Finland surrendered as expected, and after the complete collapse of the Mannerheim Line and the defeat of the Nordic army, the Finnish government accepted Molotov's "Moscow Armistice Agreement" in its entirety and begged for mercy.

Although the Soviet Union eventually achieved its strategic objectives, it was overestimated that its resistance to Finland was too low.

At the beginning of the war, the Soviet side considered Finland to be a small country, weak in national strength and weak in military strength, and thus hoped to end the war in a short time. This miscalculation eventually led to the Soviet Red Army hastily dispatching troops, paralyzing the enemy, under-prepared and failing to commit decisive forces at the beginning of the war, thus being disgraced by the Finnish army, which took advantage of its geographical advantage.

The war, which the Soviet Union had planned to end in one month, was dragged on and on, more than three times longer. And the final result was only to barely achieve the basic goal of the inner bottom line of the Soviet leadership, rather than the complete annexation of all of Finland as originally intended.

There is no doubt that the Soviet Union initially intended to completely erase Finland from the map. Molotov, as Stalin's diplomatic representative, also expounded this point to Reinhardt in Berlin.

The big words had been put away a long time ago, but now they have not been realized, which made Stalin look very embarrassed in front of Reinhardt.

After the war, Finland actually maintained its sovereignty, but lost part of its territory. That's not what Stalin said to Reinhardt at the beginning.

According to his original words, it was a decisive process of one week of preparation, two weeks of attack, three weeks of sweeping, and four weeks of success. Reinhardt, who was a dog, looked adoring, took out a private notebook and wrote it down himself.

It's really a shame now, how humiliating it is. Stalin regretted that he had not stopped Reinhardt from making a record in the first place. Even under the pretext of secret treaties and inconvenient records, they should be stopped.

The most difficult thing for Stalin to accept was not just the shame!

By this time, Reinhardt's Third Reich had shown itself to be capable of destroying a very powerful enemy with lightning speed. However, the main forces of the two major military regions under his command joined forces to attack a small Finland, and it had to be delayed for more than three months.

Who's strong and who's weak, it's almost obvious at a glance!

There's really no harm if there's no comparison......

In this way, the USSR was condemned internationally. Even in front of such a partner as Germany, they could not hold their heads up and had to make concessions on many cooperations.

After all, the USSR and Germany already bordered. If the combat effectiveness is calculated according to the performance of the Soviet army in the Finnish campaign, what can be used to resist the German blitzkrieg after really offending Germany.

If it had been more than three months ago, Stalin might have been confident enough that his huge army would be able to withstand the Germans. And he also believed that with the combat strength of the Soviet army, even if it was necessary to attack Germany in the future.

But now, he only prays that there will be no conflict between the Soviet Union and Germany, at least in the short term. He wants to reform the weak and fragile army under his command, and he wants to make the army that has already made a fool of itself in front of the whole world not continue to make a fool of himself.

To do this, he needs time, needs to stabilize all the unstable factors, so that he can develop himself with peace of mind.

In the Klim Palace, Molotov, who was summoned by Stalin, looked at the silent leader without saying a word.

It was not until a long time later that Stalin, who seemed to come to his senses, said to Molotov, who was already waiting on the side: "The war is over, and the countries outside the world ........ Is there anything there? ”

"Britain, France and other countries still accuse us as always, and there are no new tricks." Molotov recalled one by one: "......... As for Germany, their official statement was that the German Government was glad that the war was over, that the Soviet Union and Finland had been reconciled at their suggestion, and that they were willing to work for a long-term peace in Europe. ”

This is really talking nonsense with your eyes open.

If the German leaders have always rejoiced in world peace, why did you set up troops on the Danish border?

As for the fact that the Soviet Union and Finland followed Germany's advice and called off the troops and made peace, isn't this nonsense? It's obvious that both sides are in pain, and they don't want to fight anymore, what does Germany suggest?!

"What do the Germans say in private?" Stalin didn't bother to listen to the nonsense of diplomats. In his opinion, since Germany was still cooperating with the Soviet Union, what was its opinion on this war, which had been negotiated in the supplementary secret clause of the "Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact" and was now stopped halfway?

Stalin was not mistaken, Reinhardt did send a message in private. Molotov, who was on the side, quickly continued: "General Secretary, the German Führer asked their Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to send a message. ”

"What did he say?" Stalin asked eagerly, smoking a large pipe.

"Reinhardt said........" Molotov hesitated for a moment, and finally said it in 1510: "He believes that the reason for today's situation is that in the final analysis, our senior commanders are incompetent, and if they were replaced by their senior generals, they would definitely not fight so badly." He also said that he was angry with you, and suggested that you kill the high-ranking people in charge of this battle and replace them with a group of more loyal and brave generals. ”

"Kill them......." Stalin smiled bitterly: "Did he provide me with the missing commander?" ”

Stalin could not figure out whether Reinhardt was mocking himself or flattering himself, or whether he had other plans. However, he was indeed quite dissatisfied with the commanders under his own command.

Why couldn't the Soviet commanders fight a war with less to win more, like those German officers? Don't say that you can win more with less, as long as you can win beautiful points with more battles and less.......

In fact, the reason for this situation is not only the subjective reason of the incompetence of the upper commanders of the Soviet army and the low combat quality of the army.

All this is also inseparable from the objective factors formed by the environment such as lakes, dense forests, sparse population, inconvenient transportation, and severe cold climate.

The geographical environment of Finland was not conducive to the operation of the Soviet army's heavy equipment and large forces at all, but was suitable for the use of light equipment and small forces of the Finnish army. The Soviet troops, who were not familiar with the complex terrain of the Finnish dense forests, were often inconvenient to deploy due to limited mobility, resulting in difficulty in taking care of their heads and tails.

The Finnish army, which is familiar with the local environment, can give full play to its skiing expertise, avoid frontal combat, and extensively conduct ambush and blocking warfare with small detachments, break up the whole into parts, scatter and entangle, and wait for an opportunity to sneak attack the flank and logistics of the Soviet Red Army.

Faced with the endless attacks of the Finnish guerrilla squads who have made up their minds to avoid large-scale confrontation head-on, and the sniping of the Finnish sniper squads at an indefinite time and place. The Soviets were unable to advance quickly and achieve any major successes.

Moreover, even if Meretskov and Timoshenko were still capable generals, most of the basic officers of the Soviet army were young men who were loyal to Stalin and did not know how to command the war. These grassroots officers are simply not able to command the troops well. They were so immature that they couldn't even protect a large battlefield observation group, so much so that the Simon sniper team of the Finnish army eliminated the backbone commanders of 3 divisions at once.

To blame these two Soviet generals for their incompetence alone is really wronging them.