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The Unending War? the Baltic States After 1918. Introduction

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The Unending War? the Baltic States After 1918. Introduction INTRODUCTION The armistice signed on 11 November 1918 in a forest near Compiègne in Picardy in France ended more than four years of the fiercest fighting that mankind had ever seen. But it did not mean the end of the violence and the destruction for all of Europe. A political struggle for domination, inspired by national movements and socialist ideas, commenced in the collapsed empires of the Romanovs, Ottomans, Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns. Across a vast area, from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, the new political elites that had emerged either during or before the war, quoting slo- gans about democracy, national self-determination and social equality, tried to realise their ideas to (re)establish new political entities, and these attempts met the challenge from Bolshevik Russia almost from the very beginning. 7 In Western Europe, the agreement signed in Compiègne not only put an end to the fighting, but also established a rather clear new order: Germany was recognised as the loser of the war, and the powers of the Entente, with France at the head, came out as the winners. However, the situation in Eastern Europe at that time was not so unambiguous. In the huge German-occupied area, from Reval (Revel, Tallinn) to Kiev, rebellious German soldiers formed councils (Soldatenräte) on 10–13 Novem- ber. They took power without causing bloodshed in Dorpat (Yur’yev, Tartu), Riga, Mi- tau (Mitava, Jelgava), Dünaburg (Dvinsk, Daugavpils), Kowno (Kovna, Kaunas), Wilna (Vil’na, Wilno, Vilnius), Grodno (Hrodna), Minsk and other cities. The rebellious mood also spread among sailors in Reval, Riga and Libau (Libava, Liepāja).1 The Lietuvos Taryba (Council of Lithuania) declared Lithuania’s independence on 11 December 1917, and again on 16 February 1918. On 24 February 1918, the Salvation Commit- tee of the Ajutine Maanõukogu (Estonian Provincial Assembly) also published the Estonian Independence Manifesto. But the Estonians and the Latvians were also represented in the Vereinigter Landesrat (Provincial Assembly), albeit disproportion- ately, which in April 1918 was composed of representatives from the former Russian governorates of Liflandiia, Estlandiia, the city of Riga, and the island of Ösel (Saare- maa). Just a few days before the signing of the armistice at Compiègne, on 5–8 No- vember, the Landesrat met in Riga for its last session. Together with representatives of the Duchy of Courland (Herzogtum Kurland), which was reestablished in March 1918, and authorising the joining of the areas of Latgale and Pechory (Petseri), the session decided to establish one Baltic State (Baltischer Staat), and constituted the Regentschaftsrat (Regent Council) for this purpose. In March 1918, the German Kai- 1 For more, see KLUGE, Ulrich. Soldatenräte und Revolution. Studien zur Militärpolitik in Deutschland 1918/19. Göttingen, 1975, S. 94–105. THE UNENDING WAR? BALTIC STATES AFTER 1918 Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis XXXVI, 2018, 7–15. ISSN 1392-4095 (Print), ISSN 2351-6526 (Online) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/ahuk.v36i0.1846 Vasilijus Safronovas, Vytautas Jokubauskas ser had already recognised both the Duchy of Courland and Lithuania (the latter under the terms of the Declaration of 11 December 1917), while on 22 September he also recognised the independence of Liflandiia, Estlandiia, Riga and Ösel. Although William II abdicated on 9 November 1918, the political entities that he recognised shared hopes for a continued existence. As a matter of fact, the armistice altered their determination, so it would be wrong to assume that it had no influence in the east at all. Firstly, Chapter 12 of the armistice stipulated that the German army would withdraw from former Russian areas which Germany had occupied during the Great War, as soon as the Allies ‘shall think the moment suitable’. However, due to the deterioration of discipline in the long war, revolution in Germany, the mood of defeat, and socialist ideas, military units be- gan to withdraw in November, without waiting for the approval of the Allies. As a 8 result, in November and December, the area claimed by the national governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was filled with troops that were not loyal to those governments. In addition to units of the Ober Ost deployed in the Lithuanian Mili- tary Government (Militärgouvernement Litauen), the 10th Army, retreating from present-day Belarus, moved there, whereas the even more powerful 8th Army was still deployed in Estlandiia, Liflandiia and Latgale. It is true that the plenipotentiaries (Generalbevollmächtigte) of the democratic German government, Ludwig Zimmerle in Lithuania and August Winnig in the former Baltic governorates, supported the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian national governments. Zimmerle agreed that the Lithuanians should start forming their own military units. On 19 November, the Es- tonian Provisional Government (Eesti ajutine valitsus), led by Konstantin Päts, who had just been released from a prisoner of war camp, signed an agreement with Winnig in Riga allowing the Estonian national government to take control over the Estonian ethnographic area. Similarly, on 25–26 November, he agreed that control of the Latvian ethnographic area should be taken over by the government of Kārlis Ulmanis.2 But this was a calculated move. It did not necessarily match the ambitions of the local Germans,3 let alone the war-warmed and still not entirely cooled-down expansionist ideas backed both by some members of the German army and the Ger- 2 In fact, in the latter case, it was foreseen that authority would be handed over to the Latvian Provisional Government ‘in accordance with more detailed agreements’ (nach Maßgabe näherer Vereinbarungen), while the Latvian Provisional Government was conditionally recognised only until the final decision on this matter was made by the peace conference. See VOLKMANN, Hans-Erich. Probleme des deutsch- lettischen Verhältnisses zwischen Compiègne und Versailles. Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 1965, Jhg. 14, Hf. 4, S. 715–716. For the content of the agreement with the Estonian Provisional Government, see VOLKMANN, Hans-Erich. Das Deutsche Reich und die baltischen Staaten 1918 bis 1920. In Von den bal- tischen Provinzen zu den baltischen Staaten: Beiträge zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Republiken Estland und Lettland 1918–1920. Hrsg. von Jürgen von HEHN, Hans von RIMSCHA, Hellmuth WEISS. Marburg an der Lahn, 1977, S. 381–382. 3 For details, see TAUBE, Arved, Freiherr von. Von Brest-Litovsk bis Libau. Die baltisch-deutsche Führungs- schicht und die Mächte in den Jahren 1918/1919. In Von den baltischen Provinzen …, S. 70–236. INTRODUCTION man government. For this reason, the withdrawn units had to be replaced by units made up of volunteers, committed to fighting Bolshevism and Germany’s influence in the East; General of the Infrantry Erich von Falkenhayn, the commander of the 10th Army, had already formulated the idea on 14 November 1918.4 However, the armistice did not change the situation only in this sense. Under Chap- ter 15 of the armistice, Germany had to annul the treaty signed with Bolshevik Rus- sia on 3 March 1918 in Brest-Litovsk. In Russia, the supreme authority of the Bolshe- viks, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, reacted immediately. As early as 13 November, the committee declared that the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ‘ceased to be valid and important’, noting separately that all the clauses in the treaty by which Russia denounced the withdrawal of part of its territory were no longer effective. The Bolsheviks invited the workers of Russia, Liflandiia, Estlandiia, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Finland, Crimea, and the Caucasus to decide their own destiny.5 9 What this meant in practice came to light few days later, when the 7th Army was ordered to occupy Pskov and Narva, and the newly formed Western Army received orders to move to the eastern part of present-day Belarus that was abandoned by the German 10th Army.6 The attempt by the Bolsheviks to take over the former ‘western margins’ of Imperial Russia became the most important challenge to any alternative political projects that these ‘borderlands’ hoped to implement. In the initial stage, the ambitions of the Bolsheviks were still blocked by the German military contingent. And this was only because it was immediately decided to replace the withdrawn troops that were no longer capable of fighting with new troops composed of volunteers, the decision was made to halt the withdrawal of the 8th and 10th armies at the request of the En- tente on 4 January 1919,7 and the Oberkommando (Grenzschutz) Nord (Army High Command North), newly created in mid-January in East Prussia, was able to replace the Ober Ost and take over the command of the entire German military contingent. The first attempt by the 7th Army of Bolshevik Russia to occupy Narva, which was still defended by German units, on 22 November 1918 was unsuccessful. But Narva did not withstand a new attack by the Reds on 28–29 November after the Germans had handed control of the Estonian-inhabited area over to the Päts government: at that time, irregular (Kaitseliit) and regular military units loyal to the Estonian govern- ment were still being developed. In Latvia, although the Tautas Padome (Latvian People’s Council), together with the newly formed Latvian government, appealed 4 Darstellungen aus den Nachkriegskämpfen deutscher Truppen und Freikorps. Bd. 1: Die Rückführung des Ostheeres. Hrsg. von der Forschungsanstalt für Kriegs- und Heeresgeschichte. Berlin, 1936, S. 116. 5 Декреты Советской власти. Т. IV: 10 ноября 1918 г. – 31 марта 1919 г. Москва, 1968, с. 15–18. 6 Директивы Главного командования Красной армии (1917–1920): сборник документов. Отв. сост. Т.Ф. КАРЯЕВА. Москва, 1969, с. 172–177. 7 Darstellungen aus den Nachkriegskämpfen …, S. 121. Vasilijus Safronovas, Vytautas Jokubauskas to the people with the declaration of independence (Latwijas pilsoneem!) on 18 No- vember, the second day of its existence, the defence of the territory claimed by this government was actually left in the hands of the Germans.
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