Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim

Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was born on June 4, 1867, at Louhisaari Manor in Askainen. Serving for thirty years as a distinguished cavalry general in the Imperial Russian Army, he commanded the White Army during the 1918 Finnish Civil War and served as Regent of Finland in 1918–1919.

When the Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939, seventy-two-year-old Mannerheim assumed Supreme Command. Under his brilliant leadership, the vastly outnumbered Finnish army held the heavily fortified Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus during the legendary Winter War, preserving Finnish national sovereignty. Appointed President of Finland in 1944, he skillfully navigated Finland out of World War II without Soviet occupation. In 2004, Finns voted him the Greatest Finn of All Time.