Editing Finnish Defence Forces (section)

===Civil War===
[[File:Establishment of the Finnish Defence Forces with day order no 1.jpg|left|thumb|Establishment of the first headquarters of the Finnish Defence Forces on 2 February 1918]]
After [[Finnish Declaration of Independence|Finland's declaration of independence]] on 6 December 1917, the [[White Guard (Finland)|Civil Guards]] were proclaimed the troops of the government on 25 January 1918 and then [[Lieutenant general|Lieutenant General]] of the Russian Imperial Army [[Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim]] was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of these forces the next day.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Lehtinen<br />Volanen |first=Lasse<br />Risto |title=1918: Kuinka vallankumous levisi Suomeen |publisher=Seven |year=2018 |isbn=978-951-1-33597-9 |edition=1st |pages=13 |language=Finnish}}</ref> Fighting between the White Guards (as the Civil Guards were commonly known) and the [[Red Guards (Finland)|Red Guards]] had already broken out about a week before around [[Vyborg|Viipuri]], in what became known as the [[Finnish Civil War]].

In the war, the Whites were victorious in large part thanks to the leadership of General Mannerheim and the lead by example offensive mindedness of 1,800 German-trained [[Jäger Movement|Finnish Jägers]], who brought with them German tactical doctrine and military culture. The post-war years were characterized by the [[Heimosodat|Volunteer Campaigns]] that came to an end in 1920 with the signing of the [[Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Finnish)|Treaty of Tartu]], which ended the state of war between Finland and [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russia]] and defined the internationally recognized borders of Finland.