by Prit Buttar
There was a further armed faction in the area, with a completely different vision of how matters should be arranged. The White Russians, still embroiled in their civil war against the Bolsheviks, were committed to a restoration of the Russian Empire, in which they were prepared to grant the Baltic States a limited degree of autonomy. The Germans sought to cooperate with the White Russians in the hope of creating a restored Russian Empire that would then support Germany against the British and French; the British and French, by contrast, were anxious to support the White Russians against the Bolsheviks, but tried to reconcile this with supporting the Baltic States in their bid for independence.
Whilst the end of the First World War brought peace to the west, turmoil continued in the east, with fighting among groups of different nationalities and loyalties on the territory of all three Baltic States, in the three Baltic wars of independence, though the interactions among these three wars make it almost impossible to look at any of them in isolation. As the nationalist movements of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia struggled to raise their own forces, they received aid of varying reliability from other countries. Estonia’s strong links with Finland resulted in several hundred Finns volunteering to fight for Estonian independence. A British light cruiser squadron delivered munitions and weapons, and also prevented the Soviet fleet based in Petrograd from making any significant foray into the Baltic. The Red Army units that invaded the three states were badly led, poorly trained and supplied in only the most haphazard of ways. Once the initial momentum of the Bolshevik invasion ceased, the Estonian nationalist government – with substantial support from Finland, the British cruisers and White Russian forces – swiftly regained control of its territory. Latvia was almost completely overrun by the Red Army, but the Baltic Germans and the Freikorps under the command of Rüdiger von der Goltz managed to retain control of a small bridgehead around the port of Liepāja, and in conjunction with other German forces in northern Latvia, Goltz’s units and the small Latvian nationalist army retook Riga. Thereafter, as Goltz tried to establish a pro-German government in place of the nationalist administration, there was confused fighting between the Germans and the Latvians, with Estonian forces aiding the latter, ultimately resulting in the expulsion of the Freikorps from Latvia.
In Lithuania, the relationship with both Germany and Poland played a major part in the course of the country’s war of independence, and also helped shape its fate in the years that followed. During the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, the Germans had made an offer to Lithuania: Germany would recognise Lithuania’s independence in return for permanent federation with Germany, with matters such as defence, foreign affairs, and currency being controlled by Berlin. The Vilnius Conference, a body of Lithuanian nationalists, considered this offer, and responded that it would accept it, provided that Lithuania could retain autonomy over both its internal affairs and foreign policy. This latter point was incompatible with the German requirement for alignment on military issues, and Germany rejected the proposal. Nevertheless, on 11 December 1917, the Vilnius Council voted to accept the German offer subject to the conditions it had already stipulated, and accordingly made what amounted to a limited announcement of independence. This proved to be a controversial move, and was criticised by Lithuanians both at home and in exile, who felt that the concessions to Germany were too great. It also attracted the ire of the Entente Powers, who were still at war with Germany. In January 1918, the Vilnius Council attempted to modify its announcement, adding an additional stipulation that Lithuania should be granted a national assembly of regional constituents. The Germans, who had already made clear their opposition to the council’s previous conditions, rejected this latest requirement. The council now found itself facing hostility from all quarters, and many of its members threatened to resign. On 16 February, it agreed to issue a new announcement of Lithuanian independence, but this time without any reference to a permanent alliance with Germany. The German occupying forces prevented any publication of this announcement within Lithuania, though it was widely reported in the German press, and news inevitably spread back into Lithuania itself.
In March 1918, following the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Germany announced that it recognised Lithuanian independence on the terms that the Vilnius Council had announced on 11 December. Wrangling over the precise nature of this independence continued, and in June, the council invited the Count of Württemberg to become monarch of Lithuania. This placed an intolerable strain on the council, and several members resigned. In any event, the German government refused to accept this arrangement, and prevented the would-be King Mindaugas II from travelling to his new country.11 The frustrated members of the Vilnius Council found that Germany blocked almost every attempt they made to formulate policy, a deadlock that continued until the collapse of Germany in November. At this stage, the council revoked its invitation to the Count of Württemberg. It also expanded its membership to include Jewish and Belarusian members, in an attempt to increase its popular appeal with these two communities; at first, the Jewish community was offered two seats, but this was declined, with the Jewish leaders demanding that their membership should be proportional to the Jewish population within Lithuania. Consequently, they were offered a third seat. A new Lithuanian government was proclaimed, with Augustinas Voldemaras as prime minister. Antanas Smetona, who had chaired the council when it first formed, became President.
Lithuania found itself in a chaotic state. Groups of German soldiers, often refusing to follow the orders of their officers, crossed the country in a steady stream towards Germany. The new government had no means of collecting taxes, and consequently was unable to carry out any significant functions. Voldemaras announced that Lithuania did not intend to threaten its neighbours, and therefore concluded that there was no urgency to create an army. Unfortunately for Voldemaras, the Bolsheviks had a very different attitude, and swiftly overran the eastern parts of Lithuania. On 5 January 1919, they reached Vilnius.
The historical capital of Lithuania was a multi-ethnic city. A German census in 1916 suggested that half of the city’s population was Polish, and a substantial part of the remaining population was Jewish, leaving the Lithuanians in a very small minority; however, other surveys suggested that the population of the surrounding area was predominantly Lithuanian.12 Indeed, the Jewish population of Vilnius had earned the city the appellation of the ‘Jerusalem of the North’ from Napoleon. Such a multi-ethnic mix was bound to create additional tensions, which could be exploited by any outside power that chose to do so. Belatedly, the Lithuanian nationalist government started to raise troops, but these were in no position, either tactically or in terms of their strength, to defend Vilnius; the most active defenders were pro-Polish partisans, but they were unable to prevent the Red Army from seizing the city. From here, the Bolshevik troops gradually advanced west, but their drive ran out of momentum as their almost non-existent supply lines failed to replenish the troops. The Lithuanians had also succeeded in raising German volunteers to fight for them, particularly in Saxony, and these veteran soldiers proved to be a formidable force.
Another army that was operating in the area was that of Poland. Already at war with Russia, the Poles launched a major offensive against the Red Army in the spring of 1919. Józef Piłsudski, the Polish head of state, planned the operation with his customary meticulous attention to detail, launching diversionary attacks on Lida, Navahrudak and Baranovichi. His main objective, though, was Vilnius, with a force of 800 cavalry, 2,500 infantry and artillery assigned to the task. Rather than wait for the slower infantry to arrive, the Polish cavalry commander, Colonel Wladyslaw Belina-Prazmowski, decided to attack with his horsemen on 18 April. He swept around the city and attacked from the east, taking the Soviet garrison by surprise and overrunning the suburbs. As the Bolshevik forces rallied, the Polish infantry began to arrive, and with their support – and aided by Polish partisans from Vilnius – Belina slowly gained the upper hand, clearing the city of Russian forces by the
end of 21 April.13
By the end of June, the Red Army had been driven out of almost all of Lithuania, and negotiations now began about the border between Poland and Lithuania. This proved to be a difficult business, not least because Piłsudski did not wish to see the creation of an independent Lithuania, favouring the restoration of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Deadlocked over the future status of the Vilnius region – claimed by both countries, but occupied by Polish troops – the Lithuanians and Poles asked the Conference of Ambassadors of the Entente Powers to intervene. At this stage, the difference in diplomatic status between Lithuania and Poland became starkly apparent. Poland had been recognised by the Entente Powers, and was even specifically mentioned in one of Woodrow Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points:
An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.14
By contrast, Lithuania had not yet received international recognition. In many circles, particularly those that favoured a restoration of the Russian Empire, Lithuania’s independence was distinctly unwelcome. It can therefore have been of little surprise to anyone when the Conference of Ambassadors chose not to return Vilnius and the surrounding area to Lithuania.
Although he was opposed to Lithuanian independence, Piłsudski was acutely aware that any future commonwealth could only succeed with the agreement of the Lithuanian people, and he made every effort to persuade the Lithuanians to cooperate with his plans. He and his subordinates proposed that the fate of the Vilnius region be decided in a plebiscite, but the Lithuanians rejected this. But the Bolsheviks were not quite finished. In 1920, a revitalised Red Army once more invaded, driving the Poles out of Vilnius. Shortly after, Soviet Russia and Lithuania agreed a peace treaty, as part of which the Vilnius region was assigned to Lithuania. Such an arrangement was unacceptable to the Poles, and in October the Polish general Lucjan Żeligowski apparently mutinied and marched on Vilnius, taking the city on 9 October. He then declared the creation of the Republic of Central Lithuania, which merged with Poland in 1923. It later transpired that Żeligowski’s mutiny was nothing of the sort, and had actually been ordered by the Polish head of state, Piłsudski. Vastly outnumbered, the Lithuanian army could do nothing to counter this seizure of the region, and the Vilnius question remained a source of severe friction between the two countries throughout the inter-war years, preventing any possible cooperation between Poland and Lithuania. The Baltic wars of independence were therefore a manifestation of the conflict between two alternative visions: on the one hand, the three states had strong nationalist aspirations, while on the other hand, their more powerful neighbours – Soviet Russia, Germany and even Poland – regarded them as too small and weak to survive without being part of a larger power bloc. This question would be subjected to even more brutal inspection in the Second World War, and the resolution of the issue would take over 70 years and cost millions of lives before independence was finally achieved towards the end of the century.
Chapter 1
MOLOTOV, RIBBENTROP AND THE FIRST SOVIET OCCUPATION
The decade that preceded the Second World War saw major changes in all three Baltic States. Originally created as republics, they all adopted totalitarian rule. Estonia’s head of state, Konstantin Päts, used a threatened coup by hard-line anti-Soviet and anti-parliamentary nationalists to declare rule by decree in 1934. In the same year, the Latvian leader, Kārlis Ulmanis, also dismissed his parliament, partly as a response to the worldwide economic situation. In the case of Lithuania, a military coup in 1926 – triggered by growing criticism of the government for its attempts to negotiate with the Soviet Union – abolished parliament and placed Antanas Smetona in command of the country. It is noteworthy that in all three cases, a powerful motivation behind the unrest that led directly or indirectly to dictatorship was growing anti-Bolshevik sentiment. Much of this was due to persisting concerns that the Soviet Union might one day attempt to restore Russian control of the region. At the same time, resentment at German attempts to establish hegemony in the region in the aftermath of the First World War remained strong. Consequently, the people of the Baltic States, and their leaders, watched developments between their powerful neighbours with concern. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, announced on the eve of the German invasion of Poland in 1939, came as a shock to the Western Powers, and an even greater shock to the Baltic States, appearing to confirm that neither neighbour was remotely interested in the ongoing independence of the three nations. But the background to the Pact was that despite their dramatic ideological differences, the two nations had attempted to define non-aggression treaties for many years.
In the aftermath of the First World War, Weimar Germany signed two treaties with the Soviet Union. The first was the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, in which the two powers renounced any territorial or financial claims against each other. This was followed four years later by the Treaty of Berlin, which declared a five-year pact of non-aggression, and neutrality by either power should the other be involved in a conflict. In 1931, an extension to the latter treaty was agreed, but almost immediately relations between the two countries deteriorated, a process that accelerated after Hitler came to power in 1933. Persecution of the German Communist Party, overt hostility in diplomatic arenas and the publication of the second volume of Mein Kampf, calling for German expansion into Russian territory and equating communists with Jews, all played a part.
Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs for most of the 1930s, regarded Nazi Germany as the greatest threat to the Soviet Union. His preferred policy to contain the German threat was to build strong links with France and Britain, but Stalin’s insistence that any such alliance had to include the right of the Soviet Union to station troops in Estonia and Latvia made agreement almost impossible, given the role that France and Britain had played in helping Estonia drive the Red Army from its territory during the wars of independence. For Stalin, the proximity of the border between the Soviet Union and the Baltic States – particularly Estonia – and key locations, such as Leningrad, made a Soviet military presence in the three states a defensive necessity. In 1936, the NKVD (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del or ‘People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs’, the Soviet Secret Police) reported that there were growing links between many Estonian government officials and Germany. In addition, the NKVD report continued, the Estonian government believed that the Latvians were already ‘completely in the service of Germany’. By contrast, the ordinary people of the two countries were reported to be pro-Soviet.1
To a considerable extent, this report almost certainly was written with foreknowledge of what Stalin wished to hear, and its content was designed to ensure that the writer did not offend his superiors. Nevertheless, intelligence from other sources appeared to confirm the views of the Germans and the Soviets that the three states would be forced to choose a side. In March 1937, a Finnish envoy to the region reported:
The territory of Lithuania is situated between Germany, the Soviet Union and Poland. If there is a clash between these states, it will threaten the existence of Lithuania. Such a frightening prospect obliges Lithuania to seek the safest position. It is axiomatic that [the Lithuanian government] seeks the protection of Great Britain and France – in vain, as they are far away. Neutrality? But in practice, neutrality means complete isolation. Thus, Lithuania has to choose between Poland, Germany and the Soviet Union, and Lithuania … [will choose] the latter. The essential difficulties in the relationship of Lithuania with Germany and Poland, do not exist in the relationship between the Soviet Union and Lithuania.2
Negotiations between the Soviet Union and Germany were hamstrung by Litvinov’s Jewish ancestry, and this was one of the reasons for his dismissal by Stalin in May 1939.3 After the Munich Agreement of 1938, Sta
lin felt that there was little prospect of the capitalist powers containing Hitler, and he started to consider direct negotiations. Litvinov’s dismissal came during the era of Stalin’s widespread purges of the army and other organisations, and it was perhaps unsurprising that the sacking of the commissar was accompanied by the arrival of large numbers of NKVD troops at the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs; many of Litvinov’s aides were arrested and interrogated in a vain attempt to secure incriminating evidence against their leader.
Litvinov’s replacement was Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, who had been a Bolshevik almost from the start of the Communist Party. Born with the surname Scriabin, he adopted the name Molotov, derived from the Russian word molot, meaning hammer, for his political work. Many of his contemporaries preferred the nickname ‘Stone Arse’, on account of his long hours of work. It was characteristic of his reputation for pedantry that he often corrected colleagues, pointing out that Lenin had originally referred to him as ‘Iron Arse’. He was far less keen on reminding people of the occasion that Lenin had condemned him for being the author of ‘the most shameful bureaucratism, and the most stupid’.4 He owed his rise more to his consistent loyalty to Stalin than to any political excellence, and had a reputation for brutality; he played a leading role in the wave of arrests and executions that did so much harm to the Soviet Union during the 1930s. As soon as he was appointed, Stalin instructed him to purge the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of Jews, using the phrase ‘Clean out the “Synagogue.”’5 Molotov later recalled this order: ‘Thank God for these words! Jews formed an absolute majority in the leadership and among the ambassadors. It was not good.’6 The fact that Molotov’s wife was Jewish appeared to make little difference to his enthusiasm for following his leader’s instructions.