Finns Work To Set Plan

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 306, 28 December 1939, Page 7

Finns Work To Set Plan

TACTICS PRAISED

Brilliant Strategy On 700 Mile Front

REDS REPULSED

(British Official Wireless.—Received 1..30 p.m.) RUGBY, December 27. '^ Ie Plucky and determined resistance which the Finns are making to invasion by the numerically superior forces of the Soviet, and the success which appears to have attended their counterattack against such odds, have evoked enthusiastic admiration among the British public. Commenting on the laconic but significant claim in the Finnish official communique regarding operations in the Lieksa sector, that operations have moved to the other side of the frontier," the Evening Standard says: "Finland has taught the invader that, behind her forests and ice stands freedom, and that she is ready to defend her independence." •it correspondents in the newspapers pay tributes to the skilful tactics of the Finnish command. Courage and the difficulties of the ground, it is said, cannot alone explain the Finnish resistance. Tactics during the past 10 days—with their carefully-timed retreats on the Petsamo and Sallo fronts, followed and redeemed by sudden counter-attacks on the Soviet flanks—are considered by experts as bearing the unmistakable imprint, in conception and execution, of Field-Marshal Baron Mannerheim, who is once again proving himself an outstanding general. It is observed that the Finnish forces are acting as a coherent whole, operating to a set plan, and the Russians have not taken them by surprise at any point. Each Russian thrust has been anticipated and countered along the whole 700-mile front. While military critics here stress the importance of successes achieved by the Finnish arms in adverse circumstances and against almost overwhelming odds, it is not overlooked that the chief problem the Finnish Government has to solve, if the Finnish generals are to maintain their resistance, is one of supply and as several commentators remark, it is a problem not in the power of the Finnish Government to solve unaided.