Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Volume III

860D.00/1226: Telegram

The Chargé in Finland (McClintock) to the Secretary of State

Helsinki, May 11, 1943—3 p.m.
[Received 10:18 p.m.]

664. Marshal Mannerheim asked me to see him at 11:30 this morning.

The Marshal quite belied in his appearance and vitality the fairly dubious report I had from the General cited in my 647, May 7.⁷⁵ As our conversation revealed General Kekoni was also one hundred percent wrong in suggesting that Baron Mannerheim had been kept in ignorance of the Finnish Government’s intentions. The Marshal was more thin than when I last saw him but he seemed fully to have regained his health and his mind was clear as a bell. He wore two decorations: one the Finnish Liberty Cross and the other the decoration pinned on him by Hitler on June 4 last year.⁷⁶

I told Baron Mannerheim that I had wanted to see him because as he knew our relations had recently deteriorated and I wished to have his impressions on Finland’s position. I was very careful in the light of your 81, May 7 not to give any impression that I thought anything could be done to improve relations.

The Marshal said he was very glad to see me and several times during the course of an interview which lasted more than an hour said he hoped I would stay on in Finland. He said he was not a diplomat and was accustomed “not to hide his thoughts” and that he would talk with entire candor.

I found the Marshal engrossed with the stock Finnish theme that present war with Russia is but a continuation of the Winter War. He went back into the history of that conflict and the interim between the two wars. His discussion of British and French offers of military assistance in 1939 and 40; of the position of Sweden; and of circumstances surrounding the granting by Finland of the transit agreement to Germany in September 1940⁷⁷ will be related in a secret despatch⁷⁸ as completing the diplomatic history of that period.

As for recent events in which our present interest lies the Marshal made no effort to conceal fact that Finland had been subjected to the most strenuous German pressure. For that matter, he said, Finland had been subject to the most strenuous American pressure. He seemed to have in mind the possibility of a declaration of war. He professed not to know why we had exerted this pressure or had now reduced Legation to its present skeletal condition. I gave him my usual answer about our feeling that Finnish Government was no longer a free agent as instanced by Ramsay’s flight to Berlin. Marshal Mannerheim replied to my comment that it was certainly not pleasing to us to have Finnish Foreign Minister make a clean breast to Ribbentrop of our most secret conversations that in any case the Germans “had other means of finding out what was going on”. I said in any event Washington had ample proof that the Finnish Government was not a free agent.

Marshal Mannerheim said that our tender of good offices of March 20 as redefined by your note to Ramsay of April 10 had been nothing more than “an offer to resume the game of the cat playing with the mouse”.

As for German pressure Marshal Mannerheim said categorically that the Germans had never threatened military occupation of Finland. He said rather grimly that he would resist occupation from whatever quarter it came. When I remarked that in my opinion the Finnish army was perhaps the best small army in the world the old gentleman beamed and said it “almost” was. For a moment he was carried away with pride and on the point of describing its military strength but checked himself and said that since I would be reporting this interview he could not tell me what he would like to.

When I again brought the conversation back to the question of German pressure the Marshal confirmed as I have reported that the Finnish Government had declined a German request for a treaty pledging no separate peace. He said “we will continue with Germany only so long as our interests are in common and no longer. After that—the Germans may try to force us but they might not find it altogether easy to do.” I had the very positive impression that the Marshal thought himself able to deal with any German military threat.

Marshal Mannerheim was most bitter at British policy and said there was no difference at all between the detestable German view of the position of small states vis-à-vis the great powers and the present British view. I said that Mr. Churchill’s last speech did not give me that impression. The Marshal asked if I could get him a copy which I shall try to do. He seemed as convinced as President Ryti that the British have “sold” Finland and the Baltic States to the USSR. Like Ryti and other leaders here he had a different feeling about us and thought we were the only idealistic great power. In consequence he did not see how the United States could stand idly by and see the rights of small states which only sought to mind their own business and live at peace trampled on by cynical great states. At one time he referred ironically to our “noble” allies. I said that in attempting to assess the degree of “nobility” of one’s allies or comrades in arms he might be walking on dangerous ground.

The Marshal brought up his much criticized order of the day of July 11, 1941,⁷⁹ and said he had been misquoted. He had not referred to “Suursuomi”—greater Finland—but to “Suurisuomi”—big Finland—and there was a difference. He said he would be grateful if [I] would set this right for the record. He pointed out that he had been careful to keep the administration of Soviet Karelia in his own hands and gave me the impression he did not regard this conquest as more than a temporary necessity. He confided that he had been furious when the Finnish newspapers dubbed Petroskoi “Aanislinna” and called the River Svir “Syvari”.⁸⁰ He said he had indeed pledged his soldiers 24 years ago to offer the brother Karelians in Soviet territory a chance to join their kinfolk; but the occupation of this territory had been for military reasons alone. He stressed he had not cut American communications via the Murmansk Railroad with the rest of Russia. I said he had at least effectively cut that line at Petroskoi and had thus given the people at Leningrad a bad time. The Marshal did not deny this but emphasized again that he had not cut our line of communications. He said, “I choose not to advance to the White Sea”.

I said in any case I thought Finland would have to found its security on some sound political basis rather than on a strategical basis. The Marshal admitted that Finland’s strategical situation was “somewhat exposed”.

From his frequent references to “that terrible treaty of Moscow” I gained the certain conviction that the Marshal does not contemplate for a moment any peace with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which would reestablish the terms of that treaty. His policy may be summed up briefly in a determination to utilize the relationship of co-belligerency with Germany for the last ounce of support it will give Finland against Russia and then to rely on Finland’s own fighting strength to see her through. We, as justice-loving Americans, ought in his opinion to leave Finland alone and understand the enormous difficulties of his country’s position.

As I left Marshal Mannerheim said he hoped I could “influence” my Government. I said I was merely a young Chargé d’Affaires left here as the last of the Legation, but that I was free to report the truth and the truth had its own influence.

McClintock

75. Not printed; General Kekoni, Marshal Mannerheim’s representative in Helsinki, had described the Marshal’s health in pessimistic terms (860D.00/1225).
76. Hitler had visited Finland on June 4, 1942, on the occasion of Field Marshal Mannerheim’s 75th birthday, at which time he bestowed on Mannerheim the Grand Cross Order of the German Eagle, in gold. See also memorandum by the Under Secretary of State, June 5, 1942, Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. ii, p. 63.
77. The German-Finnish agreement for German troop transit through Finland to Norway was signed on September 22, 1940; see telegram 1232, September 25, 1940, from the Ambassador in the Soviet Union, and telegram No. 416, September 26, 1940, from the Minister in Finland, Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. i, pp. 346 and 347, respectively. For text of the agreement, see Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, series D. vol. xi, p. 149.
78. Not printed.
79. See telegram No. 292, July 16, 1941, from the Minister in Finland, Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 48.
80. “Petroskoi” was the Finnish term for the Russian city of Petrozavodsk in Soviet Karelia; however, the use of the name “Aanislinna” (a Finnish term, “castle on Lake Aanis”, or Lake Onega) became popular in Finland after the Finnish Army had occupied Petrozavodsk. The name “Syvari” was simply the traditional Finnish equivalent of the Russian name “Svir.”