Battle of Antrea

Whites The White Army on the Antrea Front included the paramilitary White Guards, the Jäger troops and the Karelian Army. It was first commanded by colonel lieutenant Herman Wärnhjelm who was replaced on 12 February by captain Aarne Sihvo and Woldemar Hägglund as his staff officer. Reds The Red units were composed of the Red Guards from the Viipuri area and further from the Uusimaa region of Southern Finland, mainly from Helsinki, Vantaa, Hyvinkää and Mäntsälä. The Helsinki Red Guard included the famous Jyry Company, which was an elite squad composed of the members of the working-class athletes club Jyry Helsinki. Also a unit of the Women's Red Guard took part at the battle. The Russian volunteer brigades came from Petrograd, Moscow and Siberia. They all left the Antrea Front in late February as the armistice between Soviet Russia and the German Empire was broken and the troops were needed elsewhere. A group of Baltic Fleet sailors were still fighting later in March in Ahvola. The Reds were commanded by the Red Guards general staff in Viipuri, but they also had a local base in Kavantsaari. The commander-in-chief in Kavantsaari was the little-known factory worker A. Backman. Even his accurate identity is not clear, but Backman was presumably captured and then killed by the Whites in early May. == The battles ==

White retreat from Viipuri Three days before the start of the War, the Whites attempted to take Viipuri under their control but failed. The 300-men unit fled the town and headed south across the ice of Viipuri Bay to the small island of Venäjänsaari. On 26 January, the Whites decided to head north of Viipuri to Antrea and meet their main forces. The squad was now led by Adolf Aminoff, a 62-year-old retired colonel of the Russian Imperial Army. It crossed the Petrograd railway in the village of Kämärä, where they had a clash with the Red Guards. The Battle of Kämärä is considered to be the first battle of the Finnish Civil War. After beating the Reds by the Kämärä station, the Whites ambushed a Red train on its way from Petrograd to Finland. The so-called ″Great Gun Train″ was carrying a large cargo of rifles, artillery pieces and ammunition. It was escorted by a squad of 400 members of the Petrograd Finnish Red Guard commanded by the brothers Jukka and Eino Rahja. The train stopped by the station and was surprised by the Whites. After the Reds got their machine guns into shooting positions, the Whites fled Kämärä and continued their journey towards Antrea. The battles in Kämärä ended with 18 killed Whites and up to 30 killed Reds. The Whites finally reached Antrea in 28 January. The local White Guards had taken the railway stations of Kavantsaari and Hannila a day earlier. fighter at the Antrea Airfield == Aviation ==

Whites Two German imported DFW C.V reconnaissance planes were flown to Antrea in late March under the command of the Danish lieutenant Knud von Clauson-Kaas. The planes were not used in action as the Swedish pilots refused to fly in demanding conditions. On 10–11 April, six Russian pilots defected from Soviet Russia and joined the Finnish Whites with a Grigorovich M-9 flying boat, two Nieuport 10 reconnaissance planes and two Nieuport 17 fighters. The pilots were supporters of the Russian White movement. From 13 April, the Russian pilots made reconnaissance flights, bombed the Red positions and dropped propaganda leaflets. The planes operated from the Antrea Airfield, located on the ice of lake Päähkjärvi. This is considered to be the beginning of the Finnish Air Force. Reds The Reds had two Russian Nieuport flying boats which were flown by three Russian pilots. They operated from the ice of the Pantsarlahti Bay in Viipuri. The planes made at least four reconnaissance and bombing flights between late February and the end of March. == Culture ==

The Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja lost his brother during the Battle of Antrea as Yrjö Madetoja (b. 1885) was presumably captured and killed by the Reds in Kavantsaari on 9 April. Madetoja composed a three-movement piano suite, The Garden of Death, Op. 41, in the memory of his lost brother. == References ==