THE SUOJELUSKUNTA

PART I: FROM NOBLE IDEAS TO A BLOODY CIVIL WAR

Finland had come to Russia as an autonomous Grand Duchy in 1809 after the Swedish - Russian War of 1808 - 1809. When the war was over, the Russian Emperor Alexander I guaranteed the Finns a number of rights and exceptions, making Finland quite different from other parts of the Russian Empire. The arrangement proved fruitful to both sides: The Finns become loyal citizens and an autonomous Finland prospered both culturally and economically. In the 1880's opinions among the Russians concerning the Finnish autonomous status started to change. As Slavophilism and Panslavism spread in Russia and it created suspicion, envy, and hate against the Finns and autonomic status of Finland. After a new Russian Emperor Nicholas II was crowned in year 1894, Slavophiles and Panslavists got a controlling position in Russia and started stripping the rights of autonomy from Finland one after another. The goal of this oppression campaign was Russification of the whole of Finland by removing its autonomous status and replacing its own culture with a Russian one. In Finland, the Russification campaign met both passive and active resistance and the idea about an independent Finland increasingly started gaining popularity. Hate created by an oppressive campaign and nationalism had planted the seeds for demands of an independent Finland. The environment however, did not yet allow a good opportunity for it to happen.

The birth of The Protective Guards

Suojeluskunta could be translated literally as "Protective Guard" and the translation fits nicely for the mission that many of them had originally. The first organizations, which later developed into Suojeluskunta, were locally established from volunteers for maintaining public order during Finnish general strike of year 1905. Some more were also established in following years, but the real establishment boom did not come until year 1917. In that year Russia faced two revolutions. The first revolution had already led to dozens of Russian officers being murdered by their own soldiers, number of civilians being murdered as well and created lot of restlessness. It also served as the starting point for Bolshevik councils (aka "Soviet") spreading like a plague to units of Russian army and navy. As an aftermath of the first revolution, Finnish police departments also were disestablished - while their reputation had been tainted by their co-operation with Russian Gerdarmerie, abolishing police departments left the country without functional law enforcement - power vacuum, which would soon attract interested parties.

PICTURE: Russian soldiers on stairs of entrance to Helsinki railway station in April of 1917. Their poster have headline "Land and Freedom". Soldiers standing on chairs appear to be equipped with Winchester M/1895 rifles. Photographed by Nestori Jaakkola. Photo source Helsinki City Museum (Helsingin kaupunginmuseo), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (226 KB).

The second Russian revolution caused even worse havoc. When news of the Bolshevik Revolution reached Finland, large numbers of Russian troops stationed in Finland started celebrating their new "svoboda" ("freedom") with political violence reaching new height. Unfortunately for Finns, too many of the now uncontrolled but well-armed Russian soldiers, this "svoboda" included the possibility to take whatever they wanted with the help of the guns that they had. Hence the number of armed robberies and murders committed by Russian soldiers, who were heavily armed but not being paid any salary anymore became a wide-spread problem with Finnish newspapers being filled by news of drunk Russian soldiers causing public disturbance and all sort of crime. At the same time the idea of also making a revolution in Finland gained popularity among members of the Finnish Social Democratic Party (SDP) and political violence started to spread in Finland in June of 1917. To make things worse, the food situation was getting worse (for the large part due to World War 1 and much of crop failing due to cold weather, but agricultural strikes during the planting season did not exactly help the situation either). Finnish socialists were forming militia units, which in larger cities took to themselves police authority and co-operated with Russian military in making house searches often with the nominal reason for searching illegal guns. The revolutionary wing of the SDP, which had allied itself with Russian Bolshevists, started forming armed Punakaarti (Red Guard) units for whom Russian military was often providing weapons.

PICTURE: One of the shops downtown in city of Turku after riot and looting in December of 1917. Socialist militia of Turku with no less than 1,000 volunteers (for city of about 66,000 people) and had captured armory of city's disestablished police force. In November it had taken over city hall, while also taking governor of province and former head to police as its hostages before making demands, which city admistration found impossible to accept. When the demands were not accepted in 15^th December the militia went into strike and not so incidentally riot started at 10AM that day with all downtown shops being either looted or had their windows smashed, while militia stood aside with many of its members either facilitating or taking part in looting. Towards end of the riots city's socialist militia even started hunting down those who had resisted looters. The rioting only ended when Russian military finally intervened after rioting had been going on four days. Only shop not to suffer any damage in the riot belonged to one Tuomas Hyrskymurto. Photo source Turku Museum Center (Turun museokeskus), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (226 KB).

Since Finnish police had been abolished after Russian revolution of March 1917, there was a wide-scale attempt for creating millisi - militia-sort of police departments responsible for city / municipal authorities from volunteers. This however turned out to be problematic with socialists widely demanding that any volunteers had to be accepted to militia and ultimately taking over many of the militia police departments of most major cities turning them into armed socialist militias, which refused to take orders from city / municipal authorities under which they were supposed to function. Local authorities often responded to unwillingness of militia to follow orders by withholdng paying their salaries, which gave militia reason for strike and caused even violent confrontations in between the two. There were attempts to replace militia police departments with national state-lead professional police forces already starting April of 1917, but these failed due to resistance of Finnish socialists and disinterest of Russian provisional government. By end of 1917 the matter became one of the major points of friction between non-socialist political parties and Social Democratic Party.

PICTURE: Photographed during strike of November 1917 - Helsinki Red Guards march with bayonet-equipped rifles on shoulder from Helsinki main police station that they had taken over across Senate Square (Senaaatintori). Helsinki had already at year 1906 Red Guard, which had then joined to mutiny of Russian soldiers. Year 1917 Helsinki was one of the major cities in which socialist militia grabbed police authority to themselves and had several Red Guards established starting already spring of that year. Russian military units supplied Finnish Red Guards with about 5,000 rifles in November of 1917. Photo source Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (288 KB).

Towards end of the year political violence continued escalating: During a week of long general strike in November of 1917, armed Russian military and Finnish Red Guard units marched into many places and in total 34 people were killed in political violence. In these conditions during 1917, more local voluntary organizations for maintaining public order were rapidly established one after another. At the same time independence activists, seeking the possibility to separate Finland from Russia, created their own local organizations often disguised as voluntary fire departments. Third group to create their own local armed voluntary security groups were farmers, who in certain geographic areas were worried of Socialists confiscating their grain at gunpoint. Even though local security organizations and "voluntary fire departments" of activists often had originally been established for separate reasons, typically they ultimately had no problem finding common goal in form of getting rid of Russian military and resisting Red Guard - and hence soon started to develop in the same direction of becoming Suojeluskunta organizations.

PICTURE: Business man and patron of arts Alfred Kordelin was probably the most best-known Finnish victim of political violence at late 1917. Kordelin was one of the most wealthy Finns of that time and well-known for his from rags to riches life story. 7^thof November 1917 Kordelin and his guests were celebrating his 49^th birthday in Mommila manor which he owned, when group of 26 armed Russian sailors arrived. The sailors were at least officially supposedly sent to search guns and were accompanied by Johan Skott, bootlegger - Finnish socialist agitator and former crofter of the manor. Sailors stole some property, found two rifles and pistols belonging to few men that Suojeluskunta had sent to act as Kordelin's bodyguards and ransacked places looking for more, but after receiving warning of Suojeluskunta unit sent to help about to arrive took everybody hostage and headed towards railway station in a car and horse-drawn carts - only to run into to unit of 34 men from Suojeluskunta of Lahti. During the firefight that followed one of the sailors shot Kordelin execution style and few other hostages were also gunned down. Suojeluskunta of Lahti lost two men, while Johan Skott was hit and died to his wounds the next day. After the event both Russian military and socialist militias concentrated their efforts in hunting down Suojeluskunta of Lahti, while socialist press invented conspiracy theory for blaming Suojeluskunta about Kordelin's death. Photographed by Ida Berglund. Photo source Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (85 KB).

Suojeluskunta in the Civil War of 1918

In 6^th of December 1917 Finland became independent and leadership of the country was turned into Finnish Senate, which became first Finnish government. There were still large Russian military units (the estimated total number of Russian soldiers in Finland in January of 1918 is about 40,000 – 50,000 men) in Finland and the Russian Bolshevik Government with its new Finnish allies had plans for them. The Russian Bolsheviks started arming Finnish Red Guards and at end of January 1918 and violence in Finland escalated into Civil War.

PICTURE: Senate of Vaasa was formed by the senators of Finnish Senate who had succeeded fleeing from Helsinki, which the Red Guards took over in beginning of Civil War. With Finnish declaration of independence in 6^th December 1917 Finnish Senate became Finnish government. Senate had 11 senators, who represented five non-socialist political parties, which had won Parliamentary Elections of 1917. Suspecting armed coup by Red Guards Senate sent four senators to city of Vaasa just two days before Red Guard started their armed mutiny in 28^th of January 1918. Two more senators succeeded escaping Helsinki with hijacked ice-breaker Tarmo in March and getting to Vaasa via Estonia, Germany and Sweden. Five remaining senators remained hiding in Helsinki and succeeded avoiding capture until German troops liberated the city in April of 1918. Third from the right is Pehr Evid Svinhufvud - who had position quite similar to prime minister at the time and was one of the two senators to escape Helsinki with ice-breaker. We will meet him again later on. Photographed by Karl's Atelier photo studio. Photo source Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (164 KB).

Finnish government (Senate) declared Suojeluskuntas as its troops in 25^th of January 1918 and the Civil War started two days later. Local Suojeluskunta organizations did not yet have real higher levels of command connecting them effectively. However, there was one organization that had some influence among them. The Senate elected Sotilaskomitea (Military Committee), which was a small organization of well-known nationalistic Finns. In mid-January of 1918 it had asked General C.G.E. Mannerheim, who had recently returned from Russia to be its chairman. Soon after this, the Finnish Senate declared Suojeluskunta troops as its troops and named General Mannerheim as their commander. For all practical purposes Suojeluskunta troops became voluntary wing of Finnish White Army. When White Guards (Suojeluskunta) faced Civil War their situation was anything but easy. They had about 14,000 men, but they were not yet organized as proper military units and had no military training to speak of. Their opponent Red Guards (Punakaarti) had no military training either and was also poorly organized, but had managed to mobilize some 25,000 men. However, these were only minor problems for White Guards compared to their shortage of weaponry. White Guards started with only about 9,000 rifles and 44 machine guns. The Red Guard had no such shortage as Russian garrisons were arming them voluntarily and a trainloads of guns had been transported by Bolsheviks to them from Russia to provide starter kit for revolution. The Germans were arming White Guards, but failing to receive cargo of the steamship Equity with its 20,000 rifles and 50 machine guns almost caused White Guards to lose the war in its beginning, because which side was able to arm itself first became in beginning of the Civil War very much the deciding factor if local White Guard or Red Guard got upper hand locally and where the frontline would form. Once the war started, the number of troops on both sides started increasing rapidly. At start of the war, the Reds captured the southern part of Finland and the White Army was hurriedly created from White Guards gathered under its leadership. Armed with whatever guns they could get White Guards were able to gain they managed to keep the northern parts of Finland. The frontline between the two sides formed a line running from Ahlainen - Vilppula - Mäntyharju - Antrea - Rautu.

PICTURE: Men of Pielisjärvi White Guard photographed during Finnish Civil Guard. While all but one of the men appear to have infantry rifles M/91 and some have white armbands, they are all wearing civilian clothes. Photo source Museum of Pielinen (Pielisen museo), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (114 KB).

At end of January about 400 White Guards with about 38,000 men were facing some 375 Red Guards with an estimated 30,000 men. But in actuality the numbers of frontline combatants on both sides were not that large - especially at that point. Early on White Guards had only about 5,000 - 6,000 men on the front lines. The Red Guards naturally had Bolshevik-minded Russian soldiers and sailors fighting at their side from the beginning, but their number seems to have been relatively small. Officially Bolshevik councils ("Soviet") were a leading majority of the Russian military units in Finland. In reality they were unable to control the unwilling and demoralized soldiers. At the end of 1917, the Russian Military still had large numbers of troops in Finland and in 24^th of January, just three days before official starting of Civil War, HQ of 42nd Detached Army Corps officially in charge of troops of Russian Army in Finland had made ultimatum demanding all Suojeluskuntas to disarm, but practically all Russian military units either remained passive or simply "melted away" when their soldiers decided to desert and return to their homes. In areas other than the Carelian Isthmus, the size of Russian units taking part in the war were not larger than platoon-size. However, as military training of Red Guards was basically non-existent, Russians often served with them as heavy weapons specialists, training personnel and even as leaders.

PICTURE: Men of Pielisjärvi White Guard photographed during Finnish Civil Guard. While all but one of the men appear to have infantry rifles M/91 and some have white armbands, they are all wearing civilian clothes. Finnish White Army had to set up uniform production during the war, so early in the Civil War most of its soldiers went to war in their own civilian clothes and while the uniform item supply situation improved during the war it was not able to supply all its soldiers with full uniform even by end of the war. Photo source Museum of Pielinen (Pielisen museo), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (96 KB).

At first the Reds attacked north along main roads and railways, but White Guards managed to keep them at bay until the Whites got their main troops organized, equipped and trained - creating a superior fighting force. While Finnish Army was poorly trained, very much thanks to Jaegers (Finnish volunteers of Royal Prussian Jaeger Battalion 27) it had far better leadership and in general was more disciplined than Red Guards. As noted White Guards (Suojeluskunta) units were volunteer units of Finnish White Army, but at the same time they remained somewhat separate from recruited and drafted units, which later became the Finnish Army. In mid-March it was time for the Whites to launch offensive and they first succeeded by surrounding and then capturing strategy-wise highly important city of Tampere – the largest city inland and vitally important central supply hub for the Red Guards. After the Reds lost city of Tampere, their front fell apart, and further successful offensives by the White Army and the German Ostsee Division (Baltic Sea Division) sealed the fate of the Red Guards.

PICTURE: Photograph of Vaasa White Guard (Vaasan Suojeluskunta) from April of 1918 before the unit headed to Viipuri offensive. For White Guard unit the soldiers seem very well equipped. Rifles appear to be infantry rifles M/91. Photo source Ostrobotnia Museum (Pohjanmaan museo), acquired via Finna.fi and used with CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (275 KB).

The total number of troops on both sides continued to climb until April, at which point the White Army had about 70,000 men and Red Guards about 75,000. By that time White Guard (Suojeluskunta) units had been formed from volunteers, but in April of 1918 they were re-organized as ten infantry regiments, which contained also drafted soldiers. By the time the war ended in mid-May the total number of men serving in Finnish White Army reached about 90,000 men.

Main troops of German Ostsee Division (Baltic Sea Division) landed to town of Hanko in 3^rd of April, after which they marched to Finnish capital Helsinki and captured it in 12^th – 14^th of April. Capturing city of Tampere allowed White Army to move much of its troops to Carelian Isthmus in mid-April to create force concentration for its second major offensive of the war. White Army launched that offensive, which cut life-line of the Red Guards – and connection with vitally important railway connection to Russia and captured city of Viipuri in 29^th of April. Also in late April German Detachment Brandenstein that had landed to Loviisa, marched towards north and met Finnish White Army units advancing southwards near city of Lahti, further cutting remaining territory held by Red Guards in half. Most of the Red Guard members ended up in prisoner camps while large number managed to escape to Russia. The Civil War ended on the 5^th of May 1918, but the situation in Finland remained quite restless several years after the war.

PICTURE: Soldiers of Germans Ostsee Division in combat against Finnish Red Guards in Huopalahti in 11^th - 12^th of April 1918. Back then Huopalahti was a municipality in north-west side of Helsinki, now it is one of the suburbs of Helsinki. Like mostly during German advance towards Helsinki also in this one there does not seem to have been much a battle. Photographer unknown. Photo crop. Photo source Photo Archive of Vapriikki (Vapriikin Kuva-arkisto), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (179 KB).

Men of Finnish White Guards of the Civil War could be roughly divided to three categories: Those willing to fight both in their own local area and other parts of the country. Those only willing to fight or maintain order only in their own area. Supporting members, who supported Suojeluskunta with finances and/or supplies without personally participating in combat. At end of the year 1917 and during the Civil War, "lentävä osasto" ("literally: flying unit", maybe more fittingly: "mobile unit") type units were established from those also willing to fight in other areas of the country.

Heroic liberators or butchers?

(Source for numbers: Publications of Suomen sotasurmat 1914 - 1922 project).

Wars rarely are clean, but the Finnish Civil War was as ugly as civil wars can be in their worst. The road to this carnage was paved by the mass-murder of Suojeluskunta prisoners of war committed by Red Guards and Russian soldiers in end of January, and the incident became widely known as the Suinula massacre. In February following Battle of Varkaus White Guards executed about 200 prisoners of war belonging to Red Guards, which started mass-executions of prisoners. During Civil War the cycle of violence was further agitated on both sides by press, which on both sides of frontline kept printing in propaganda horror stories about murders and mutilations committed by other side. Ultimately the number of people executed or illegally killed (about 9,700) during the war was only slightly smaller than the total number of those died in battle (about 9,400). Often the executions had nothing to do with justice or due process, with people being executed for old personal grudges, hate, revenge and convenience. As the White Army won the war, its units and soldiers naturally did most of this killing - killing illegally or executing after a trial - in total some 7,300 people (*). Another factor possibly partially explaining the difference was that the Reds were at least officially against death-sentence with their government (Kansanvaltuuskunta) even forbidding its use from Red Guards, but in reality various levels of Red Guards still ordered executions and they ended up killing about 1,400 people in grand majority of cases without anything even loosely resembling legal process. In regard to the executions and illegal killing, some units of White Guards also gained notably worse reputation for treatment of prisoners than what was average. There were probably good reasons for this. Their soldiers had volunteered for personal and/or ideological reasons, this combined with often weaker discipline and lack of an effective chain of command did not exactly improve chances for the units to treat their prisoners humanely. In general, men of White Guards saw the Russians as enemies of Finland and Finnish Reds as traitors, who had betrayed their own country. Volunteers of White Guards went to war for independent Finnish state. For them the Russian military was an occupier and the Red Guards, who had allied themselves with the Bolshevik government, were a threat to Finnish independence.

According statistics created by Suomen sotasurmat 1914 - 1922 project there seem to be about 2,000 Reds apparently gone missing without a trace, it is possible they may have been killed or executed. Those 2,000 are not included in to the numbers listed here due to uncertainty of their fate.

PICTURE: Military commanders often make a great difference to behaviour of troops under their command. Hans Kalm (1889 - 1981) was highly capable officer who was difficult for his superiours and gathered remarkably grim reputation during Finnish Civil War. Kalm was Estonian-born and had reached rank of captain in Russian Army during World War 1. Year 1917 he had violent confrontation with Bolsheviks in Estonia with its aftermath forcing him to flee Finland, where he first became battalion commander of Finnish White Army. His battalion created mostly from students of two park ranger schools got known as "Kuhmoisten pirut" ("Devils of Kuhmoinen") after executing nurses and patients of Red Guard first aid station. His battalion was reputed as having routinely killed prisoners after other battles as well. When he run Hennala prison camp with his unit in less than three weeks in May of 1918 over 500 prisoners, including 152 female prisoners, were shot in there. Kalm is seen here in year 1919, when he served in Estonian War of Liberation as commander of Finnish Pohjan pojat (Boys of the North) volunteer regiment. Photographed by Isak Sorvari. Photo source Society of Swedish Literature in Finland (Svenska Litteratursällskapet in Finland), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (147 KB).

Executions came in many forms. Besides illegal killings and executions, which often took place immediately after the battle and revenge killings that could also took place later in prison camps, there was also common for field court-martial (kenttäoikeus) to be set up after White Army had captured city or municipality. Their practical function was securing areas captured by White Army by getting rid of assumed members of Red Guards that had stayed behind. How legal these court-martials and their verdicts were is matter of debate. for one thing - Finnish legislation at the time did not include the concept of field court-martial for civilians. Another thing is that while Finnish legislation included death sentence, since year 1825 it had been routine to exile those sentenced to death into Siberia instead of imposing their death-penalty and according 1880's only crime against the state with death-sentence was murder or attempt of murder of an emperor. In addition it was not uncommon for locals selected into field court-martial to be what would be now considered as interested parties, often making them less than impartial. The official court system created by Finnish state for judicial process of those that had taken part in armed mutiny of 1918 were named Court for Crimes Against the State (Valtiorikosoikeus), which started its work 31^st of May 1918 - about two weeks after ending Civil War. Valtiorikosoikeus had in total 21 courts of law, which were established in seven major cities. In total Valtiorikosoikeus system handled 75,575 cases and handed 67,788 sentences, which included 555 death-sentences from which 115 were imposed. Death sentences that had not been imposed by November of 1918 were changed into prison sentences for life. It might be worth noting that the at the time Finnish legal term for act of imposing death-sentence was mestaus, which literally translates as beheading, but in reality all death-sentences were imposed by shooting - typically with a firing squad.

PICTURE: Photograph showing execution in town of Varkaus. This photograph is probably from second set of executions done in Varkaus due to piles of timber being used as backstop. Executions that followed Battle of Varkaus fought in 19^th - 21^st of February 1918 set model for executions following victory of battle for Finnish White Army. Photographed by Ivar Aleksander Ekström. Photo source Museums of Varkaus (Varkauden museot), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (119 KB).

White Army chain of command was not exactly problem-free. Nationalism and hate of the Russians, being typical unifying views among men of White Guards, it was not surprising that many of them did not like taking orders from Finnish White Army General Headquarters lead by the ex-Russian Army General Mannerheim and his Staff. The staff, which was composed of Finnish-born officers, who had earlier served in Russian military and number of Swedish officers. And the instructions for handing prisoners were not the clearest possible either, which left room for interpretation. In beginning of Civil War Mannerheim's Headquarters had issued orders according which field court-martials were to be established, which could condemn to death for crimes such as murder and arson - while this was apparently fit to Russian legislation and military practices of the time, Finnish Senate (government) did not wish to adhere laws created in Russification-era (year 1899 on) and hence followed older legislation originating from 1880's, which was not suited for existing situation of armed mutiny of Finnish Red Guards and officially undeclared but de-facto war vs. Russian Bolsheviks. In addition the policy-question if Red Guard should be treated as enemy soldiers or civilians complicated things legislation-wise, with final decision ending up to be treating them from legal view-point as civilians. 25^th of February Mannerheim's HQ made declaration, which got commonly known as "To be shot on the spot declaration". The declaration was intended to set guidelines for treatment of enemy combatants allowing criminals who had committed major crimes, saboteurs and enemy combatants found behind own lines to be shot on the spot and left into consideration of commanding officer how to handle prisoners taken in battle and considered dangerous. In practice what it ended up causing was a rise in number of killings following battles raising them to such level that it worried Mannerheim's HQ to such extent that in 26^th of March it issued orders that forbid troops shooting their prisoners on their own. But this apparently had little effect, with number of prisoners shot during and after Battle of Tampere in April being remarkably high. In general prisoners suspected of being in Red Guards were to be divided into three categories - those to be executed, those to be prisoned and those to be set free. Generally those to be executed category included leaders of Red Guard, known agitators and those who had done major crimes during the war, while to be prisoned category was intended for all those who had willingly joined Red Guards and those to be set free category was reserved for those that either had not belonged to Red Guards or had been forced into joining them. 7^th of December 1918 persons who had taken part in illegal killings and executions to suppress the rebellion were pardoned, which solved the judicial problems concerning wartime use of field courts, but also made later filing charges for even worst of wartime excesses committed by soldiers of White Army impossible.

White Guards contained also men who had fled from southern parts of Finland, whose cities, towns and villages had fallen in hands of Red Guards or had been forced into hiding when Red Guards took over the area where they lived. Once White Army captured ground the situation offered a convenient opportunity for settling old scores and revenging for lost friends and relatives. Soldiers of other types of White Army units (recruited units and drafted troops) were almost completely from area that been in White Army control from start of the war, even if they were not all exactly innocent when it came to atrocities either. During the Civil War the White Army had only weak chain-of-command for White Guards (its voluntary troops). The Advisory Committee of the Commander in Chief, which had representatives of various White Guards, was intended as the connection between local White Guards and the HQ of General Mannerheim. but it did not take part when it came to actual commanding troops. As the war progressed, executing prisoners often become the standard procedure for troops of both sides.

PICTURE: Kuopio prison camp was rather typical prison camp established early in the war. It had been created in former Russian garrison, existed in 8^th of February - 30^th of September 1918 and had in total about 2,600 prisoners from with about 500 died to pestilence and malnutrition. Photographer unknown. Photo source Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (119 KB).

Red prisoners were placed in prisoner camps with in total about 80,000 members of Red Guards and those suspected as such being locked up in them. In a country suffering from food shortage Prisoner camps of Finnish Civil especially early on were miserable places in which pestilence, malnutrition and hunger killed about 13,440 prisoners. Smallpox, scarlet fever and relapsing fever had been spreading already during the Civil War with some typhoid also being present, but the main killer was influenza pandemic of year 1918 ("Spanish Flu"), which spread all over Finland in summer of 1918. Unlike often claimed earlier hunger was apparently not a main killer of Reds placed in prison camps, although scarcity of food and often poor quality food caused malnutrition, which often served as secondary cause for pestilence-caused deaths. Some 40,000 prisoners were paroled in autumn of 1918 and about 10,000 pardoned on October of 1918. Prisoner camps were abolished in mid-September with many of them being closed and eight remaining camps being changed into civilian forced labour camps, which were placed under Prison Administration. After these changes some 6,100 former members of Red Guards continued to serve their prison sentences – the last 50 inmates were pardoned in year 1927. Finnish Civil War of 1918 left festering wounds among the Finns and it is open to question if the wound, even nowadays, is fully healed. For part of the Finnish population Suojeluskunta has remained heroes that liberated Finland, while the other part still calls them by their old derogatory nickname "lahtari" (butcher) originally introduced already year 1905 and commonly used by the Finnish Reds during the Civil War.