only a few did and their morale was never very high . The initiative now passed to the Bolsheviks . On June 26 over 600 Finns of the Red Officer School in Saint Petersburg made a landing at Vitele across Lake Ladoga behind the Finnish lines . The southern group was forced to retreat to Finland after suffering heavy losses . Talvela ' s group was also forced to retreat back to Finland . Aftermath . The only result from the expedition was that the parish of Porajärvi declared on June 6 that it wished to join Finland , as had the parish of Repola already done in 1918 . The regular Finnish Army moved in to occupy the parish . In the treaty of Tartu in 1920 Finland and Soviet Union agreed on their common border . Repola and Porajärvi were left on the Soviet side and the Finnish troops had to be withdrawn before February 14 , 1921 . The young police chief in Repola , Bobi Sivén shot himself in protest .