In the middle of January, 1918, Mannerheim consented to the request of P.E.Svinhufvud, the Speaker of the Independence Senate, to take over the leadership of the army, which was being established. A little earlier, on 1 January, 1918, he had sent a letter from Helsinki to the chief of the Russian main staff and asked for resignation from Russian service, on grounds of the independence of Finland, which for him marked a clear turning point in his career. The independence gave him a good reason to end his service in Russia. He wrote to the ministry. There was no need to bother Lenin or the Council of People’s Commissars under Lenin’s leadership with the letter of resignation.

The letter was registered in the main staff of St Petersburg on 14/27 January, one day prior to the disarmament of the Russian troops in Ostrobothnia. The letter then began its long journey through the maze of bureaucracy. The official at the head of War Ministry made a favourable decision regarding the pension, and by the end of March the Ministry of Finance had reached a decision as well. The amount of the pension was to be 3,761 rubles per year, plus the additional 859 rubles per year from the retirement fund of the pensioners, who had served a full term. Mannerheim’s years in service in Russia amounted to 30.