Hello people! In this post I will tell you about the battle of Raate road. The battle was part of the war between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939-1940. The war would be known as talvisota a.k.a winter war. The battle for the road was fought from the 1st of January to 7th of the same month. The battle would ultimately lead to the destruction of the Soviet forces in the area. 

The Finnish forces in the area were severely outmatched by the soviet forces. At the height of the battle, Finnish forces could scrape up about 6 000 men where the Soviets had about 23 000 men (the sources list different numbers since the Soviet archives are still locked for most parts). Anyways the power ration was favorable for the soviet. 

During the first days of the Soviet attack the Soviets gained some ground but bad weather made progress slower. The weather was freezing, the records tell that the temperatures were somewhere between -25 to -35 celsius. These weather conditions contributed to the defeat of the Soviet 44th rifle division that was fighting in the area. 

Finnish army units used a strategy called motti tactic. This means stacked wood in Finnish. Finnish soldiers would ski close to the enemy with grenades and Finnish KP-31 submachine guns and made road blocks by destroying enemy vehicles and cutting down trees. These motties would shrink down over time because the Soviets were cut out from their supplies. A good bit of the Soviet forces literally froze to death because the conditions were so cold and there were no shelter. 

The losses were massive for the 44th rifle division. Finnish sources say that about 7 000 to 9 000 Soviets were killed and about 1 300 captured. The Soviet archives say that the amount of dead Soviets were about 4 600 and that there were no Soviets captured by the Finns. The Finns made a big score since a good amount of the Soviet equipment were intact and could be still used by the Finns. The Finns captured thousands of guns, over 40 tanks and 300 other vehicles plus 1 170 horses. These captured equipment would be used by the Finns in the continuation war in 1941 to 1944. 

After the failure of the 44th rifle division its commander Vinogradov was executed with two other officers Volkov and Pahomov. The soldiers of the division that retreated successfully were also court-martialed and shot by the order of Stavka (Soviet high command).