Viena expedition

The Viena expedition (Vienan retkikunta, Vienaexpeditionen) was a military expedition in March 1918 by Finnish volunteer forces to annex White Karelia (Vienan Karjala) from Soviet Russia. It was one of the many "kinship wars" (Heimosodat) fought near the newly independent Finland during the Russian Civil War. Russian East Karelia was never part of the Swedish Empire or the Grand Duchy of Finland. and it was at the time mostly inhabited by Karelians. However, many advocates of a Greater Finland considered these Karelians a "kindred" Finnish nation and supported the annexation of Russian East Karelia to Finland. The expedition was made up of two groups. One group was Finnish Jäger troops led by Lieutenant Kurt Martti Wallenius. Initial operations in Northern Finland were successful and the Red Finns were forced to withdraw to Eastern Karelia. Wallenius and his light infantry crossed the border at Kuusamo, but got bogged down in fighting the Finnish Red Guards. Aow level of training and the low morale of his conscripted troops made any advance impossible, and only withdrawal of the defending Red Finns allowed the White Finns to advance a small distance until the troops again mutinied, the goals of the operations having passed the state border. In the end the force was withdrawn back within Finnish borders and performed only small incursions into East Karelia. The other group was led by Lieutenant Colonel Carl Wilhelm Malm and consisted of about 350 volunteers. By 10 April, Malm's group had advanced as far as the coastal town of Kem on the White Sea which was controlled by the Finnish Red Guard. Malm was unable to capture the town and retreated to Uhtua, where he began defending western White Sea Karelia. The Finns now switched tactics and adopted a village-by-village strategy of persuading locals to join them. When the Finnish troops arrived in White Sea Karelia, they noticed that the population was divided. Part of the population wanted to secede from Russia and form an independent Karelia separate from Finland.