Baron Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim

Baron Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim , 1867-1951, Finnish field marshal and president of Finland (1944-46). Of a distinguished Swedish-Finnish family in Russian-controlled Finland, Mannerheim rose to the rank of general in the czarist army. In 1918 he led victorious Finnish antisocialist forces against the Finnish Bolsheviks and their Soviet supporters, and in the following year he headed the new regime in Finland as regent. Defeated in the presidential elections of 1919, he went into retirement and engaged in philanthropic activity. He was appointed head of the Finnish defense council in 1931 and commanded the Finnish forces against the Soviet Union in the Finnish-Russian War of 1939-40 and again in 1941-44. In Aug., 1944, he succeeded Risto Ryti as president of Finland, and in September he terminated hostilities with the Soviet Union. He resigned the presidency in 1946 because of ill health and was succeeded by Juho Paasikivi. The Mannerheim Line, a fortified line of defense across the Karelian Isthmus, was planned by him. The Soviet army broke through the line in 1940, and it was subsequently dismantled.

Mannerheim, Carl Gustav Emil, Baron von (1867–1951) Finnish military leader and statesman. Trained as an officer in the Tsarist army, he rose to the rank of general, and, defeating the Finnish Bolsheviks (1918), he expelled the Soviet forces from Finland. He was appointed chief of the National Defence Council (1930–39), and planned the “Mannerheim Line”, a fortified line of defence across the Karelian Isthmus to block any potential aggression by the Soviet Union. When Soviet forces attacked (1939) he resisted in the FINNISH-RUSSIAN WAR, and in alliance with Germany renewed the war (1941–44). In 1944 he signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. The Finnish Parliament elected Mannerheim as President (1944–46). In March 1945 he brought Finland into the war against Germany.