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Music Hello everyone and welcome to history of the Second World War, episode 149, The Winter War

Part 7, The Isthmith Grind.

This week, a big thank you goes out to Monica and Simon for

choosing to become podcast members. You can find out more over at History of the Second World War.com

slash members. Over the last few episodes, the podcast has looked at the fighting that was occurring

north of Lake Ladoga. But south of the lake, on the Karelian isthmus,

the fighting would begin to rapidly escalate in intensity in late January 1940. The failures of

the Soviet attacks in the north just reinforced the fact that the decisive theater of the war

would be on the isthmus, and the focus of both armies would be clearly on the Finnish

defenses on the Isthmus during the early months of 1940.

During these renewed attacks, the Red Army would have a new commander and a new plan.

As the war drug on, the Finns were also running out of men and resources, and so the assistance

of other nations was even more necessary, with the easiest possible

avenue for that support being its Nordic neighbor, Sweden.

Of all of the nations that could have sent meaningful aid to Finland during the war,

...