Greetings from Latvia! Finnish people are legendary for their bravery!!!

My sympathies are completely with Finland. What a fool Churchill was for letting Stalin talk him into declaring war on Finland.

Winter War Joke: It is 1939 and a Soviet army is marching on Finland. As they pass the border, they hear a Finnish voice over the hill; "One Finnish soldier is better than 10 Soviet soldiers!" The Soviet general laughs, as he sends 10 men on the hill to capture it. There is gunfire for a minute and then everything goes silent for a moment, and they then hear the same voice; "One Finnish soldier is better than a hundred of yours!" Annoyed, the Soviet general sends hundred men to capture the hill. There is gunfire and bombs going for ten minutes, and everything goes silent again. Suddenly, the same voice yells out; "One Finnish soldier is better than thousand of Soviet soldiers!" Enraged, the general sends a thousand men, accompanied with tanks, artillery, mortar teams, and tells them to not return until the hill is theirs. For half an hour hell breaks loose, bombs and explosions, gunfire, screams and death all around, and then it goes silent again. One Soviet soldier crawls back, severely wounded and battered. Before the general could say anything, the soldier says; "Do not send more troops, comrade general, it's a trap! There are two of them."

I am an Iranian. I was socked to find what Finnish did on this war. I respect and admire Finnish. There are a lot to be learnt from Finnish. Congratulation to your nation who hunted the bear :-)

I thank God for the Finnish people who resisted the Soviet Army. If this had not happened, Finland would have become communist and would have lived behind the Iron Curtain. I wouldn't be alive today, for my parents only met after they separately emigrated to the US from Finland during the Cold War, and perhaps they wouldn't have lived either if their ancestors were resettled in Russia or sent to Siberia for any reason (I had family who lived in Karelia). This is how much I honor the Winter War.

God, i dont know if we could do that again, but we would sure as hell try. So proud to be a Finn, too bad its been a year of my great grandfathers death, he was in this war, RIP and respect.

Hats off to the Finns they fought hard for their Country !

Maximum respect to Finland, from the United States.

TRANSLATION to the parts in Finnish: 12:20 So we left to Karelia on 10th of October to participate in additional drills. In Vyborg an old lady came to give me a flower, since there was no-one else there to defend them at that time. There were also no trenches, no obstacles whatsoever and so we had to build them all by ourselves. 13:22 We had 32 old Renaults, not battle-worthy, and 32 Vickers-tanks from England without cannons, sights or radios - We had 1 operational tank. 13:43 We had old English planes that could fly at 160km/h (100mph), as the Russians had fighters reached 370km/h. 17:43 The other way was to use "kasapanos" (a bomb). With kasapanos you had to get even closer to the tank, because you couldn't throw it accuratelly very far.If you were fierce enough, you could have used a log to stop a tank. 25:47 These red army soldiers were very brave men: It didn't matter even if we kept firing at them with machine guns, assault rifles and rifles. They just kept coming climbing over their dead comrades and charged towards us until they all died. 29:40 We fought on our own soil in familiar conditions. Every finn knew how to ski and how to operate in forest in very low temperatures and so on. 31:25 Our company got in the middle of the sausage mutiny. We just pointed towards flashes of light, since you couldn't aim in the darkness... 36:30 If felt awfuel to see the russians so hungry, that they had eaten all their horses: There were just horse skins and bones left. We could even see teeth marks all over the limbs of the horses: Where ever you could find some fat. 42:21 It was like hell - well I haven't been to there, but I couldn't imagine any situation worse than that. 45:29 I started skiing back and stopped and I ended up close to a bank of a road and placed the rods against my armpits and looked at my troops walking by. I must have waved at them too - and thats when I fell asleep. 46:05 ...and I'm happy that the war ended when it did, since we were all so totally exhausted as one can be. 47:27 there was this young soldier... must have been a student of some sort... his other leg had been amputated and he was very anguished and asked me that did I leave my other leg behing in the Karelian isthmus just to let the ruskies have it? I told him that at least we remained independent. 47:55 Grandad started to cry when he read the peace terms: We don't get to return to our homes, since the part of Karelia isn't part of Finland anymore. 50:25 It woul have felt very hard if those boys would have been our own, but as they were enemies, we didn't have any respect for them, alive or dead. Not at that time anyway.

When I was young, I was told about this war. It was about my country, so of course I was interested. When I asked that did Finland win, my dad said yes, but then soon after that I was told that Finland actually lost this war. I wasn't sure why my dad said what he said. Now I know why. We never lost in spirit. We never will.

Ukrainian people, please watch this document if you have time. I hope this gets you more stronger. Please do not give your country to invaders of any kind. You are free and independent country and I always love you. #ukraine

Respect to Finland

Thumbs up. The Winter War should serve as a lesson to everyone. I have an m-39 that served later but it is testament to the tenacity, the honor and the perseverance that defined the Finns.

"never give up, always fight for what is right"

The moment at 8:30... absolutely breaks my heart. I don't remember the last time I cried, let alone of sadness, however there is so much true emotion in the words of this old woman that it gets to me.

That lady with knife... "under your ribs" ..👀 Respect to the all Finnish people.❤💪🏼

There is no more noble a reason to fight than in the defense of your homeland. You are fighting to protect your family and friends, your home, the graves of your ancestors. The Finns fought heroically against the Soviets who were vastly superior in numbers. It's a shame that this struggle isn't well known to most, having been overshadowed by the second world war. Its truly a chapter in Finland's history that they should be proud of and all free men should wish to emulate.

Thanks for sharing, and giving the world a little knowledge of the struggle and sacrifice of the brave Finnish people, For to preserve freedom faced one of the biggest army in the world, Greetings from Brazil

This has to be the documentary with the best reenactment sequences I had the privilege of watching in a long time. Many productions could learn from this excellent piece of work.

This video proves one thing, Don't mess with Finland or else Simo Häyhä and those brave Finns will retaliate with no mercy

Utterly unprovoked Soviet aggression. Well done Finland

This is one extremely informative documentary. I must admit, that after all the History I have studied in the USA, this is the first time I have really learned about this conflict. It certainly is not stressed in our History classes. Yet it produces some incredible lessons. It should definitely be taught. Sad to say, that the USA supported the Russian Army in WWII-Stalin was a complete butcher. Hitler became insane-yet the German high command could have been dealt with much easier than the Red Army.

I wish I knew about the history of Finland many years ago as it would have helped me to understand and appreciate more its people and culture. One has to admire the will and mental strength to survive by a determined nation. This story should be a lesson to aggressors who fight and invade out of paranoia, greed and insecurity while other countries fight to reclaim and defend what is rightfully theirs. Note to Fabers186: I agree with you, Long Live Finland!!! Aggressors from any country, in any century, is not welcome in any continent in this planet. I happen to be Asian and I don't want those kind in my continent, I disown them!!!

Thank you so much for adding this. Really a great story of what a small group of people can do when it comes to defending their homelands. I chose this war for a project in high school. Unfortunate how overlooked this is in history classes in the US. I view it as somewhat similar to what bleeding-kansas was to the US civil war. Almost like a prelude of what was to come.

This tragic tale just makes me wanna travel back in time and give the Finns modern day weapons so they can kick Stalin's army back to where it belonged.

The greatest appreciation to all that made this documentary it is still unknown to many nations in this world how Finland kept its existence on the map of the world, it took the ultimate sacrifice of many may the rest in peace. When you look at the odds of army and armament it took one strong nation with extremely strong perseverance to exist!!

My neighbor's dad was a ski trooper in the Finnish Army during that conflict.

The Finns were very good Light Infantrymen in winter combat. I own 2 Finnish rifles of Mosin Nagant origin modified and manufactured by them. They are really combat effective for accuracy even using old Soviet ammo. I can see why the Finns were excellent marksmen.

This is the war where a Finnish sniper scored record of kills against the Soviets. Till this day his number of kills is unmatched.

Thank you for posting this.

My Grandfathers was there. I still remember him telling stories. He was the youngest of his commando group. My other grandfather died there. My mother still can't listen of winter war. She was so young not even ten and she saw all that horror. She was living in Helsinki and a bomb was thrown right beside her. She never recowered from that. She still lives in fear of high noices and can't look at blood. That war was horrible.

Excellent documentary. Thanks for uploading. :)

i'm so proud that my name is finnish, if things keep going the way they are going in CANADA i might repatriate to the country of my father's birth

Hail the heroic dead! May they sleep as we should live, in peace. Forever.

excellent,chilling and eye opening,thanks for posting

Dont mess whit finland because we use puukko

Ruskis cannot fight the smell of sausages...lol! Well done Finland!! Let this be a lesson to all foreign armies of the world. Stay home and defend your own borders. People tend to fight harder when they're protecting the own country!!

AWESOME!!!Thank you for posting this.

When Winston Churchill said "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" he was praising the efforts of the RAF against the German Luftwaffe during during the Blitz. Shamefully he forgot all about the Winterwar in Finland, where this sentence is more, in my opinion, appropriate to

Love people Finland together you can beat anything

Finland had 250,000-340,000 men. The Soviet Union had 760,000+ men. Finland had no armored cars. The Soviet Union had 1500+ armored cars. Finland had 32 tanks. The Soviet Union had 2,514-6,541 tanks Finland had 114 aircraft The Soviet Union had 3,880 aircraft Casualties and injuries Dead or missing of Finland: 25,904 dead or missing Dead or missing of The Soviet Union: 126,875-167,976 Wounded of Finland: 43,557 wounded Wounded of The Soviet Union: 188,671 wounded Destroyed tanks of Finland: 20-30 tanks. Destroyed tanks of The Soviet Union: 3,543 tanks. Destroyed aircraft of Finland: 62. Destroyed tanks of The Soviet Union: 261-515 aircraft Total casualites of Finland: 70,000 Total casualties of The Soviet Union: 321,000-363,000 I think it's safe to say that Finland kicked the Soviets ass.

Thank you! Totally enjoyed this story of my heritage.

What awesome soldiers the Finns were. What a few good men can do. Skill and will do out way technology.

There's only losers in war, however I always tend to take side for the underdogs. I always admire and have high esteem for those people (nations) that put up their stubborn defense against overwhelming odds. Praise be to those Finnish soldiers who fought. I pity the Russian soldiers who were sent to their death, lives carelessly squandered.

Finland will forcefully take the throne and the coming winter years shall be filled with great peace and prosperity throughout Westeros

My grandfather volunteered for the Finnish Army.

As a loving neighbor of Finland I can tell you, dont make them angry and for the love of god, whatever you do, dont you dare think about fighting them.

i do not think russian soldiers were evil but their leaders were. most of them must have been misguided for what they fight.

An hour of video and not one word of Simo Hayha: A Finnish sniper with over 500 confirmed kills.

My grandfather was a veteran of the winter war. At that time my mother and her family were living in Vyborg and they had to flee north. They ended up settling in Tampere. My mother had a great uncle who was starved to death in a Russian prison and another who made a bold attempt and succeeded in escaping from a Russian death march, but i think those incidents happened many years before the winter war

LONG LIVE FINLAND ! - cyryllic ruSSian Mongols from east civilization go home to Asia !

My grandpa told me once how much Russian soldiers feared of Finnish soldiers. He told me how their company fought much bigger company of Russian soldiers. One by one the enemy lost their soldiers and they had to fall back. When my grandpa's company chased the rest of the Russian company they found many of them lying dead here and there on the ground. They were committed suicide because of fear.

There is a few people wrong here when they saying that the finns were Nazis. They were only defending their country from the soviet/russian aggression. So if the Finns should clame back Karelia like the Russians did with Crimea? Yes I think they should, they got every right to it.

i'm from finlad and thanks you make the videi):(:

Does anyone know what the name of the song during the very beginning of the introduction? Thank you.

Mannerheim was clever. He set fires in the forests, the russians thought it was Helsinki, and dropped their bombs, hahaha!!!

All the Finn dads always told their sons that war is cruel, insane, and stopid. Hope russians do so also..

To some people here, originally the subs were there. When this video was transferred from google video to youtube video the subs vanished somehow. Don't blame me.

Is there a version of this video with English subtitles for the Finnish commentary/interviews?

Salute for Finland

The Soviet invasion, the Finns pleaded with both the Axis and allied powers to intervene. Germany refused , while France and the UK ( government cowards ) both "considered" intervention after Finland resisted the initial Soviet invasion attempt in December. In January and February, they pretended preparations to deploy an expeditionary force to Finland to aid it against the Soviet Union, but ceased attempts in March.

The guy at 4:15 sounds like Zoidburg haha. Great video,makes me proud to own a Mosin and Finnish M39.

That'd be awesome, thanks. I think to do it though you'd have to post the video yourself and then either annotate it using youtube or go into a video editing software suite and add subtitles that way.

orcs thought finland was walk over

so proud of our finnish neighbour, but we did send troops from sweden too. volenteer troops, that took over the northen part of the front

Translation of interviews (though w/o proofreading): 12:18 - 13:14: …and we left to the Karelian isthmus on 10th October for a so called “extra war practise”. I acted as a commander of a train ride to Viipuri, and when arriving at Viipuri station an old Karelian woman brought me a flower to set on my chest and thanked me for coming to the isthmus to defend them. At the location where we fought there wasn’t initially anything, neither trenches nor barricades so we dug entrenchments and built barbed wire fences and dugout shelters (korsu). 13:20 - 13:39: We had 32 old Renault tanks no longer in battle condition and 32 Vickers tanks from England without cannons, observation equipment and radios. We had only one tank in battle condition! 13:44 - 14:02: …but those were old English Ripon (Blackburn Ripon IIF) airplanes that flew 160 km/h and the Soviets had fighter aircraft that flew 370 km/h. Hope this helps d:)

Could someone please tell me what the name of the beginning music?

What I hate about WW2 documents in KZfaq is that the comments always devolve into a dick-waving contest.

Finland's army in ww2 was one of the best armed forces in the world. :D They have 337,000-346,500 troops, 32 tanks, and 114 aircraft Against 998,100 men (overall) , 2,514-6,541 tanks and 3,880 aircraft. So basically the Soviets outnumber the Finns 3-1 in Manpower, somewhere around 78 - 203 soviet tanks for 1 Finnish Tank, and around 34 soviet aircraft for 1 Finnish aircraft. Then Finland !@#$s up the Soviets and inflict 323,000 casualties on the soviets while taking only 70,000. Destroys 3,543 tanks and 261-515 aircraft while losing 20-30 tanks and 62 aircraft. You gotta admit, that takes real balls and skills to achieve. Too bad they lost :(

oikeen tässä naurattaa :D Talvi nam

I'd gladly translate this for anyone who is interest if I could. Is there any way to add translates to these videos?

We should insist that Korillia goes back to Finland.

🎶oi maamme suomi synnyin maa🎶

31:00 what stopped them was the field kitchens..... That's amazing.

...does anyone knows the background music in the beginning ?

When does Russia plan to return the taken Finnish parts including Finnish Artic shore? Why do we allow Russia and China special colonial privileges in the UNO?

When the Kreml agreement was made in 1948 Stalin said: "Even though I am not really a soldier, I can say that we soliders are easily forgotten in times of peace but in wartime everything depends on us. A country with a bad army is not respected by anyone, but a country with a good army is respected by everyone. I raise my glass to the army of Finland and it's representatives here".

My grandpa lived before finland was indepented. He saw many things along his life. Im not sure if he fought in any war, i havent even met him. He was dead of old age before i was even born. My dad is now 70 and doesnt really talk abaut it that much.

does anyone know what that (grave site?) is called? the one with all the stones and the bells? its so pretty

As a patriotic American I will never forget the story of Simo Häyhä, a finished man who was tough as nails who fought in the winter war. I wish more Americans could be like him, instead so many fight and worry about race and gender pronouns. Not the success of our country 😥

WHEN YOU FIGHT ,FOR YOUR VERY BIRTH PLACE ,,,,,WELL DONE FINLAND .BE PROUD

Interesting and informative. Excellent photography job making it easier for viewers to better understand what the orator was describing. Historians did a very good job presenting actual facts from fiction. Class A research project!!! Wonderful reenactments with actor soldiers. Rough and fierce combat operations on both sides. Special thanks to the guest speakers for sharing their personal experiences of the invasion/occupation/expungement of the Russian invaders. Also the under supplied Finnish forces whom fought/perished/survived fighting impossible military odds. Knowing certain death/debilitating wounds were often possible. Yet still advanced forward. That's called true grit determination. Unfortunately when Germany surrendered to the allied forces. Finland fell under the domination of the sickle & hammer 🔨.

This is a surprisingly well made documentary...overall anyway.

Russia DID invade Finland, and the valiant and steadfast Finns crushed the invading Soviets. Equally, the suicidal tactics employed by Russ forces ensured defea

SISU !!! LONG LIVE FINLAND!!!

Sorry for my English, I meant 'white death'. Also look for Lauri Törni - a Finnish soldier, moved to US at some point and was granted some medal there that I don't remember. He was in Vietnam also for US.

Fascinating. I could only corroborate a few of the major aspects but it SEEMED to me to be fairly accurate, nothing stuck out as dubious. I'm only moderately informed on such history.

Much smaller Finland won . I really hope for same outcome in Ukraine.

What should be remembered is that most of the soldiers in the Soviet army were Ukrainians, who had no idea how to survive in the northern winter. This is because Stalin was afraid that if the U.S.S.R. used soldiers from Karelia or other areas near Finland they would feel sympathy towards the Finns.

Woman holding up bayonet: "When you get that under your ribs it doesn't feel good." That woman doesn't have much emotion in her face.

The auto captions are terrible. I haven't a clue whats being said if it's not in english.The translator seems to be making up most of it.

That history shows us how an ass (actually bear ass) is kicked.Greetings from Turkiye Fins!

sergio ketteler@ So what? It's absolutely usual for armies, charging so strong defence lines. One good example : the defence of Port-Artur during Russia-Japan war in 1905. Casualities were 110 thousand from Japan side and 10 thousand from Russians. But inspite of absolutely terrible losses it considered that Japan won the war. So really the victory deserves any losses, that's why we're victors, Finland fucked.

He was a Special Forces (Green Beret) Sergeant and was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor, which is the highest award for bravery above and beyond the call of duty.

Kiitos!

You can see in the top right corner it says YLE TV1, which is a finnish tv station. So, this has been recorded straight from a finnish television.

Briefly, Stalin correctly measured that Hitler's mustache will eventually grow bigger, but at the same time failed to realize that Mannerheim had quite fancy whiskers too.

If you search you can find more , for example : Sweden delayed the entry of Swedish volunteers to the Finnish fronts in every possible way. Finland's foreign minister at the time, Tanner, said that the war has been going on for more than 2 months and not a single man who signed up for help is at the front. Winter war lasted 30/11- 13/3 ...the Swedish volunteer battalion made it to the Salla front barely 2 weeks before the end of the Winter War. After all, the fighting there had died down a long time ago and the biggest losses (more than 150 cases) came from frostbite. The good thing, however, was the release of the Finnish troops from the direction of Salla, because they still had time to participate in the fierce battles in the Vyborg Bay. " The nordic countries are an area not worth for any foreign power to hunt in " the nordic countries had agreed upon after meetings. When Soviet attacked Finland Sweden declared itself neutral. In several countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Italy, for example), governments try to avoid any measures that could be interpreted as official aid to Finland. Various restrictions were placed on the number of volunteers (Sweden), those with officer or non-commissioned officer training were not allowed to register (Norway), passports were not issued (Italy), recruitment activities were required to be as secret as possible and could not be advertised (Sweden, Norway, Denmark). The goal of the governments was that neither the Soviet Union nor Germany would have any reason to comment on the states' neutrality. And then on page 304 it reads like this: "Fortunately, 157,000 shots arrived from abroad at the beginning of March, but even the detonators did not arrive until March 12, because they were loaded on different wagons than the grenades and their dispatch was delayed." Those grenades came from Sweden, and the neighbor probably did that lighter trick on purpose. They did not want to annoy Germany and NL with excessive arms sales to Finland. By delaying the detonators, the desired result was achieved, i.e. the ammunition did not affect the course of the war! Peace was made the very next day, i.e. March 13, 1940. The Swedish government declared on 16 February 1940 that Sweden would not help Finland with regular troops.[xix] The King of Sweden gave a statement supporting the government's statement on 19 February 1940. This was of course a great relief for Russia and at the same time a stab in the back for Finland. If Sweden had been silent, it would have helped Finland. Finnish Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner told Swedish Prime Minister Hansson directly that the declarations of the Swedish king and government cost Finland Vyborg and Sortavala, and that Sweden should have kept quiet. "It is difficult to understand why the Swedish government considered it necessary to make these statements, which both in content and form undermined our chances of achieving a tolerable peace - in Moscow, on the other hand, of course, they aroused satisfaction." "During one of the presentations at the beginning of the Winter War, the phone rang at the headquarters. When the other end had finished talking, Marski answered: - Think about it now, our men went to war, some walk in civilian shoes, others wear a civilian hat or jacket, and so on. After a short conversation, Marski shouted into the phone: - Do they even have pants on? After saying that, he slammed the phone shut. Turning to those present, he grunted a little angrily: - There was Linder, who complained that the Swedish volunteers are not ready yet, since they lack furs."

Seems to be a wrong aspect-ratio here. Should be widescreen (16:9) and not 4:3!

Perhaps the international version would have had the subtitles, but this video was shown on the Finnish national TV, so naturally there are no subtitles for the parts in Finnish.