Finland Signs Moscow Peace Treaty: The Winter War Ends, Territory Lost

Finland won nearly every battle but still lost the war. After holding off Stalin's massive Red Army for 105 days—David against Goliath with skis and Molotov cocktails—the Finns signed away 11% of their territory on March 13, 1940. Within days, 422,000 Karelians abandoned their homes, farms, and family graves rather than live under Soviet rule. Not one chose to stay. The evacuees were resettled across Finland, each family carrying what they could, leaving behind a landscape of empty churches and silent villages. Stalin got his land buffer around Leningrad, but the fierce resistance convinced Hitler that the Soviet military was vulnerable—a miscalculation that would define the next five years of war.