Tali-Ihantala 1944 (2007)

Major General Ruben Lagus advances with his armored division to meet the Red Army forces. A sea landing west of Murmansk is unlikely because of the terrain. The Red Army is coming, and it can conduct operations effectively only along a narrow strip of terrain. Given the Finnish Army’s inferior capabilities, it is clear that there can be only one battle—and that there will be one. The film depicts the Finns’ desperate determination to win this fight. The Battle of Tali-Ihantala took place across an area of about 100 square kilometers between Vyborg Bay and the Vuoksi River. The Soviet advance focused on the area east of Vyborg, from the village of Tali in the south to the area around the more northerly settlement of Ihantala. This was the only terrain suitable for armored vehicles across the Karelian Isthmus: a strip ten kilometers wide, bounded by lakes and, to the east, by the Vuoksi River. Finland’s pursuit of sovereignty from Sweden and Russia, under whose shifting influence it had been for centuries, is supported in the film’s plot by the dubious pact with the Nazis. It is a highly emotional subject, illustrated through a layered narrative structure. The plot unfolds both in the offices of military attachés and at troop level, where General Lagus’s son fights with his assault-gun battery. In the end, 50,000 Finns manage to wrest the initiative from the numerically superior Red Army, which outnumbers them three to one, and, through the timing and location of their attack, show the Soviet leadership that they are both a match for the Red Army in combat and fully informed about its attack plans. Lieutenant General Dmitri N. Gusev, commander of the Russian 21st Army, must answer to the Russian General Staff for this defeat and the obvious strategic blunders, and is stripped of the operational initiative. The Finns retain their sovereignty, and the Wehrmacht (the Luftwaffe Combat Group Kuhlmey and Assault Gun Brigade 303) can withdraw from Finland while preserving its prestige and strategic advantage.