PART V: SUOJELUSKUNTA AND MOBILIZATION

Civil Guards briefly had a role in mobilization at late 1918, but after that the task was removed from its responsibilities. Year 1934 the situation changed and Suojeluskunta organization became a vital part of the mobilization system and change of the mobilization system impacted whole civil Guarg organization.

The cadre mobilization system was used for Finnish army from April of 1918 to April of 1934. Just as in later mobilization systems it had the whole country divided into military districts and upon mobilization a certain number of military units would be formed in each of these districts. In this system (based to German mobilization system) each of the wartime Armed Force regiments had an active peacetime Armed Force battalion sized unit as cadre, around which the wartime unit, when mobilized, would be formed by filling up the ranks with reservists. The first ambitious mobilization plan made in year 1918 would have required forming 9 divisions (with a total of 27 infantry regiments), but at that time Finland did not have even half of the needed trained troops or guns for the Army of that size. So, Finland started with a wartime Army of only three infantry divisions. As the Finns got more soldiers trained in the reserves the wartime strength of the Finnish Armed Forces was gradually expanded. But this also meant that even if more military equipment was acquired, the equipment situation for Finnish soldiers did not improve much as there were more and more soldiers to whom equipment needed to be issued upon mobilization. Year 1921 the goal of mobilization was re-set to 6 infantry divisions and 1 Jaeger brigade, but the same time Finnish military still came to conclusion that 10 divisions would be needed to have a capability for defensive war. Year 1927 Finland finally had resources the for 7 infantry divisions, but the Defense Revision of that time already suggested a future wartime Army of 13 infantry divisions.

Development of Finnish Armed Forces mobilization strength:

The part Civil Guard organization played in cadre mobilization system was two-fold - Civil Guards of border-areas were to fight against the enemy as part of Suojajoukot (troops tasked for providing protection for mobilization) in their own areas, while otherwise the role of Civil Guard organization would have been forming additional units for reserves. If there been war during this mobilization system, there would have been large number of pure Civil Guard units in the war. The main problems of this mobilization system were that it was centralized (units were to be formed in small number of locations) and its ability to effectively mobilize ever larger growing Army was questionable. Large numbers of troops and vehicles gathering for mobilization would have made good targets for an enemy air force and successful sabotage against some of the few large depots, in which the military equipment was stored during peacetime could have been devastating.

PICTURE: Civil Guard parade in Helsinki sometime in 1930's. House of Parliament and tower of National Museum are visible in the background. In 1920's the total number of guardsmen in Civil Guard varied depending year around 78,000 - 90,000 men, so it had considerable manpower, but that included a lot of people who were either too young or old to serve in combat troops. Photographed by Rafael Roos. 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 (261 KB).

Suojajoukot (= Protective troops):

Suojajoukot were Finnish military units defending the border areas against the first attack of the enemy, their mission was to delay or stop the enemy just after the start of war to buy time for full-scale mobilization. Civil Guard played an interesting role in them. During the Cadre mobilization system (April 1918 - April 1934) in case of war Civil Guards would have indeed formed their own pure combat units, which would have been part of these troops. The total number of Civil Guard units in Suojajoukot started out small, but was increased considerably in the plans by the late 1920's. During the last decade or so before replacing the cadre mobilization system with the area mobilization system, their part in Suojajoukot would have been vital.

When Civil Guard organization was first organized, certain geographic areas referred as Rajamaa (borderland) were left outside those that were in Civil Guard mobilization district system. Had the war started many of Rajamaa Civil Guards would have fought as part of Suojajoukot along with Army units located in the area. Other Civil Guards around Finland would have guarded their own areas of the home front. Starting year 1921, the total number of Civil Guard units reserved for Suojajoukot became even larger, when Civil Guards of Viipuri, Sortavala and Pohjois-Karjala Civil Guard districts were assigned to them. After this, their part continued to grow and by year 1926 the number of Civil Guard districts, whose Civil Guards were included in Suojajoukot had doubled and another five Civil Guard district were tasked to organize their own coastal defense units during war.

The Mobilization Plan of year 1928 included the following pure Civil Guard units for Civil Guard Districts:

PICTURE: Troops on a march during mobilization rehearsals in Nurmes at October of 1933. Nurmes belonged to Pohjois-Karjala Civil Guard and hence in military planning part of Rajamaa at the time. Photographed by Väinö Häläinen. Photo source Museum of Nurmes (Nurmeksen museo), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (115 KB).

Area mobilization system:

The Cadre Mobilization System was replaced with the Area mobilization System on the 1^st of May 1934. The ideas behind this new system were in suggestions to the Puolustusrevisio (Defense Revision), which Major Leonard Grandell had made already a decade earlier. Basic concept of the new Area Mobilization Plan was decentralization: Troops would be formed as small company / artillery battery size units all over the place. Equipment, which the formed units needed to have, was in smaller mobilization storage locations, from which they would be transported to each unit's place of mobilization. Suojajoukot (Protection troops) formed mainly from active peacetime Army units would delay the enemy, giving time for full mobilization.

The role of Civil Guard organization in mobilization was totally changed. It now got an active role in mobilization. Separate mobilization organizations were formed and District HQ level and local level of Civil Guard organizations provided resources for it. These resources (in close operation with Military District HQs) did the actual work of distributing orders for the reservists to come forward. At March of 1932, Civil Guard organization delivered copies of its membership card registry to the Headquarters of Military Districts and these cards formed the starting point for forming area mobilization system. Now guardsmen became the cadre around which the military units would be formed from other reservists in mobilization. Civil Guards of the border areas would no longer form their own combat units and there would no longer be pure Civil Guard units in mobilization plans for any coming war.

Each military district would mobilize:

PICTURE: Leonard August Mathias Grandell (1894 - 1967) was Jaeger-officer of Finnish Army, who was not well-known, but whose work made huge impact for wartime capability of Finland. He developed Finland its mobilization system and later lead preparations for wartime economy. During Winter War served as Head for Department of War Economy in Ministry of Defense and during Continuation War as Inspector of War Economy. Grandell retired first time from Finnish Army as Major at year 1922 and served shortly in GHQ of Civil Guard before returning to the Army. After very much leading Finnish wartime economy and military production through World War 2 he retired the second time at 1944 as Lieutenant General. After that Grandell still did remarkable managerial career in (later: VALMET) in 1944 - 1947 and Aero Oy (later: FINNAIR) in 1947 - 1960. Photographer unknown, photo taken during Winter War. Photo crop. (SA-kuva.fi photo archive, photograph number 6536). CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (191 KB).

Civil Guard Cadres in the Area Mobilization System:

An even more important role came with training the Civil Guard cadres, the skeleton around which the other reservists would be gathered to form military units in mobilization. Training in Civil Guards was now centered around training those cadres (aka Army reservists who were also guardsmen in Civil Guard) and resources had to be re-focused for training them. These officers, NCOs and men forming cadres had to be well trained and now Civil Guard organization had to be able to train all sorts of troops needed for various combat arms. For this, Civil Guards had to totally re-plan their training system, as now the training types it gave needed major diversification. Thus far the large majority of Civil Guards in rural areas had trained only infantry. Now they also started to train unit-types such as field artillery, signal corps, air defense, sappers, cavalry, etc. needed as cadres for those types of military units, which would be mobilized from their specific area. The previously existing rare training units also had to be enlarged. This change was so large-scale that large numbers of previous infantry-only Civil Guards now were transformed as field artillery, air defense, engineer, signal corps, etc. Civil Guards. Only Civil Guards of the largest cities (which already had trained their members for variety of combat arms) remained basically the same through this change.

Naturally training of infantry also continued in Civil Guards, but starting from the year 1933 they provided the following amount of training listed below:

(Source: Suojeluskuntain historia, part 3)

PICTURE: Officer of Civil Guard Navy and three officers from General Headquarters of Civil Guard in 254mm coastal artillery battery of Itä-Villinki. Island of Itä-Villinki was location for the most eastern of 254mm coastal artillery batteries protecting Finnish capital Helsinki. Coastal Artillery Civil Guard of Helsinki Civil Guard District went through number of guns during its history. The first coastal guns made available for its live fire training were old 152/22 D guns on Suomenlinna. Later they were trusted with more modern guns - first with 152/45 C guns on Isosaari Island and after those 254/45 D guns on Katajaluoto Island. Ultimately starting year 1937 it started receiving training for the most powerful coastal guns in Finnish inventory - 305/52 O in twin turret of Kuivasaari Island. Photographed by Aarne Pietinen at year 1935. 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 (160 KB).

The first two mentioned missions were handled by Civil Guard’s guardsmen belonging to reserved of the Army. Guardsmen belonging to home reserve could also be used for the third mission. The remaining fourth and fifth missions at the home front could be left to those, which themselves would not be mobilized in to the Army in mobilization (like home reserve, those released from military duty, Civil Guard veterans and members of Lotta-Svärd).

The duties on the home front included:

1) Guard duty
2) Maintaining security and public order.
3) Air surveillance and air defense (included also searching downed aircraft and their crews).
4) Assisting & organizing road and water transports.
5) Assessing civilian authorities in evacuation and housing of civilians.
6) Propaganda.
7) Taking care of war-invalids, military funerals of those killed in combat, war orphans and relatives of those killed in combat.
8) Assisting in putting out forest fires.
9) Hunting down enemy saboteurs and spies.

In the Cadre Mobilization System the Civil Guards of CG-districts in the eastern border had participated in mobilization as part of Suojajoukot (Protective Troops, troops protecting the full-scale mobilization), but in the area mobilization system they no longer had such a role. This was quite clearly visible in the wars to come.

PICTURE: Group of Finnish reservists called to additional refresher training at 1939. Photographed in Lappeenranta. There are two guardsmen of Civil Guard among them. Additional refresher training was de facto military mobilization of Finnish Field Army performed in October of 1939. When mobilized guardsmen were asked to bring their uniforms, rifles and other gear with them to the site of mobilization for their military unit, which is where these reservists are heading. Photographed by Osmo Levänen. Photo source Museums of Lappeenranta (Lappeenrannan museot), acquired via finna.fi and used with CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (137 KB).