mined its harbor and the river Neva. On the return trip, these bombers landed on the Utti airfield for refueling. After three days, early on the morning of 25 June, a Soviet preemptive air-attack was unleashed on towns, airfields and industrial centers in Finland. The country was at war with its larger neighbor once again. This war, called the Continuation War by Finland, began at first as a defensive war, but with his nearly immediate restatement of his Sword Scabbard Declaration, Mannerheim lost the possibility to brand it a defensive war, or even as a war of revanchism to regain the territory lost in the Winter War, where one-eighth of the Finnish populace lived. Gradually, the Continuation War became, in the eyes of some, a war of conquest, to capture land that had not historically belonged to Finland. For large segments of the public, both in Finland and in other democratic countries, there was a huge difference between a defensive war and a war of aggression. In the Winter War Finland had the sympathy of virtually the whole world (with the exception of Nazi Germany and the aggressor, the Soviet Union). The chief reason was that Finland, in international opinion, was unjustly attacked by a much larger power. In the Continuation War, on the other hand, Finland was partly an aggressor in the eyes of some, attacking the Soviet Union alongside the Axis invasion. This badly damaged Finland's image in the eyes of the Churchill government and eventually caused the formerly sympathetic Britain to declare war on Finland in December 1941. See also History of Finland Heimosodat Karelian question in Finnish politics External links Order of the Day of the Sword Scabbard at Mannerheim.fi English translation of the Order of the Day (1918) at heninen.net History of Karelia Finland–Russia relations Finland–Soviet Union relations Continuation War Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim 1918 documents 1941 documents