Baltic wars of independence and border settlements

Why declarations did not end the fighting

Germany's defeat in November 1918 did not automatically transfer power to independent Baltic governments. Estonia and Lithuania had declared independence in February; Latvia did so on 18 November. Each still needed an army, revenue and territory it could govern. Red forces followed retreating Germans, while Russian Whites and German formations pursued their own settlements. Independence struggles, civil wars and intervention overlapped in the space left by Brest and German occupation.

These were neither a single national front nor three isolated wars. Estonians fought in northern Latvia; Poland cooperated with Latvia while fighting Lithuania. Finland appears here as a neighbour connected through the Gulf of Finland and eastern Karelia, not as one of the three Baltic states.

Estonia: from Narva to Tartu

After the Red capture of Narva in November 1918, Jaan Anvelt headed the Commune of the Working People of Estonia. Konstantin Päts's provisional government built an army under Johan Laidoner, assisted by British naval support and Finnish volunteers. An early 1919 counteroffensive recovered the main Estonian territory. Land reform and constituent elections broadened the republic's support. Viktor Kingissepp's communist underground survived the Commune's military defeat, but did not represent the country as a whole.

Yudenich's Northwestern Army used Estonia as a base against Petrograd. Cooperation was conditional: White commitments to a united Russia threatened Estonian independence. It is nevertheless inaccurate to say there was never any White recognition. Under British pressure, the Northwestern Government formed in August 1919 recognized Estonia; whether the wider White movement would honour that commitment remained uncertain.

Following the failed October offensive, retreating Northwestern troops were disarmed and interned in Estonia. Soldiers and refugees suffered typhus and poor camp conditions; commanders such as Bułak-Bałachowicz later moved to the Polish front. Negotiations under Jaan Tõnisson's government culminated in the Treaty of Tartu on 2 February 1920. Soviet Russia recognized Estonian independence and renounced sovereignty claims: military survival acquired a treaty guarantee.

Latvia: three governments and two battles for Riga

Kārlis Ulmanis's government confronted Pēteris Stučka's Soviet government. Red forces captured Riga in January 1919, driving Ulmanis to Liepāja. German troops under von der Goltz and the Baltic Landeswehr fought the Reds, but were not simply auxiliaries of Latvian independence. German military and landowning interests clashed with Latvian land reform aspirations.

Following the Liepāja coup of 16 April, Ulmanis took refuge aboard ship; Andrievs Niedra headed a pro-German government in May. German-led forces captured Riga on 22 May. Soviet terror was followed by reprisals and executions after the city's recapture. The anti-Bolshevik camp then split openly: Estonian and northern Latvian forces defeated German formations at Cēsis in June, enabling Ulmanis's return to Riga.

Many Germans resisting withdrawal joined Pavel Bermondt-Avalov's West Russian Volunteer Army. Despite its anti-Bolshevik banner, it attacked Riga in October. Latvian troops, supported by British and French warships, cleared the western bank on 11 November. Meierovics's diplomacy sought to convert survival into international recognition. The joint Polish-Latvian Daugavpils operation in January 1920 helped drive Soviet forces from Latgale. Peace with Russia followed at Riga on 11 August, a different treaty from the Polish-Soviet agreement of March 1921.

Lithuania: Soviet state-building and the Vilnius dispute

Lithuanian state-building, involving Smetona and Voldemaras, proceeded between German withdrawal and Red advance. Vincas Kapsukas and Zigmas Angarietis pursued a Soviet alternative, followed in 1919 by the Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet republic, Litbel. The independent government retained its base in Kaunas; Polish forces took Vilnius in April. The Soviet project did not absorb the independence movement.

In the Moscow treaty of 12 July 1920, Soviet Russia recognized Lithuania's independence and its claim to Vilnius. This did not bind Poland or end military conflict. Red advances and retreats reopened the dispute. The Suwałki Agreement of 7 October established a ceasefire and demarcation in a limited area; it was not a final settlement of sovereignty over Vilnius.

On 9 October, before the ceasefire took effect, Lucjan Żeligowski occupied Vilnius. Acting in agreement with Piłsudski but presenting the operation as a mutiny, he established Central Lithuania, incorporated into Poland in 1922. Lithuania refused recognition. Independent states could still fight each other over borders and inhabitants' political claims. This northern flank is inseparable from the Polish-Soviet War.

British warships and Finland's choices

Walter Cowan's British squadron supported arms deliveries and coastal operations and constrained the Soviet Baltic Fleet. Motor torpedo boats attacked Kronstadt harbour in August 1919. Anti-Bolshevik objectives did not align British clients' interests: Baltic governments and Whites continued to disagree over independence and territory.

After the White victory in Finland's 1918 civil war, expeditions into eastern Karelia and the Russian border remained contentious. Finnish volunteers assisted Estonia in 1919, but Finland did not join a full national assault on Petrograd with Yudenich. A separate Finnish-Russian Treaty of Tartu followed on 14 October 1920. Finland obtained Petsamo and agreed to withdraw from Repola and Porajärvi. This was not Estonia's February treaty. The resulting border order forms part of the background to the Winter War.

One year of treaties, several unsettled borders

The Tartu, Moscow, Riga and Finnish Tartu treaties of 1920 reflected war exhaustion and governments' need to survive. Soviet Russia wanted fewer active fronts; its neighbours wanted independence and effective territory secured. The settlements were not identical, and Polish-Lithuanian conflict outlasted peace with Russia.

The independence wars were both connected to Russia's civil war and processes of state formation in their own right. The first republics and their treaty experience later informed opposition to the 1940 annexations and the restoration of Baltic independence in 1987–1991. Their wider military connections continue in the Russian Civil War.