Field-Marshal Mannerheim

The eyes of all the world were lately fixed on Field-Marshal Mannerheim, the leader of the Finnish Army, in its heroic struggle against Russian aggression. To every Finn it was, however, obvious, from such public and private comments as were being made for months, how very little was known outside Finland about the personality of Finland’s national hero and, also, about the historical background against which he must be seen to be properly appreciated. Many of the warmest sympathisers with Finland in her recent ordeal, tended to lay disproportionate emphasis on the progress which the country had made since declaring her independence twenty-two years ago: and it must therefore be stressed, that Finland is not a country of yesterday, but that she has political and other traditions of very long standing. Again, the history of Finland during the past forty or fifty years shows the complex working of a great many factors; and it is these which have provided that remarkable result of social and political reconciliation which is the salient characteristic of the internal situation in Finland at the present moment. As one who for many years past has had the privilege of knowing Field-Marshal Mannerheim, and has also taken some slight part in Finnish political life, I have thought that I might perhaps usefully attempt to supply the want of a book in English in which the Field-Marshal would be envisaged from the double point of view of the interest of his personality as such, and of his relation to Finland’s past and present. The book was begun at a time when Finland’s epic struggle was firing imaginations and raising hopes everywhere: it is completed at a moment when not only political considerations impose much discretion in the discussion of the events of yesterday, but when a Finn writing about his country cannot escape an uncomfortable feeling of being guilty of exhibitionism. The only biography of Field-Marshal Mannerheim among those published so far which has a claim to be regarded as a serious contribution to history is the one written in Swedish by the late Dr. Kai Donner and published in 1934. The author had the advantage of close personal relations with his subject, and in many ways his volume provides the basis upon which every subsequent biographer of the Field-Marshal must build...