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| 1918, Jan. 28 |
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| CIVIL WAR ensued in Finland. Finnish Communists (Reds), supported by the Russian Bolsheviks, seized Helsingfors (Helsinki) and overran much of southern Finland. | 1 |
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| April |
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| The Whites (opponents of Bolshevism), led by Baron Karl Gustav Mannerheim and supported by a German force under Gen. Rüdiger von der Goltz, retook the capital (April 13) and drove the Reds out of the country (Battle of Viborg, April 30). | 2 |
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| Oct. 8 |
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| The Finnish Diet elected Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse as king. After the defeat of the Central powers, Frederick Charles renounced the crown (Dec. 31). | 3 |
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| Oct |
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| The first agrarian reform law was enacted, enabling tenants on land owned by private persons to purchase that land at prices fixed by public authorities. Parish and state landholders were added to this scheme in 1921 and 1922, respectively. About 117,000 new independent holdings were thereby created. With the 1922 Law Providing Land for Settlement (Lex Kallio), the state provided funds for those to whom the 1918 law did not apply but who wanted to purchase a farm. In 1918 the farming population was approximately 66 percent; it was still over 50 percent by 1938. | 4 |
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| Dec. 11 |
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| Baron Mannerheim had become head of the state in the interval, and the last German forces had departed (Dec. 17). | 5 |
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