Chapter 8: Independent Estonia (1918-1940); 8.1: The Estonian War of Independence (1918-1920)
Estonia at the time did not really have an army. The national units had been disbanded by the Germans and the equipment had been confiscated. Now the government had to start building a new one and for that purpose on the 16th of November began the voluntary mobilisation of men between the ages of 21-35 and on the 21st the formation of the 1st Estonian Division started. Estonian delegations are sent to both Helsinki and Stockholm to ask for military aid in the form of weapons for the army. On the 27th of November Päts agreed to allow the mobilisation of Baltic-German volunteers. Later they would become the Baltic battalion, led by Constantin von Weiss.
Army recruitment poster from 1918. The funny detail is that it has warships and aeroplanes on it, even though the Estonian army lacked the most basic equipment, including rifles and uniforms.
The revolution in Germany was seen as a sign by the Russian communists that it was time to unite the revolutionary forces of Russia and Germany and begin a world revolution. The first step to this end was to reconquer the lost territory between Germany and Russia. This included wiping out Estonian independence. On the 22nd of November they attacked Narva, but were repulsed by the German forces stationed there. On the 28th of November they attacked again and this time faced both German and Estonian resistance. Estonians repulsed the head on attack, but when the Russians tried to encircle the city via a sea landing the outnumbered Estonian and German forces abandoned the city to escape encirclement. This event kickstarted the Estonian War of Independence. (Eesti Vabadussõda, Estonian Freedom War in Estonian).
A day later the Commune of Working People of Estonia is declared in the city by the Estonian communists, which will act for roughly two months as an “independent socialist state”, even though in reality it is a shallow puppet of the Russian socialist state. It was led by Jaan Anvelt. On the same day the communist party was banned in Estonia.
The flag of the “Eesti Töörahva Kommuun”.
The Estonian bolsheviks who had escaped in early 1918 tried to use the war to get back into power in Estonia. Amongst other units that invaded Estonia were the Estonian Red Riflemen, composed of Estonians. At their height there were about 5000 Estonians fighting on the Russian side.
The Commune would nationalise financial, industrial and commercial enterprises and try to transform manors into socialist large agricultural estates in areas that had been conquered. Repressions and red terror was conducted against the political opponents and the“enemies of the working people”, including several massacres.
In areas that were not under the control of the Red Army the communists worked underground. For example they conducted agitation against the government, broke railways, telegraph and phone lines and gathered intelligence for the Red Army. However their achievements were rather conservative, as the people generally saw them as agents of a foreign enemy.
Throughout December the last German forces would leave Estonia. At the beginning of the war there were only 2000 men in the Estonian army and about 14 thousand men in the volunteer Estonian Defence League (Eesti Kaitseliit, had been created underground during the German occupation), all very poorly armed. The mobilisation fell through, only some of the men answered to the call to arms and a big portion of them left when they found out that there were no guns for them. The sympathy for socialists amongst the workers also meant that not many of them were keen on fighting against their ideological peers so many just did not join the war effort, even when the army later ordered people to join, not volunteer.
There was a strong lack of motivation amongst Estonians, especially the ones who had fought in WW1, as they were both tired of war and did not believe that the tiny young country could withstand almighty Russia. There was one group of people however, who disagreed, the idealistic high school boys who had no prior war experience, as well as their teachers. They were optimistic and had a strong sense of patriotism, hundreds of them volunteered to fight in the early and darkest stage of the war. Most of the first units that faced the advancing Russians were those small volunteer groups that were mostly made up of high schoolers. They would be later regarded as national heroes.
A memorial dedicated to student soldiers in Tallinn. Opened in 1927, destroyed in 1948, reopened in 1993.
The volunteer students of Tartu Commerce Gymnasium, from the movie “Names in Marble” (2002), which was based on the autographic novel by Albert Kivikas published in 1936.
As the Russian troops were superior in numbers and equipment, the Estonian forces were pushed back quickly. Valga was lost on the 18th, Tartu on the 21st and Tapa on the 24th of December. By the end of the year the Red Army was quickly approaching Pärnu, Viljandi, Põltsamaa, Paide and Tallinn.
The 2nd Division was formed to lead the war effort on the southern front. On the 5th of December 5000 weapons and 20 pieces of artillery with the necessary ammunition arrived from Finland and in December and January more than 3000 Finnish volunteers arrived to fight for Estonia. On the 13th of December a squadron of the Royal Navy reached Tallinn, led by Admiral Alexander-Sinclair. It secured the coast.and safeguarded the naval passageways to Europe. The British captured two Russian ships and gave them to Estonia, which would be the start of the Estonian Navy. The British would also later bring weapons, artillery and machine guns to Estonians.
Finnish volunteers arriving in December in 1918.
On the 23rd of December Johan Laidoner was made the commander-in-chief and he appointed Jaan Soots as the head of the general staff. Under his energetic leadership the size of the army increased to 13 thousand by the end of the year, including 600 officers. In addition to mobilised units, groups of local volunteer defence battalions were formed, the Julius Kuperjanov partisan battalion and the Sakala partisan battalions caused havoc in the areas conquered by the reds. The athletes of the “Kalev” sports society and the intellectuals of Tallinn formed the Kalevlaste Malev and the Skouts regiment was also created to mimic the American special forces.
Johan Laidoner (1884-1953). Son of a farmer. Volunteered to serve in the Russian Army in 1901, graduated from a military school in 1905 as the best student of the course and became a sub-lieutenant. After serving for four years he went on to study at the general staff college in 1909 and graduated with honours in 1912. During WW1 led troops in Galicia, Poland and Belarus. Led the Estonian national units from the beginning of 1918 until their dissolution. Following that he organised (under cover) the Estonian Legion out of Estonian soldiers in St. Petersburg, which would go to join the intervention force of the allies at Murmansk, fighting against Soviet Russia.
Jaan Soots (1880-1942). Son of a farmer. Volunteered in 1900, graduated from a military school in 1904. Participated in the Russo-Japanese war as a sub-lieutenant. In 1913 graduated from the general staff college. During WW1 served in the general staff of Russian armies on the eastern front. Led the Estonian national units until Laidoner took over and during the German occupation worked underground with the temporary government.
All of these developments greatly increased the morale and resolve of Estonian forces, and eventually led to what seemed like a miracle. By the beginning of January the situation seemed hopeless and the civilian population was heavily doubting the survival of the republic. More than half of Estonia was captured and the Red Army was merely 30 kilometres away from the capital. But then their advance was stopped. The Estonian army faced them at the battles of Kehtna, Aidu and Kehra and won in all three. By the 6th of January the front was stable and the Estonian forces, which were now equal in size to their opponents, began a counter offensive.
A very important role in that offensive belonged to the 3 armoured trains that Estonia used, which had been built in Tallinn. They were led by captain Karl Parts. They had armoured wagons for transporting troops, machine guns and even artillery platforms on them. As the war progressed, the trains became more sophisticated and advanced, and also more trains appeared. They became a rapid and powerful unit.
Armoured train nr 2, in February 1919.
On the 9th of January the important railway junction of Tapa was liberated. From there the trains turned South and on the 14th of January liberated Tartu together with the Kuperjanovi partisans.
The partisan unit was led by lieutenant Julius Kuperjanov, a school teacher who had been mobilised to the Russian army in 1915 at 21 years of age. There he quickly gained prominence, and soon became the leader of a reconnaissance unit, earning 7 awards for bravery. He was wounded in both legs in 1917 and was sent to recover in Moscow, after that he became the leader of the Estonian reserve battalion at Tartu. After the Germans disbanded his unit, he started working on forming the Defence League in Southern Estonia to take over control immediately after the Germans left, keeping contact with Tallinn in the meantime. After the occupation ended Kuperjanov led the forces at Tartu, but the troops under him fell apart and ran away. He and 16 other men left the town last, and found a squad of high school students on the way, who joined his group. He got official permission to form a partisan unit, which started conducting guerilla warfare against the occupants, destroying bridges, communication lines and attacking enemies at night. Over time he also gathers more volunteers, reaching a formidable force of over 300 men by mid January. Their emblem, sewn by Alice, the wife of Kuperjanov, is a skull on a black background.
Julius Kuperjanov (1894-1919) in 1917.
The liberation of Tartu was actually planned as a three pierced attack from the North, West and East, but while the 2nd Division was organising the attack, they found out that the armoured trains, composed of volunteers, and Kuperjanov´s men were already in the city. They had attacked without an order from above, citing that since the 14th of January was the 1st of January according to the old calendar, they wanted to make a new years gift for Estonia. The other reason why the forces hurried, was the fact that after Rakvere was liberated on the 12th, the forces there had found more than 80 murdered innocent civilians in a nearby forest. It was decided that to prevent such a massacre from happening in Tartu as well, it was time to act fast.
Locals and soldiers with the uncovered corpses near Rakvere.
The forces managed to take the railway bridge over Emajõgi after a fierce fight against the Red Latvian Rifleman, an elite force within the Red Army. The fight continued into the town, by around 12 at noon the city was cleared from reds and the Estonian flag was hoisted on the town hall. It was soon found out that another massacre was being committed whilst the Estonians had entered the city. 225 people, including 80 women, had been gathered in the basement of a bank and communists with axes and explosive bullets had started chopping them. Fortunately when they heard about the white forces entering the town, they stopped and fled, managing to murder only 19 of the people. Amongst the unfortunates were all of the priests in the city, including the first Estonian Orthodox bishop Platon. Overall at least 650 civilians were murdered and 4000 were deported to Russia by the communists during the war.
The corpses after the Krediitkassa massacre in Tartu.
The Estonian offensive continued successfully, with Estonians getting loads of weapons and equipment as spoils of war. On the 18th of January Narva was liberated. The front stopped on the Narva river and the main focus of the war effort moved to the South. On the 30th of January Kuperjanov fell during the battle of Paju, storming the last line of defence before the important and strategic railway junction of Valga. Estonian troops marched into the city on the 1st of February. On the same day Võru was recaptured as well and on the 4th of February Petseri was liberated. With that, the Estonian troops had reconquered the entirety of the land inhabited by Estonians. The Commune stopped existing at that point as well.
The first independence day celebrations in Tallinn in 1919. The statue in the background is of Peter the Great, dismantled in 1922.
Estonian forces dug in to defend the borders. By the beginning of March there were about 30 thousand men on the front, 165 pieces of artillery, 925 machine guns, 9 armoured trains and 6 armoured cars. Facing them were 80 thousand Red Army soldiers, 200 pieces of artillery, 1100 machine guns, 5 armoured trains, 14 armoured cars and 14 aeroplanes. Despite the numerical superiority, the Red Army did not manage to break the Estonian defence lines in southern Estonia during their many attempts from March till May.
Armoured car “Kalevipoeg”.
During the spring battles the Estonian general staff planned spring offensives in three directions: St. Petersburg and Pskov in the East and northern Latvia in the South. The plan was to get the front further from Estonia and create a buffer zone. By the beginning of May there were 74 500 Estonians in the army, 1500 Latvians in the Northern Latvian Brigade, 2750 Russians of the White Guard, and the British fleet alongside them. The Finnish volunteers had left, volunteer brigades from Sweden and Denmark had arrived instead.
On the 12th of May the offensive towards St. Petersburg begins, reaching the outskirts of the city by the 13th of June. The offensive on the southern front begins on the 16th of May, Pskov is captured on the 25th of May and Jekapils on the 25th. Estonian forces link up with Polish forces in the latter, which means that the Red Army units in Latvia had been cut in half. At the end of May more than 700 Estonians in the Red Army change sides and began fighting for the republic.
Estonian forces fighting in Latvia.
Estonian army parade in Pskov.
By this point the Estonian army reached its highest extent. The Estonian army has 300 pieces of artillery, 2000 machine guns, 10 armoured trains, 6 armoured cars, 28 planes, 24 warships on the Baltic Sea (captured from the Red Navy) and 13 ships on Peipsi järv. There were 86 thousand men in the army, as well as 32 thousand men in the territorial Defence League. I will remind you that there were 5 thousand Estonians fighting on the side of the Red Army and mention the fact that Soviet historiography called this conflict the “Estonian Civil War”, despite the fact that the vast majority of forces Estonians were fighting against were comprised of not Estonians, but rather Russians and Latvians.
The cannon “Rasputin” on one of the armoured trains.
An aeroplane of the Estonian Airforce.
Two Estonian warships.
Johan Pitka (1876-1944), admiral of the Estonian Navy. Was a ship captain before the war, in 1918 helped to organise the Defence League and the Armoured Trains. After the Estonian Navy was founded he started leading that.
Whilst Estonia had managed to withstand the foreign invasion, Latvia had not been as successful. The support for socialism was much stronger there and as a result the national forces were much weaker. During the German occupation, a force called the Baltische Landeswehr (Baltic Land Defence) was created out of Baltic-German volunteers to act as an army for the future United Baltic Duchy. When the occupation ended, the army did not dissolve however, instead opting for an agreement with the Latvian government. They agreed to fight for Latvia and as compensation they were promised land.
Riga fell to the Red Army on the 3rd of January and Landeswehr troops with the Latvian government escaped to Curonia. There a division of former German imperial soldiers was formed as well, called the Iron Division. The Germans prevented the Latvians from forming national units and on the 16th of April conducted a coup, arresting the ministers of the Latvian government and replacing it with a puppet government.
As the Estonian forces had severely weakened the Red Army, the Landeswehr (about 10k men strong) went on an offensive and on the 22nd of May captured Riga. As they considered radical and "anti-German landowner" Estonia as bad as communist Russia, they decided that instead of joining the Estonian forces in a joint-offensive against the Red Army, they would head North to liberate the “rightful land of the Baltic-Germans”.
Estonian forces, which were moving South, stumbled upon Germans on the 5th of June at Cesis (Võnnu in Estonian). The Landeswehr won the battle and planned to continue the offensive but at the request of the representatives of the Entente a 10 day ceasefire was signed. Both sides used this time to bring more forces. For Estonians this encounter caused immense fury, which in no doubt was helped by the complicated history between the two sides. Estonians were rather thirsty for blood.
On the 18th of June the Germans gave an ultimatum to the Estonians, demanding them to move back 10 kms or the Germans will begin their offensive. The Estonians refused, there were about 5 Germans for every 4 Estonians. In the battles from the 19th-24th of June, one of the fiercest of the war, Estonians successfully rebuked the German attack and began an offensive of their own.
Estonian artillery at the battle.
Rüdiger von der Goltz (1865-1946), leader of the Landeswehr.
The German fighting spirit was lost after this defeat and Estonian forces quickly pushed them to Riga by the 30th of June. Until the 2nd of July there was a battle for the city, which was eventually won. A peace treaty between the sides was organised by the Entente. The Landeswehr was weakened and put under new leadership, the rightful Latvian government got back in charge. Thus ended the period called the “Landeswehr war”. The victory at the battle of Võnnu is now celebrated as Võidupüha (Victory Day) on the 23rd of June, the day when Estonians finally crushed their historical oppressors.
At this point of the war, Estonian conquests reached their largest extent, shown in the map below. The orange area shows the parts of Estonia that were still under the control of the republic on 3rd of January, the largest extent of Red Army gains.
The forces in the East were pushed back towards the border, and near it they set up a new defensive line. From July until November 1919, the war was fairly peaceful, as the Red Army had to repurpose their forces elsewhere and Estonians had no willingness to push further, as Estonia was strictly under their control.
While all of this was happening on the battlefield, there were also developments at home. In February the Estonian Supreme Court, Riigikohus, was formed. The first official (although temporary) currency came into use. The Eesti Pank, the national bank, as well as the Estonian Red Cross were created on the 24th of February. Most importantly of all, the Estonian Constituent Assembly was elected on the 5th-7th of April.
Soldiers voting in the Estonian Constituent Assembly election.
Such elections during war time were unprecedented in the world. The elections were free, fair, secret and direct, women had suffrage. The turnout was more than three quarters of the population, and left wing parties, which promised a radical land reform, gained 78 seats out of 120. The Assembly came together on the 23rd of April, St. George´s day, 576 years after the failed rebellion. As is appropriate for the result of the election, a new government stepped into power a few weeks later. The Provisional Government had been a united coalition, the new government is a coalition of the big three left wing parties in the assembly: The Social Democrats, the Labour Party and the Peoples Party. Otto Strandman of the Labour Party (Tööerakond) becomes prime minister.
The first gathering of the Assembly in Estonia theatre. From the 30th of April onwards they would meet in the White Hall at the Palace of Toompea.
The main purpose of the Assembly was to work out the structure of the Republic going forward, and it would decide on two important matters. Firstly, the constitution, which I will cover in the next chapter. Secondly one of the most pressing issues of the day, land reform.
The Land Reform Act was passed on the 10th of October 1919, and it was one of the most radical land reforms in all of Eastern Europe. All of the manor land was nationalised, including the equipment at the manors. Alltogether 58% of the countryside, of which 13% was rented to farms which had not yet bought out the land. The farmland that still belonged to the manor was given for free to the farmers. The rest of manor land was divided into smaller farms and handed out to the veterans of the war, who were promised free farm land if they applied for it. The manor hearts, lots where the manor buildings stood, were generally given to the most prominent officers of the war or turned into different institutions. The acquired forests remained owned by the state.
Overall 54 thousand new farms were established following the war. This meant that Estonia went from having 1200 manors and 86 thousand farms before the war to having 140 thousand farms.
What caused contention was that the nationalisations happened without compensation to the Baltic-Germans. They felt that the land they owned had been stolen, and accused the government of imposing socialism. The government response was that Estonians just took back the land that was stolen from them through violence centuries ago. The event caused heavy animosity against the Republic from the Baltic-Germans and about a third of them migrated to Germany. International pressure eventually would make Estonia agree to pay compensation in later years.
First the promise and later the act of such land reform was very important in winning over the Estonian people. In the early days of the Republic most of the poorer strata were very distrustful of the “grey suits'' in charge, believing that they would treat them just like the “German barons” had done. The fact that the communists wished to nationalise all farmland and create state owned large agricultural estates greatly decreased their popularity. The main selling point of them had been the promise of land, the people saw that was a lie, and had no wish to go from slaving for the nobility to slaving for the state. The Republic gave them the opportunity to work for themselves, which had been their dream, and this wiped out socialist tendencies in the countryside and made the farmers extremely loyal to the Republic.
At the beginning of September, Russia started to look for options to sign a ceasefire with Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Entente was not too keen on that, as they wished to support the whites in the Russian Civil War and wished to keep as many forces fighting as possible. Estonians however wanted to find out if it is even possible to negotiate with communists, so on the 16th of September the talks began in Pskov. Estonia also organised a conference with the leaders of the three Baltic nations, where it was agreed that all Baltic nations should sign a joint peace together. Estonia broke off talks with Russia as signing a separate peace was not an option anymore.
Estonians were also not too keen on supporting the Russian whites, because they were, among other things, fighting for a “united and indivisible” Russia. Nevertheless the Estonian government did support them, mostly due to the pressure from France. In October they tried one more push towards St. Petersburg, with the aid from Estonians, but were crushed and had to turn back.
With the other Baltic nations showing no signs of being even interested in signing a peace treaty in the near future, partly because of them not controlling all of the land they claim, partly because of the ineffectiveness of their war effort, Estonians start to question the idea of signing a united peace.
After the failure of the white Russian offensive, the Red Army quickly approached the Estonian border. That, and the fact that Estonians were weary of war and looking for peace, made the government decide to start peace talks with Russia. The Russo-Estonian peace conference began on the 5th of December in Tartu. As the sides had very different opinions on the matter, the talks were difficult. During the conference the Red Army also went on an offensive against Narva, trying to capture the city and achieve a more favourable border as a result. Finally a ceasefire came into effect on the 3rd of January, ending the fighting. The final peace treaty, the Treaty of Tartu, was signed on the 2nd of February 1920, finally ending the War of Independence.
Foreign Minister Jaan Poska signing the peace treaty. He would pass away just a month later.
According to the treaty, Russia gave up any right to Estonia and recognized Estonian independence for eternity. The eastern border, one of the big contentions, was agreed upon. Russia agreed to pay Estonia 11,6 tons of gold to compensate for any material losses and allow all Estonians living in Russia to freely migrate to Estonia. About 38 thousand Estonians made their way to Estonia after the war. Diplomatic relations are also established. Russia did not fulfil the treaty in its entirety however. The migration of Estonians was heavily hindered and Russia did not return most of the properties it had evacuated from Estonia during World War 1. The treaty was very favourable for Estonians, and Russians agreed to it as they believed Estonia would be toppled by the workers soon anyway.
Estonians lost five thousand men during the war as casualties and 14 thousand men as wounded. 667 became war prisoners. Soviet Russia lost at least 35 thousand men as casualties and wounded and over ten thousand either became prisoners of war or switched sides. The Landeswehr had four hundred casualties and 1100 wounded.
After more than five years of being at constant war and turmoil, Estonia was now finally able to enjoy peace. And this time, for the first time, peace as an independent democratic nation state.
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