The Alliance Wasn’t Always Grand

The Alliance Wasn’t Always Grand

Britain’s declaration of war against Finland on December 5, 1941, was a typically humiliating moment of allied warfare. Invaded in November 1939 by Soviet forces, Finland fought tenaciously against overwhelming odds through a brutal winter. In a 1940 broadcast, Winston Churchill declared "Only Finland—superb, nay, sublime—in the jaws of peril—Finland shows what free men can do." Yet without aid, Finnish defeat was as inevitable as the harsh trea…