[3] The Whites had no clear political aims in common, other than stopping the communist revolutionary Reds from taking power and returning to constitutional rule by a Senate (the government of the Grand Duchy of Finland) which was formed by the non-socialist parties of the Eduskunta (parliament) and returning to the Rule of Law.

The provisional head of state of White Finland was Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, chairman of the senate at the time, and its military was commanded by Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim.

[5][6] The Jägers were recruited by Imperial Germany between 1914 and 1917 for military training, even participating alongside their German benefactors, in combat against the Russian forces on the Eastern Front, before returning to Finland for the upcoming civil war.

[10] This battle was one of the turning points of the civil war since it gave the Whites control of the northern part of Finland.

[11] With the assistance of the Germans under General Rüdiger von der Goltz, the Whites were able to capture Helsinki and Tampere until the Reds finally fled to Soviet Russia in April, and the victors inherited the borders of the former Grand Duchy.