Mannerheim, Carl Gustav Emil von

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Mannerheim, Carl Gustav Emil von (1867–1951) Finnish statesman and general, president (1944–46). He served in the Russian army and was a general in World War I. After the Russian Revolution (1917), he returned to Finland and led the anti-Bolshevik forces in the civil war. In 1918–19, he obtained international recognition of Finnish independence. He lost the 1919 presidential elections but, later, as head of the Defence Council, planned the fortified Mannerheim Line across Karelia.