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Music Hello everyone and welcome to history of the Second World War,

Episode 144, The Winter War Part 2, Plans.

This week, a big thank you goes out to Zach, Luke, and Brody for choosing

to become members. You can find out more about becoming a member over at History of the Second

World War.com slash members. When the first shots of the Winter War were fired, neither

side of the conflict was entirely unprepared for the Soviet offensive. Soviet plans had been put in place over the

preceding months as the possibility of invading Finland became a real reality. For the Finns,

they had in some ways been preparing to fight this war since they'd won the Finnish War of

independence during the Russian Civil War. These preparations were most apparent and most famous on the Karelian

Isthmus, where through many years of hard work, a series of defenses had been created, which would be

referred to as the main defense line, although it would end up being better known as the Mannersheim

line, which is how foreign reporters referred to it during and after the war. But the Finns had also made

other preparations for a Soviet advance further to the north, so they were ready for whatever

the Soviets would throw at them. Even with these preparations, though, the general feeling

by foreign military attaches was that the Finnish resistance, while perhaps fierce, would

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