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THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 24, 1940.
RUSSIAN LOSSES ARE IMMENSE
By Leland Stowe, Our Special Correspondent
In Finland.
tests of civilian staying power that are being inflicted upon the Finnish people. If they can maintain unbroken spirit through the next
an.
IN Finland, and for the first time in History, totalitarian aerial war- fare is being waged against the en- tire civilian population of a nation. In Poland, the Nazi air raids re- three months they will have put a human grand- gistered new heights for concentrated new meaning upon horror. But in Finland something eur.
never
I cannot end this without one more is going on that the demons of aerial warfare have
experimented word, I have lived with the Finnish two months of with before. The Russian raiders people for the first
During this time, I have have synchronised bombing attacks the war.
on civilians everywhere in Finland never heard one Finn utter a word with wholesale warfare in every sec- of complaint. To me this remains Yet tion of the country. To an unpre- the almost incomprehensible. cedented degree, the terror and nerve it is a fact. This, I think, is some- Finnish people strain of indiscriminate aerial bom- thing of which the bardment is being applied with dia- have a right to be eternally proud. bolical method to an overwhelming It is this, too, which makes one won- majority of the nation's men, women der whether somehow or other they other people and children. Whether in Central may yet do what no
coast, has ever done. Finland, along the Bothnian
Rus-
#1 But there is another point which or in the heart of Lapland at frontier junction like Ivalo, there is seems to me important. The
im- no escape. The Red bombers are in sian losses, it is known, are
But what of the Finnish
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a
casualties? namiting of an entire people.
This is new and its possible in- One of the major mysteries of the war concerns the fluence upon the final outcome of the Russo-Finnish war is completely incalculable. Ob- number of the Finnish army losses is trying to in dead and wounded since the hos- viously, the Kremlin
Finnish com- shatter the morale of the Finnish tilities began. The people to destroy their will to resist. muniques always give approxima- but The increased tempo of aerial fright- tions of the Soviet casualties,
the fulness during the past week clearly never mention their own, and foreshadows a steady heightening of correspondents who visit war zones
are never permitted "bombing pressure" upon every cor- ner of the land. No other people battlefield until all Finnish corpses has yet been required to endure this have been removed. kind of totalitarian torture.
In these circumstances only the Command possesses The pressure can be relieved if Fin- Finnish High land gets hundreds of fighting 'planes precise figures of the Finnish losses,
very probable If she does not get this and it seems very soon. Indispensable weapon for civilian those will not be made public, self-defence, what effect will a con- ever, until after the war.
to sec
any
that
if
One for- that the
Finns have lost less than six thou- sand men in these two categories during the first five weeks of the It possible war. Others believe that the Finnish total (again of dead and gravely injured) may not have exceeded ten thousand when the con- flict entered its third month-this of course is a guess, but a measur- ed guess.
In view stantly increasing rhythm of Soviet of Finland's limited manpower, this air raids have upon the civilian secrecy is perfectly understandable, morale? Is it possible that the for even the men who require sev- Finns may ultimately be defeated eral months in hospital before they behind their front lines before those are fit for active service again re- lines have ever been broken? Will present a noticeable drain upon Fin- Moscow yet win its totalitarian war land's fighting strength.
Fortunately for the Finns, there upon civilians?
for the belief It seems impossible to do much are strong reasons more than raise these significant that the Finnish losses in dead and been ге- questions. This is particularly true seriously wounded have because the Finns are an exception-markably low up to date. ally stoical people-so much so that cign observer estimates most of them seem to have been born without nerves.-- It is extremely difficult for a foreigner to estimate just how deeply the repercussions of the unrelaxed nerve strain may go
to among Finnish civilians date. Nevertheless, the war on civilians has become cruel in the extreme. In this Far Northern winter what mili- of tarists call "the effectiveness" aerial bombings is doubled or tripl- In any case, the Russian casual- al- ties have been simply enormous in ed. In any number of towns most all window panes have been contrast with those of the Finns. It blown out of the houses, as is re- seems safe to say that the Sovieta ported in the case of Rovaniemi. In have lost more than eighty thousand dead that town, the temperature now men, either killed in battle or fluctuates from ten to thirty-five from exposure. Their wounded and below zero Centigrade, and without disabled must bring the Reds" total window panes dwellings automati- of casualties well above one hundred thousand--some say as cally become uninhabitable or traps and fifty for pneumonia.
many as two hundred thousand This is the kind of torture and something, which represents in any slow death which the invention of case a staggering ratio in proportioni the airplane has now brought to to the number of their men actually Finland's unhappy people. Nowhere engaged in active combat. within their own borders can they When the facts of this nature can be safe against it, since the Reds become definitely established, the can bomb any corner of the land cost in terms of manpower to with ease and nineteen-twentieths Soviet army, during the first of it with complete immunity. Un- months of warfare, less the Finns obtain squadrons of startle military experts. By iri before long, the same token, the economy fighting 'planes strain upc the Finnish civilian mor- lives lost by the Finns, while win- ale will become greater than any ning a series of brilliant victories people has ever known. In such under extremely heavy artillery and cases one wonders how long human machine-gun fire, is certain greatly nerves may endure without crack- to impress military authorities every- ing, and yet the Finns' powers of where. Whether the Finns lose or resistance remain unbelievable so win the war, they have already writ- far.
has ..ten a military history, which
But only This, therefore, is not written in rarely been equalled. any defeatist sense whatever. Rath- their high army officers will be er, it is my intention to point out qualified to tell the whole story one of the crucial intangibles and some day in the future. unpredictables of the Russo-Finnish *World- copyright 1940 by "China: war. It seems peculiarly important. Mall” and Co-operation. Repro- that world opinion should appreciateduction in whole or part strictly the unprecedented: severity of the forbidden).
-
the two.
is likely to
the
the
Pa
Pa
THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 24, 1940.