1918 in Finland

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 29. Chapters: Finnish Civil War, White Guard, British submarine flotilla in the Baltic, Viena expedition, Kingdom of Finland, Jäger Movement, Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic, Red Guards, 27th Jäger Battalion, Finnish People's Delegation, Kuusinen Club Incident, Battle of Tampere, Red Guard's March, Baltic Sea Division, Lottery of Huruslahti, Detachment Brandenstein. Excerpt: The Finnish Civil War (Finnish: ; Swedish: ) was a part of the national, political and social turmoil caused by World War I (1914-1918) in Europe. The Civil War concerned control and leadership of The Grand Duchy of Finland as it achieved independence from Russia after the October Revolution in Petrograd. The war was fought from 27 January to 15 May 1918 between the forces of the Social Democrats led by the People's Deputation of Finland, commonly called the "Reds" (Finnish: ), and the forces of the non-socialist, conservative-led Senate, commonly called the "Whites" (Finnish: ). The Reds - usually Finnish-speaking workers - were supported by the Russian Soviet Republic; they were based in the industrial cities in the south. The Whites - dominated by farmers and by middle- and upper-class Swedish speakers - received military assistance from the German Empire. The Whites won the war, in which about 37,000 people died out of a population of 3 million. Following the Diet of Porvoo in 1809, Finland, previously part of the Kingdom of Sweden, had been ruled as a nominally autonomous part of the Russian Empire, the Grand Duchy of Finland. It was gradually developing an early form of the eventual Finnish state, including a marked rise of Fennoman movement representing the Finnic part of the nation. Finland had been culturally divided between a majority of Finnish speakers and a minority of Swedish speakers, but united in the Finnish response against the policy of Russian integration since 1899. The February and October Revolutions in 1917 led to Russia's defeat in World War I. The chaos that ensued in mainland Russia induced the collapse of the Grand Duchy of Finland and breakdown of the Finnish government, military force, economy and society. Before 1917 the Finnish people had experienced a rapid population growth, industrialization, improvements in the economy and the standard of living, the rise of a comprehensive labor movement as well as marked economic, social and pol