Talk:World War II/Archive 4

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Discussion on Finland

Regarding the statements:

  • there was no peace-treaty between the Soviet Union and Finland after the Winter War
  • only Britain had prepared for/discussed an Scandinavian occupation
  • Finnish forces were unable to force itself into the city Leningrad

I must say that these are shameless pro-Soviet and anti-Finnish lies, which even the slightest reading in any serious work on the World War would tell.

Shame on you!

I don't understand ???? Ericd 22:52 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Isn't it pretty clear?
See: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=World_War_II&diff=1143680&oldid=1141660
and http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=World_War_II&action=history

User:Stan Shebs must have done the reverting without checking the facts, and the rage is not THAT hard to understand given the Allies' Catch-22 attitude in regards to post-Winter War Finland, here echoed by Stan Shebs. On one hand, the Soviet propaganda has been liberally propagated, on the other hand Finland has been criticized for Finlandization. The effect of the reverting is a text less NPOV, although more in harmony with popular misconceptions.

One can discuss the importance of the Moscow Peace Treaty (after the Winter War), but it is factual, and giving another impression is in my humble opinion less NPOV than the text Stan Shebs changed.

When it comes to the wording on the siege of Leningrad, I must say that the previous text in my opinion is both more factual (the number of civilian deaths is disputable, but HIGH, and Finland didn't participate in attacks, despite numerous German pleas, but had halted at the rivers/rivulets decided in advance - I'm not sure how to properly translate the river-names to English - partly due to British pressure), although it can always be discussed how many words that theater of war is worth - no British and no Americans lost their lives there. One million of Leningrad's civilians dead - peanuts?

Regarding the prepared Franco-British expedition to Narvik, the removed text seems to be factual, according to my knowledge, but of lesser importance.
-- Ruhrjung 11:06 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The date for the Phony War was contradicted by the date in Phony War, "Democratic Finland being assaulted by the 50 times as big Communist dictature made the moral judgement easy for all but the Germans" is semi-literate POV, and the Leningrad bit was already both succinct and correct; Siege of Leningrad would be the right place to go into maneuvers in depth. Yes, there are others places with too much detail, but this article has already gotten too long, and we need to hold the line somewhere; this article should be a survey and index farm connecting to specific episodes. Stan 13:15 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Cuting down the length is important, yes, though balancing length is even more important, ...but maybe not to the price of factual errors. Particularly not when these errors depicture a victim as aggressor.
The Leningrad bit is, beside being false, obviously POV as it is; a Soviet POV actually. Together with the notion of Soviet's heavy losses in the Winter War (totally disregarding Finland's), it is not very surprising if the assaulted part (which actually got something like "the whole world's" sympathy - except, maybe, my German compatriots') occasionally react with a certain amount of anger, added on top of the feeling of betrayal, which both Finns and Poles have reason to direct against the Western victors.
Please note that the reverted changes by 213.116.231.122 actually corrected a set of errors, beside the somewhat clumsy balancing of the Soviet (i.e. anti-Finnish) POV. I write deliberately "somewhat" clumsy, as I think the mention of the particularly high number of civilian deaths for a singular city (Leningrad) was a laudable example of NPOV-editing.
By and large the whole article has an overweight for, first of all, events of Western relevance, secondly for Allied bias. Compare the space given for the siege of Leningrad with that of the tactical bombing of England.
I hope also Ericd and Stan will see what I mean. That's why I write here.
-- Ruhrjung 23:14 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I'm all for pruning down the Western stuff; if we adjust by scale of conflict, the Russo-German conflict should take up the largest part of the article. But I'm sure if I were to make those edits, there would be howls of outrage from somebody else that I'm being offensive and POV; there are way too many people who take the content of this article way too personally. Stan 01:50 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Balance length by adding to weak areas or moving detail to a daughter article NOT by deleting valid information. --mav

One of the great what-ifs of the war. In the Franco-British has helped the Finns against the Red Menance, it would have solidified the Russo-German bond and put the West in a world of hurt. -- PaulinSaudi 12:26 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

(On the What-If, I beg to remind you that the British commander of the expedition force preparing for Finland was instructed to avoid battle contact with the Russians, so it seems the Allied had thought of that. -- Ruhrjung)

"Nazi-alliance"? Bah! Food trade - yes. Arms trade - mostly. Tactic cooperation - yes. Cobelligerence - yes. A blackmailed written agreement, valid less than two months of the summer 1944, not to seek a separate peace - yes. "Support" - well, yes, Finland paid dearly for the support absolutely no-one else was able or willing to give in the Continuation War! And that you make into "Nazi-alliance" and "was unable to force itself into" Leningrad, when the truth is the very opposite.

You and this whole page is useless, fully in news-group class, if you allow crack pots like Stan and his ilk spread their old Soviet propaganda lies. It doesn't matter how you call it: "reverting" lies or "spreading" lies!

Don't try to belittle people as "offended if not in the top paragraph". No, let's call a spade a spade: "Disgusted" that you still 60 years later can't move beyond the worst propaganda.

What a joke that Google favorizes you!

So, we now have anonymous vitriolic attacks do we? Stan was incorrect to revert the part about the siege of Leningrad. Mannerheim did indeed deliberately not attack from the north. However, so far as I could see, most of the other edits were correct. In future, please sign your contributions, so we can know who is letting off steam in a rather rude way. David Newton 22:51 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You should read my other contributions, here is what I wrote : "Should we keep Finland in the "minor Axis power" ? The Finland had a terrible choice between Stalin and Hitler. They had a war with the Soviet when they where allied to Hitler. When Hilter broke his alliance with Stalin they helped the Nazi to fight the Soviets and then fighted the Nazis themselve, they had no other choice than realpolitik IMO." see archives... I don't like your tone. Ericd 11:07 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I propose we focus on two things: facts, and what's in the article.

I can't see that Stan has been able to defend his changes, more than possibly on the point of which date we better state as the end of the Phony War. After Stan's change, the article now states two different dates, which might disturb sensitive readers. I note following relevant www-pages among the first listed by google, searching for "phony-war 1940 april OR may":


It seems to me as it's merily a matter of taste whether one regards the Phony War to have lasted until the assault on Denmark and Norway, or until the assault on Benelux and France.

However, as the rest of our loudmouthed anonymous collegue's changes were correct, and as his/her contributions on Finland-related pages (judged from style and IP-nr) have been balanced and factual, and as the rest of Stan's changes here were less impressive, I propose we restore the changes with exception of the following paragraph, which maybe could be pruned a bit:

Finland was invaded by the Soviets on November 30th 1939. This began the Winter War, which came to stand in the center of the worlds interest during the Phony War. Democratic Finland being assaulted by the 50 times as big Communist dictature made the moral judgement easy for all but the Germans. After over three months of hard fights and heavy losses the Soviet Union confined with 10% of Finland's territory in a peace treaty of March 12th, 1940.

Additionally, I think a brief mention of the peace treaties would fit in the article, linked of course to more minute sub-articles, where particularly Soviet's adversaries' hard fate - and Soviet's gain of satelites - would fit in, and give for instance Finnish readers a less unfavorable impression of the article's balance.

-- Ruhrjung 08:46 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This is now done, with exception for mentioning peace treaties. (See Paris Peace Treaty.) But I was shocked when I discovered that the page now was 47 kb before I started (and 49 kb after - sackcloth and ashes!).

I added the following on the Scandinavian campaign, which I however realize probably is too much into detail for the page if it's to be kept within 32 kilobytes:

Denmark capitulated instantly in exchange for retained political independence in domestic matters, which resulted in an occupation uniquely lenient until the summer of 1943, also postponing the arrest and deportation of Danish Jews until nearly all of them were warned and on their way to Sweden. Less than 500 Danish Jews were deported, and less than 50 of them lost their lifes.
The occupation of Norway went swiftly, except in the furthest North, where British and German troops fought the battles of Narvik over the control of the winter harbor, important for export of Swedish iron ore. The Germans evacuated on May 28th, but due to the detoriating situation on the European continent, the British troops were called back and the Germans recaptured Narvik on June 9th.
As a consequence, Germany put pressure on neutral Sweden to permit transition of military goods and soldiers on leave. On June 18th an agreement is reached: Soldiers are to travel unarmed and not be part of unit movements. A total of 2,140,000 German soldiers, and over 100,000 German military railway carriages, cross Sweden until the traffic is officially suspended on August 20th, 1943.

Maybe a separate article on Weserübung should be the appropriate place for this?

Yes, I agree, this page would need to be protected.
-- Ruhrjung 09:10 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

BTW, when it comes to some of the dates that Ruhrjung put in, they are contrary to the Manual of Style. There is no mention in that of using ordinal numbers, and yet they are used in the article in some newly edited sections. Cardinal numbers have been firmly decided on, although the jury is still out on whether they should be before or after the month.
Whilst the points about Finland refusing to attack Leningrad itself are correct. The contention that was edited in that the Soviet Union gave up on attacking Finland in 1940 is plain WRONG. The Finns had held the Soviets for three months and inflicted massive losses on them. However, by the end, the Mannerheim Line had been broken, and a general retreat was in progress. If a defensive line is broken with an army in retreat, that is quite often defined as losing a war. The Germans thought so in 1918, although of course there were those who later twisted that to being stabbed in the back when there was still a fighting chance. Do you really want to be in the same sort of company as those who engaged in that twisting of history? One of the people who did that was Adolf Hitler himself.
In the Continuation War section, there is a claim that Finland initially declared neutrality. I have never seen this claimed anywhere before, and since German troops were on Finnish soil, that is somewhat difficult to believe. Where is that claimed in WWII literature? Here [1], it is claimed that the sequence of events went from the Soviets bombing Finland on June 25, to Finland declaring war the next day, to Finland launching offensive operations on June 29. BTW, the same source also says that Britain gave Finland a two week deadline to cease offensive operations against the Soviet Union, or face war. Two weeks later war was declared. The UK did not just declare war on powers willy-nilly. Finland was acting as part of the Axis, whether for somewhat different motives than other members of the Axis, it was still part of the Axis. The mere fact that Finland was allowing German troops on its territory is damning. Sweden never allowed armed German troops on its territory, and it was under German pressure as much as Finland during the conflict. David Newton 12:44 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Well Finland may well have claimed neutrality after all Vichy France was neutral.....
They were fighting they own war using the support they can find.
Ericd 20:40 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)~


I hope we agree on the principle, that the article World War II is a frame for the more minute articles. The ideal must be to make a brief summary here. Discussion on the details must better be performed on the respective talk-pages, i.e. Talk:Winter War and Talk:Continuation War for the questions on Finland.
Regarding the format for dates, the only thing I care about is that this article, i.e. World War II, doesn't have different dates for the end of the Phony War.
As the terminology whether Finland's wars were "lost" or "won" is somewhat controversial, and as a relation of the different views according to NPOV-principles would take far more space than suitable in the World War II-article, I propose the less controversial fact that USSR gave up its goal to invade all of Finland (although only temporarily) instead of the lost/won Points of Views.
-- Ruhrjung 16:29 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)