Oliver Warner : Marshal Mannerheim and the Finns

Oliver Warner is a noted naval historian and author of Great Sea Battles, A Portrait of The Sea and the Sword. He is a regular contributor to History Today and Mariner's Mirror, the Journal of the Society for Nautical Research. Mr Warner's interest in Finland and the country's history arose from the study he made of it in his narrative, The Sea and the Sword.

Gustaf Mannerheim (1879-1951) is the greatest leader Finland ever produced and the story of his life is the story of twentieth-century Finland. As a young man Mannerheim joined a crack Russian cavalry and rose step by step to become a general. When the Russian Revolution broke out, Mannerheim returned to Finland, and, at the head of a White army, succeeded in freeing the country from the Reds. When Russia attacked Finland in the winter of 1939, Mannerheim again took command of the Finnish army, and conducted an astounding and heroic defence. Oliver Warner has sympathetically presented his life in relation to the Finnish nation as a whole.