Battle of Syrjäntaka

Captured Red Guard women with a German carabinier

Date	28–29 April 1918
Location	Tuulos, Finland
Result	Red breakthrough

Belligerents

German Empire

Finnish Reds

Commanders and leaders

Godert von Reden

Units involved

Baltic Sea Division

Red Guards

Strength

ca. 400

ca. 4,000–5,000

Casualties and losses

48 killed

ca. 300 killed
ca. 150 captured

Battle of Syrjäntaka was a 1918 Finnish Civil War battle fought 28–29 April in Syrjäntaka, Tuulos, between the German Baltic Sea Division and the Finnish Red Guards. Thousands of Red refugees were fleeing east, while they were blocked by a small unit of Germans in a highway crossing in the small village of Syrjäntaka. After hours of desperate fighting, the Reds managed to break through and continue their journey. Battle of Syrjäntaka and the preceding battle in Hauho were the only battles the Germans lost during their one-month military campaign in Finland. They were also the last Red victories of the Civil War. The battle itself was totally unnecessary. It had no effect to the result of the war and either side gained nothing as the Reds were captured only a couple of days later.

After the city of Tampere had fallen on 6 April, the Red Guard general staff ordered their troops to retreat to the eastern part of Red controlled Finland in order to form a new front behind the river Kymijoki. The Reds first started fleeing from Tampere, Pori and Turku and were soon joined by Reds from the Helsinki area as the Germans took the city on 13 April. In the three weeks, tens of thousands of Red Guard fighters, their family members and other Red supporters were marching east. About 25,000 travelled through the town of Hämeenlinna in the southern part of Tavastia province. As the Germans were closing Hämeenlinna in 25–26 April, there was still up to 4,000 refugees in town. The road heading east from Hämeenlinna was now blocked, so the Reds had to make their way through a new route: first 30 kilometres north, then across the small river of Alvettula and back southwards to Hauho and Tuulos.

The Red column reached the Alvettula river, 30 kilometres north of Hämeenlinna, in the early morning of 26 April. The Finnish Whites were in defensive positions on the east side of the river with their machine guns aimed to the brigade. The Red artillery started firing at 5:00 am, but the Reds did not make their first effort to cross the river until the evening. After ten hours of fighting, they managed to cross the bridge in the next morning and finally made their way through the White lines in the afternoon. Nearly 150 Reds were killed as the Whites lost only 11 men. The column then headed 6 kilometres south to Hauho where the Reds stayed for the night. They were now joined by 1,000 more refugees who had come from the north.

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Wikipedia