Fire Plan the Mannerheim Line on February 11 Its Finnish defenders were exhausted After months of heavy resistance they now ran low on stamina as well as ammunition The Finns were thus forced to ask for terms They signed them on the night of March 12–13, 1940, in Moscow Sweden brokered the deal With victory, Stalin’s demands went beyond his 1939 claims for territory in southern Karelia He also revoked the earlier offer of “compensation” with territory from eastern, Soviet Karelia Finland instead ceded to the Soviet Union most of the southern Karelian isthmus, which Field Marshal Carl Gustaf von Mannerheim had captured in the campaign of 1919–1920 during the Russian Civil War The ceded land thereafter formed a widened buffer zone covering the northern approach to Leningrad Helsinki also surrendered land in central Finland, as well as lease rights to a Soviet naval base protecting the Gulf of Finland The Red Army occupied all surrendered territories, but no more It even pulled back to the agreed settlement line where it had overrun it during fighting in the north Estimates of Soviet dead range from 126,000 to 200,000, but are not reliable due to Soviet propaganda interest in concealing the full extent of casualties Finland’s losses were about 30,000 dead and 45,000 wounded The Finns were also left to care for 400,000 refugees and other civilians displaced by the border adjustments The apparent weakness of Soviet arms in the Finnish campaign made an impression on Hitler It may even have hastened his decision to attack eastward before driving Britain out of the war, by reinforcing his belief that Soviet strength was an illusion and that all he needed to was “kick in the door” for the Soviet edifice to fall The outcome also left all Finns unalterably hostile to the Soviet Union and determined on ultimate reversal of the forced territorial settlement On June 25, 1941, Finland therefore launched what it officially called the “Continuation War.” Its small but excellent armies waited just three days to join the Axis attack against the Soviet Union launched by Hitler in Operation BARBAROSSA Thereafter, the Finns fought on the northeastern flank of the Eastern Front, supported by the Wehrmacht but not sharing its methods or goals of extinction of the Soviet Union All the Finns wanted was their national territory back: once they advanced to 1939 frontiers, they stopped See also Molotov breadbasket; Molotov cocktail; motti; Soviet Navy; Tripartite Pact Suggested Reading: Carl van Dyke, The Soviet Invasion of Finland (1997) FIRE CONTROL CENTER (FCC) See artillery FIRE FOR EFFECT Artillery term for when a forward observer confirmed that batteries had found the right range and elevation to the target and were instructed to maintain continuous fire at their maximum rate to suppress or destroy the enemy FIRE PLAN Using mapped indirect fire, or otherwise “predicted fire,” by one or more artillery batteries to blast preselected areas or precise targets, rather than 387