Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/116

 the General Staff, twenty artillery officers, twenty machine gun officers, twenty sapper officeis and engineers. Besides, there is absolute need of 50,000 three-line rifles, two hundred machine guns (Maxim), fifty three-inch quick-firing guns, three million Japanese rifle-cartridges, ten million three-line rifle-cartridges, and one hundred thousand revolver-cartridges of all calibres."

It is funny to see how ten volunteers out of the officers of the General Staff are quite simply requisitioned.

In such circumstances it may with justice be asked what tasks were left over for the Finnish Commander-in-Chief and the Finnish General Staff. Of course, there were still a few trifles left even for them to do. But they were mostly for ornament. When Haapalainen was elected commander-in-chief he thankfully accepts the post, but at the same time emphasises the fact that he is devoid of all military knowledge. In the minutes of the General Staff a specially enlightening passage may also be found. The whole interior here depicted by the by deserves to be known. At the meeting on the 23rd February a Finnish "comrade" holds forth who has been on a visit to St. Petersburg. There, he says, complaint was made of the bad leadership of the Finnish Red Guard, and there was an uncertainty whether the sending of more weapons to Finland should be ventured. This communication was, of course, received with bitterness, and the lively discussion establishes the fact that "the aggressive activity of the Guard has continually been carried on without the knowledge of the General Staff!" A sharp reprimand must therefore be sent to Commander-in-Chief Haapalainen "with the remark that the General Staff will not undertake the responsibility of reverses in fighting carried on without the knowledge and decision of the General Staff!" In their solicitude the General Staff