 Hamstrung by inexperience and fear of reprisals, many of these new officers failed to impress the large numbers of incoming draftees to the ranks; complaints of insubordination rose to the top of offenses punished in 1941, and may have exacerbated instances of Red Army soldiers deserting their units during the initial phases of the German offensive of that year.By 1940, Stalin began to relent, restoring approximately one-third of previously dismissed officers to duty.However, the effect of the purges would soon manifest itself in the Winter War of 1940, where Red Army forces generally performed poorly against the much smaller Finnish Army, and later during the German invasion of 1941, in which the Germans were able to rout the Soviet defenders partially due to inexperience amongst the Soviet officers.