Fourth Week

Under the shells and bombs that crashed into Viipuri last week Finnish men and women worked day & night. Brawny peasant women toiled side by side with boys and old men, burrowing trenches, throwing up breastworks, putting together makeshift pillboxes. Beneath the high-pitched scream of shells in air and the sharp thunder of their explosions sounded the dull bass background music of the battle south of the city. Day by day it came nearer.

Into its fourth week went the battle of Viipuri and Finland's second city was now in the battle line. Finnish artillery, wheeled back from the main positions of the Mannerheim Line, spat at the Russians over the heads of Viipuri's defenders. Behind Karelia's beleaguered capital, along the 30-mile stretch of lakes and canals between Lake Saimaa and the Gulf of Finland, other workers were building new defenses. Few people doubted that if Viipuri fell Finland would still fight on.

A snowstorm swept over Finland as the week began. It grounded Russian aviation, slowed Russian mechanized attack, made the Russian infantry advance half blind. Behind the front the Russians were busy keeping their supply lines open, and this slowed down their advance. But still the Red Army came on.

From the railroad town of Kaemaerae the main body of the army began closing in on Saeinioe, which a spearhead had reached last fortnight (TIME, Feb. 26). Then, veering to the left, the attack beat against the Finns' right flank guarding the Gulf and the fortress of Koivisto. Over the clean new snow, waves of Russians crouching behind their tanks swarmed over the Finns' weakened positions. Above the fog 200 Russian pursuit planes circled to keep off Finnish aircraft. On the 21st day of battle the Russians reached the Gulf. Koivisto was isolated.

Desperately the Finns tried to replace their men who had fallen. Convicts serving light sentences, men up to 46 and those once rejected for physical incapacity were rushed into uniform. Any man of any nationality who would volunteer, regardless of military experience, was eagerly recruited. As was shown in Spain, these are no match for trained troops.

The fate of Finland had become a matter of time, and accident. If Field Marshal Mannerheim's able commanders could continue to sell their ground dearly and slowly, then Russia might have no more than the Karelian Isthmus by the time spring's thaws and freshets came to the aid of the defenders. And then if--and only if--manpower and materiel came from other countries in ever-increasing quantities, Finland might turn the tide. With Russian bombs falling on the Swedish town of Pajala and Sweden approaching a crisis over help to the Finns, with Turkey growing restless on Russia's southern border, and with a part of the British fleet lying somewhere off Petsamo, Finland's fate might be decided by a hasty word or the accidental discharge of a gun.

Meanwhile Leningrad failed to celebrate Red Army Day with the capture of Viipuri, and the war went on. As the skies cleared again, Russian bombers sprayed their incendiary charges on Lappeenranta, Kaekisalmi, Rovaniemi and the region south of Petsamo. The Finns ground their teeth and waited for news from the Isthmus, where, with the Russians on the edge of Finland's frozen Gulf, a flanking attack across the ice toward Viipuri was their next logical move. On the eastern end of the Isthmus the Finns held fast, as they had for the 24 days of the February offensive, but if the Russians advanced far enough in the west their positions would become untenable. And in the west the Russians kept advancing, foot by foot, yard by yard. Early this week the Finns admitted the loss of Koivisto and all its coastal batteries. There was a lull in the battle as the Finns dug in and the Russians straightened their line. But at week's end they were six miles from Viipuri. Since Feb. 1 some 100,000 of them had fallen.

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