Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was the soldier and statesman who, more than any other person, secured Finland's independence and led its defense against the Soviet Union, becoming his nation's greatest national hero. Born into a Swedish-speaking noble family in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of the Russian Empire, he served for thirty years as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, rising to the rank of general.
When Finland declared independence amid the Russian Revolution of 1917, Mannerheim returned home and commanded the victorious White forces in the bitter civil war that followed, establishing the new state.
His greatest service came in the Second World War. As commander-in-chief of Finland's armed forces, he led the small nation's astonishing resistance against the massive Soviet invasion of the 1939–40 Winter War, inflicting heavy losses and winning the world's admiration before Finland was forced to cede territory. The defensive "Mannerheim Line" bore his name.
Finland fought the Soviets again during the war, and in 1944, as the tide turned, the aging Mannerheim was made president and skillfully extracted his country from the conflict, preserving Finnish independence and democracy where other neighbors of the USSR fell under communist domination. He retired in 1946 and died in 1951, revered as the father of independent Finland.