The festivities to mark Finnish independence didn’t last long. As so often happens after new nations are born, various factions emerged from the woodwork to try and fill the power vacuum, and the country fell into a period of civil war which lasted five months, cost thousands of people their lives, and left the country bitterly divided for decades to come. On one hand there were the Reds, a working class movement armed and funded by the Russians which began a revolution in January 1918 aimed at creating a new Social Democratic Republic. And on other hand there were the Whites, a bourgeois movement which was funded and armed by Germany and which was determined to thwart the revolutionary Reds and seize power for themselves. As the title suggests, “Order Is Restored in Finland by the Finnish White Guard and the German Troops” is a propaganda piece which glorifies the fight against Communism by noble and brave Western Europeans – a common theme in many movies from this period. The film takes us on a ride across Finland in an armoured train. We see the German troops ‘restoring order’ (a speciality for which they are renowned throughout the world), as well as various battle scenes between the Whites and the Reds – battle scenes which, given the position of the camera, have obviously been staged for the occasion. Truth, as ever, is the first casualty of war, whilst no mention is made of the approximately 12,500 Reds who died of disease and malnutrition in internment camps.

Karl Wratschko