The article concerns Swedish intervention in the Finnish Civil War, for information on the ethno-linguistic conflict involving Swedish speaking Finns: Click Here

Sweden and Finland have a long history. For the one century Finland spent under Russian rule, it spent the previous six centuries under Swedish rule. In 1914, approximately 11% of the Finnish population were Swedish speaking Finns, many with familial ties to Sweden.[1] These ties were strong enough to prompt the Finnish Active Resistance Party to approach the Swedish Government in October 1915 with the proposal of receiving Finnish diplomatic or military support for an independent Finland.[2] The Swedes declined, they were not willing to declare war on Russia which would surely draw them into the First World War.

Thoughts on Independence

In December 1917 Sweden hesitated in recognizing Finnish independence. Being a neutral nation in the First World War, Sweden did not want to indirectly antagonize any of the great powers. This is evident in an official Swedish communique delivered on December 16^th 1917, days after the Finnish declaration of Independence, saying Sweden wanted “to be able to recognize Finland as an independent state,” but it could not.[3] The Swedish government wished to wait to see how Russia, the Western Allies and the Central Powers reacted to Finnish independence. After Bolshevik Russia recognized Finland’s independence, Sweden was one of the first to recognize Finland’s independence on January 4^th 1918.[4]

Swedish Non-Intervention in the Civil War

Just before the beginning of the Civil War, the White Military Committee once again requested Swedish intervention to expel Russian soldiers from Finland.[5] The Swedes again declined to act, citing the opposition from Swedish socialist parties to any endeavor. This did not stop rumours from spreading, especially amongst paranoid socialist circles. Even before the Civil War, headlines in the socialist newspaper Työmies read “Will Sweden Attack Finland?”[6] A warning from the Russian Baltic Fleet in Helsinki that they would massacre the bourgeoisie of Helsinki if Swedish troops crossed the border provided further deterrent.[7]

Despite the Swedish socialists denying official Swedish support for the Whites, they did not actively support the Reds either. Announcing that while they were willing to prevent the Swedish bourgeoisie from assisting the Whites they felt:

“…it would be wrong to conceal that the view is general in the Swedish Social Democrat party that the Finnish revolution is wrong and unwise, and could harm Social Democracy in Europe generally.”[8]

The greatest diplomatic action the official Swedish government took in the Civil War was on February 14^th with a call for Russian soldiers to vacate Finland.[9]

Swedish Volunteers

While there was to be no official Swedish intervention, the Swedish Government made no effort stop their citizens from privately participating in the Finnish Civil War. By virtue of geography and its alliance with Germany, White Finland controlled the land and sea routes to Sweden and thus received the entirety of private Swedish support. Whether or not there were Swedish socialists who would have defied their party and assisted the Finnish Reds in the Civil War is unknown.

Swedes formed an organization called Finlands Vänner (Friends of Finland) to help provide financial and material support to the Whites.[10] The most significant Swedish contribution in the Civil War, were Swedish officers who resigned their commissions in the Swedish Army and joined the White army. In total, 34 active Swedish Army officers resigned their commissions to serve in the White Guard, along with 50 reserve officers and former officers.[11] The quality of these officers was extremely high, the volunteers forming a large part of the White Army’s operational staff, heavily contributing to the wartime efficiency of the White Guard. Two of the White’s best frontline commanders, Colonels Ernst Linder and Hjalmarson, were professional Swedish officers.[12]

Non-officers also joined the Whites in large numbers, with volunteer Swedes forming their own special unit. Over the course of the war over a 1000 men served in the Swedish Brigade, including Norwegian and Danish volunteers, and saw major action at the Battle of Tampere.[13]

After the Civil War, the pro-German Finnish Government expelled the Swedish volunteers, an underappreciation of their service to White Finland, to be remedied after Germany was defeated.[14]

            The Åland Islands Question

The Åland Islands are an island chain at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea, between Finland and Sweden. In 1917, approximately 97% of the Islands’ 25,000 inhabitants were Swedish speaking and of Swedish descent.[15] In December 1917, when Finland declared independence, the Ålanders held their own plebiscite and declared their wish for the Ålands to join Sweden rather than independent Finland.[16] Sweden was receptive, although not on wholly on altruistic or ethnic grounds. The Ålands hold enormous strategic value, protecting sea routes to both Stockholm and Petrograd.

In late February 1917, as Finland was embroiled in war, a squadron of Swedish Navy ships appeared off the Ålands and Swedish soldiers began landing. Both Red and White Finland decried this as an illegal invasion (perhaps the only issue the two agreed on). The Swedish claimed their intervention was purely humanitarian and negotiated a ceasefire between the Reds, Whites and Russians on the islands.[17] The appearance German soldiers in March 1918, acting on White Finland’s behalf, led to the retreat of the Swedish forces, taking any of the residents who wished to evacuate with them.[18] The Germans assured the Swedish that the islands would be demilitarized, as stated in Article VII of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.[19]

The Ålands became pertinent again following Germany’s defeat. With Swedish encouragement, the Ålanders requested the Allies discuss which nation should possess the islands in the upcoming Paris Peace Conference.[20] An expected key component of the Conference would be the concept of self-determination, put forward by American President Woodrow Wilson. Following a series of debates before the League of Nations, Finnish sovereignty over the Åland Islands was declared to be “incontestable”.[21] The Ålanders were given certain political privileges, including self-governance, the maintaining of Swedish as the islands primary language and all parties involved were satisfied the islands’ were to be permanently demilitarized.

 

 

Citations

[1] Pekka Kalevi Hamalainen, The Nationality Struggle between the Finns and the Swedish-Speaking Minority in Finland, 1917-1939 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Indiana University Press, 1966), 16.

[2] Anthony F Upton, Finnish Revolution 1917-18 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 74.

[3] Ibid., 190.

[4] Osmo Jussila, Seppo Hentilä, and Jukka Nevakivi, From Grand Duchy to a Modern State – A Political History of Finland since 1809, trans. David Arter and Eva-Kaisa Arter (London: Hurst and Company, 1999), 105.

[5] Upton, Finnish Revolution 1917-18, 327–28.

[6] Pekka Kalevi Hamalainen, In Time of Storm: Revolution, Civil War, and the Ethnolinguistic Issue in Finland (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 68.

[7] Craig Gerrard, “The Foreign Office and British Intervention in the Finnish Civil War,” Civil Wars 3, no. 3 (2000): 91.

[8] Upton, Finnish Revolution 1917-18, 425.

[9] Gerrard, “The Foreign Office and British Intervention in the Finnish Civil War,” 93.

[10] Hamalainen, In Time of Storm, 86.

[11] Upton, Finnish Revolution 1917-18, 328–29.

[12] Pertti Haapala et al., Tampere 1918: A Town in the Civil War, ed. Tuomas Hoppu et al., trans. Anu Planting (Tampere: Tampere Museums, Museum Centre Vaprikki, 2010), 85.

[13] Hamalainen, In Time of Storm, 86.

[14] C. Jay Smith, Finland and the Russian Revolution 1917-1922 (University of Georgia Press, 1958), 108.

[15] Karen Stanbridge, “Master Frames, Political Opportunities, and Self-Determination: The Åland Islands in the Post-WWI Period,” The Sociological Quarterly 43, no. 4 (2002): 534.

[16] Eve Hepburn, “Forging Autonomy in a Unitary State: The Åland Islands in Finland,” Comparative European Politics 12, no. 4–5 (2014): 471.

[17] Hamalainen, In Time of Storm, 69.

[18] Upton, Finnish Revolution 1917-18, 333.

[19] Smith, Finland and the Russian Revolution 1917-1922, 45.

[20] Stanbridge, “Master Frames, Political Opportunities, and Self-Determination: The Åland Islands in the Post-WWI Period,” 534.

[21] James Barros, The Aland Islands Question: Its Settlement by the League of Nations (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968), 315.

Banner Photo – Fallen members of the Swedish Brigade after the Battle of Tampere. Credit: Swedish Military Archives.