When the First World War broke out, Finland
was a small part of a large empire, but by the war’s end had declared independence
and was fighting to keep it. Today I’m going to look at the events that
led up to that declaration of Finnish independence. I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War
special episode about Finland and the First World War. When the war began, Finland was part of the
Russian Empire and had been for over a century. It had, though, had a largely autonomous status
as the Grand Duchy of Finland, with the Tsar as the Grand Duke. By the late 19th century, Finland had its
own currency, legislative senate and estates general, police force, postal service, and
military. But the nation was a divided one; the government
elite was mostly Swedish speaking and there were sharp class distinctions. Also, the majority of Finns had no representation
in either the senate or the estates general. There were Finnish nationalists who by then
viewed Russia as an oppressive regime, but as long as Finland enjoyed its continued autonomy,
most people were content with Russian rule and the nationalist question wasn’t so much
about independence as it was the nature of Finland’s relationship to Russia. Was it in a union with Russia? Was it a vassal state? A province? However, a change came when Nicholas II became
Tsar of Russia in 1894. See, that period was one of nationalism everywhere,
not just Finland, and in Russia, many pan-Slavic activists, military leaders, and bureaucrats
were dissatisfied with Finland’s special status. That, along with a string of reforms aimed
to unify the Empire, brought tensions to a head by the end of the century, and, supervised
by Nikolai Bobrikov, governor-general of Finland, Nicholas began to limit Finnish autonomy with
a program of gradual Russification. The Ruble was introduced alongside the Finnish
Mark; Russian language use was increased in administration and education; restrictions
were removed on Russian financial activity in Finland. On February 15th, 1899, Nicholas issued his
February manifesto, which declared that Finland’s estates general was now only an advisory body. In response, Finnish activists organized an
address to the Tsar. This gathered more than half a million names
from a population of three million, and though Nicholas never received it, it sparked the
Finnish masses into political activism. The threat against autonomy united the bickering
language groups, the radicals, the conservatives, and the socialists. In 1901, Nicholas issued a new conscription
law, which disbanded Finnish army units and ordered Finnish men to be drafted into the
Russian army. This sparked a lot of passive resistance,
but also some riots in 1902. In response to that, Bobrikov received dictatorial
powers in 1903. He was murdered in 1904, though, the most
famous political murder in Finnish hi story, and his killer, Eugen Schauman, became a national
hero. This whole period had been a period of steady
economic growth for Finland; the population nearly doubled between 1870-1914, and it did
industrialize, though the vast majority of the population still worked some form of agricultural
labor. But with the rise of industrial capitalism
came a workers’ movement, and the Social Democratic Party- SDP- formed in 1899 and
advocated for wider political representation and class warfare. In 1905, after Russia’s loss in the Russo-Japanese
War, a series of strikes sprang up all over the Empire and a Finnish general strike was
called, very nationalistic in nature. Class divides were a major issue, and when
the right wing Finnish government thought it might lose authority it funded the founding
of a national guard. That guard was made up of both workers and
bourgeoisie and it soon split into two camps, with the workers forming their own Red Guard. The Finnish Senate did manage to use the Russian
turmoil to its advantage and in 1905, the Tsar’s November manifesto repealed much
of Bobrikov’s legislation, including the Conscription Act. In 1906, he confirmed Finland’s new constitution,
which replaced the estates general with a one-body parliament and introduced universal
suffrage, which made Finnish women the first in Europe to have the vote, and the first
in the world to appear on the ballot. The Social Democrats declared they would no
longer support violent protest and would attempt reform via parliament. That approach did alienate some radicals,
but seemed to work at first. The SDP won 80 of 200 seats in 1907, BUT the
Tsar, now in a stronger position, refused to ratify laws passed by Finnish Parliament
and also ordered seven elections between 1907-1917, so parliamentary work was nearly impossible
anyhow. Still, Finland was relatively peaceful come
1914, and though part of a warring nation, kinda resembled a neutral one. No Finns were conscripted into the Russian
army and no battles were fought on Finnish soil. Many Finns did serve, of course, either as
career officers or volunteer enlisted men, but a lot of Finns had mixed feelings about
the war. Nationalists were pro-German because of cultural
ties, and many others believed that a Russian defeat could be exploited for political concessions,
like after 1905. The Germans were certainly willing to try
and take advantage of that, and already in August 1914 sent an inquiry to Stockholm,
their nearest embassy to Finland, about the prospect of turning Finland into a buffer
state. Also, Fritz Wetterhoff, a Finnish lawyer who
fled to Germany to escape embezzlement charges, approached the German army with plans to start
an uprising in Finland, supported by German troops. In a stroke of fortune for him, in late October
Finnish student nationalists gathered and asked for German arms and help. They had the help of several major politicians
and were connected with Wetterhoff. They then formed the nucleus of the Jäger
movement, which by 1916 had recruited some 2,000 Finns to enlist in the German army to
liberate their homeland. (SEGUE 3)
Finland was pretty important strategically to Russia, since if invaded it could be used
to launch an attack on Petrograd, the capital. (BLOCK 4)
So Russia stationed a garrison of 50,000 men there and the Russian Baltic Fleet used Helsinki
as a major base of operations. One big fear the Finns had was that if the
Germans invaded, large parts of the population would be forcibly deported eastward as was
done in Poland in 1915. In terms of trade, Finland’s two biggest
trading partners, Germany and Britain, were no longer an option, but wartime created an
endless demand in Russia for Finnish metal and food supplies. The Finns did, though, become dangerously
dependent on Russian wheat, so when the Russian economy collapsed on the road to revolution,
imports stopped and food became scarce. The fear of starvation became a pressing issue
among the poor. In 1915, Finnish consumption of wheat per
capita was 45.9 kilos, two years later, that number was just below 9. However, in the socialist propaganda, the
suffering of the working class was not tied to Russia’s chaos but was blamed on the
bourgeoisie and the wealthy landowners. Gotta point out though that strict censorship
prevented criticism of the Russian government, but still. The propaganda paid off as the SDP finally
won control of parliament in 1916, but they were not allowed to meet, again frustrating
plans for reform. (SEGUE 4)
The initial confusion of the February Russian Revolution struck Finland on March 12th, 1917,
when rebels seized control of the St. Petersburg railway. Admiral Adrian Nepenin, commander of the Imperial Baltic Fleet, ordered Viapori fortress to
lockdown. Two days later, he reluctantly acknowledged
the provisional government of Russia and arrested Finland’s Governor General, Franz Seyn. As the news of revolution spread, the fleet
itself mutinied, though. Crews flew red flags from their ships, murdered
their officers, and left their posts en masse. Nearly fifty officers were murdered by their
own men on the 16th and 17th of March, including Admiral Nepenin himself. Finnish politicians were able to form a Senate
with a socialist majority, headed by Oskari Tokoi. They immediately set to work to repeal much
of the Tsar’s legislation. Finland’s status was really unclear, though-
did the provisional government inherit the Tsar’s control? In Petrograd, addressing this matter was postponed. The Finnish socialists didn’t do themselves
any favors over the summer of 1917 by allying with the Bolsheviks. Though they did pass the Power Act, which
basically made the Parliament the supreme power in Finland, but it was never sent to
the provisional government, since after the July Days uprising, retribution from Russia
was swift. Parliament was disbanded and Finland descended
into chaos. Hunger, unemployment, skyrocketing inflation,
and revolutionary sentiment from Russia collapsed state authority, and the police force had
been disbanded immediately after the revolution. The workers and the bourgeoisie formed their
rival Red and White guards once again, with violent clashes, like those during a general
strike in November that left 22 dead. The Finnish right had been opposed to a break
with Russia, but when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia after the October Revolution,
conservatives pushed for independence before the red tide could flow over Finland. The bourgeois and social democrats wrestled
over the issue of independence, and the bourgeois gained the upper hand. On December 6th, 1917, the declaration of
independence was voted on and the demand for immediate independence won 100-88. That date has been celebrated as Finnish Independence
Day ever since. And there, I will leave you for today. The events of 1918 and 1919, the internal
struggles and the fight against Soviet Russia, are some of the most controversial in Finnish
history and will be covered in a later special; this was just a look at the Finnish situation
before and during the war itself, when the Finnish nationalist movement finally turned
to independence. Spoiler alert- the course that new nation
would take would be decided on the battlefield. Big Thanks to Olli Pihlajamaa & Elmo Mustonen, and i am sorry if I slaughtering your names, for the research for this special. If you like to see our weekly episode that covered the July Days you can click right here for that. And do not forget to like us on facebook and follow us on twitter and dream about us and i can't say more than that. See you next time!