[TIEP] Another Point of View on Latvian War of Summer 2009

Day 734, 09:46 • Published in Latvia Finland • by avec

I'm writing this article in response to Visvaldis Bargais' TIEP article, which was published earlier this month in Finland. In it he asked for a Finnish counterpart, an alternate point of view to events of Spring and Summer 2009. I hoped for someone else (world famous ”someone else”) write the article as I was not an eFinnish citizen until July, but I have a fairly good grasp on what lead Finns on attacking Latvia, and what happened during and after the war. I'll try to describe how Finns justified the attack in Latvia. I don't mean this as trolling or anyhow insulting, I'm simply trying to illustrate the Finnish point of view.


Psychological point of view regarding the Latvian strategy of regaining their land


First, allow me to introduce you a little bit of Finnish history. The ”History of eFinland” series has reached Summer 2009, you can read the entire history of eFinland from there, and events regarding Latvian invasion are listed there. Early in the game, Finland was conquered by Norway, and Finns lived under Norwegian rule for months. In Autumn 2008, a massive Finnish baby boom occurred, bringing over one thousand new Finnish players into the game (at that time, over one thousand was much in world scale). Finns quickly took over Norwegian regime, and began negotiations with Norwegians for safe return of Finnish regions. What happened later in Latvia resembled events in Norway, but unlike Latvians, Finns chose a peaceful way of regaining their regions. A diplomatic approach was selected to regain Finnish regions, even though Finns could have simply taken their regions by force and hostile measures, as they controlled Norway with majority. After reaching a consensus, Finns and Norwegians decided on a timetable to return Finnish regions, and in co-operation, Finns and Norwegians together liberated Finnish regions. Finns and Norwegians remained close friends, and even today, Finland and Norway are still allies and brothers in blood.

As I said, the Latvian case resembled Finland's own past, and Finns could clearly see it. They knew how everything was going to end, but to Finns' abhorrence, Latvians were not half as rational nor diplomatic as Finns were with Norwegians. Instead of a calm, peaceful approach, Latvians refused to negotiate, they bashed and insulted Finns continuously, and even threatened Finland with PTO. Not all Latvians were the same, but the tactic to regain Latvian regions was so much different to that which Finns had chosen that it caused disgust in Finnish minds.


Motives for invading Latvia


But, what actually lead Finland attacking Latvia? The historical events are pretty well described here in my own war-time propaganda article, besides the History series. Finland had faced several PTO threats because she opposed PEACE and fought against it, and held two Russian regions in her possession.

Finland does not have a high RM region, which is not good for economy. Lack of high RM puts the country in disadvantage against those with high RM. Via Russian regions, Finland shared a border with Latvia. Latvia has a high grain region, Zemgale. Latvia at the time had less than 30 active players, and the country was in a word, under-developed. Finland, however was an old nation, its economy was stagnating, and populace turning passive in their boredom. Finland needed a war and boost for her economy. So, to take out all the issues, Finland negotiated the return of Russians regions back to Russia in exchange for no more PTO attempts by PEACE. Also, PEACE agreed on Finland taking Latvia without PEACE interfering. No one would have imagined Latvia would gain the baby boom it got after Finland attacked it, so in that sense, combining all the pros and cons considering the gains and losses of both countries, the invasion of Latvia was highly justified. Finland would gain war, a boost to economy, a high grain region and freedom from the constant PTO threat. Latvia's all 30 active players would lose a region they could not have taken full advantage of, not as much as Finland at least.

The rest is history.

Finland declared war, got back-stabbed by PEACE along the way but continued the offensive, conquered Latvian regions and stopped after she had reached her objective. What was so curious about Latvia, was that Latvia had been robbed by PEACE just a month or two before Finland attacked it, PEACE had clearly no feelings for Latvia, but Latvia nonetheless asked for help from PEACE and later even joined it. What followed after PEACE helped Latvia regain Zemgale, was that Latvia had a debt of about 700 G, and it was set in a trade embargo with almost every country in the world via that PEACE training war. Finns could not understand Latvian mindset and why they did all that. Joining PEACE looked like eRepublik version of suffering a Stockholm syndrome, and the way Latvians chose to get their regions back was seen as ill-minded.

Later on Finland refused to sign peace proposal with Latvia simply because, we consider war declarations valuable. Declaring a war costs a lot of gold, but it can easily be closed when wanted. Also Latvia chose to join an enemy alliance, so signing peace with Latvia, and therefore giving Latvians a country where they could import products would have helped an enemy country economy, which is what we did not want. I see no reason to continue hostilities with Latvians, all trolling in my opinion does no good to either side. This might be a game, but there's people on the other side of the screen, I doubt anyone would go out yelling the same insults face to face to people like they shout here in the media.

As I said, I wanted someone else to write this article as I did not live in eFinland during the PTO threats or when the plans to attack Latvia were conceived. I came here after most of it was over, and only witnessed the return of Latgale and Zemgale. Even though this article has wordings which are not very neutral, my view of the events is based on what I have read from forum archives, news from those times and discussions with people. Last month when you came through Estonia to attack Finland it was funny as hell, too bad we couldn't concentrate on you at all because everyone were ordered to fight in Croatia. Maybe in the future we'll have another skirmish 🙂



- Avec