Battle of Lahti

Battle of Lahti
Part of the Finnish Civil War
Colonel von Brandenstein and major Kalm greeting each other in the main street
Date 19 April – 1 May 1918 Location Lahti, Finland Result German and White decisive victory
Belligerents
German Empire Finnish Whites	Finnish Reds
Commanders and leaders
Otto von Brandenstein Hans Kalm	Nestor Linnanen Teodor Huurre
Strength
800 Germans 3,000 Whites	800 members of the Lahti Red Guard ~10,000 armed refugees
Casualties and losses
64 Germans killed ~20 Whites killed	at least 200 killed ~30,000 captured

Battle of Lahti was a 1918 Finnish Civil War battle, fought from 19 April to 1 May between the German troops and Finnish Whites against the Finnish Reds in Lahti, Finland. Together with the Battle of Vyborg, from 24 to 29 April, it was the last major battle of the war.

The German unit Detachment Brandenstein, commanded by the colonel Otto von Brandenstein, attacked Lahti on 19 April, taking the town by the next evening. At the same time, a column of tens of thousands of Red refugees was approaching Lahti from the west. On 22 April, the Reds launched a counterattack in order to break through the German lines and clear way for the fleeing people. The attempt failed and the Reds finally surrendered on 1 May. As a result, the Whites and Germans captured about 30,000 Reds and their family members who were placed to a concentration camp in the outskirts of Lahti.

At the time of the Finnish Civil War, Lahti had a population of 6,500. The town was important for the Reds due to its location by the vital Riihimäki–Saint Petersburg railway, connecting Lahti to the major war theatres in Tavastia and Karelia. Red troops were formed and trained in the Hennala Garrison which the Russians had built in the early 1910s. As the Red front had collapsed in the northern part of Tavastia and the Battle of Tampere was over in 6 April, tens of thousands of Red refugees headed east through Hämeenlinna and Lahti. In the late April, there was about 40,000 Reds inside the triangle formed by the towns of Hämeenlinna, Riihimäki and Lahti.

The German Baltic Sea Division landed in Hanko on 3 April. After the victorious Battle of Helsinki, fought 12–13 April, the division marched north to Riihimäki and Hämeenlinna, which forced the Red refugees to head Lahti. Another German unit, Detachment Brandenstein, landed 75 kilometres east of Helsinki in Loviisa 12 April. The original plan for Detachment Brandenstein was to attack the Red stronghold of Kotka and then cut the Saint Petersburg railway in Kouvola. For some reason, the Germans finally decided to enter north to Lahti, instead of Kotka in the east.

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