Chapter 7.3.4: The first years of World War 1 in Estonia

On the 28th of June 1914 there was a murder in a small provincial town in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It would cause a conflict that would wipe out a generation of young men in Europe, World War 1. Russia saw itself as the defender of the slavs, and as the assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused Austria-Hungary to sharpen its bayonettes to go to war against Serbia which according to them was complicit in the regicide, Russia began to mobilize as well to go to war against Austria-Hungary. As a result Germany, which was an ally of Austria-Hungary, declared war on Russia.




Tallinna Teataja (the successor of Teataja) declares the beginning of a Great European War on the 3rd of August.

For Estonians the war was greeted with great enthusiasm. They saw fighting against Germany as a way to pay back the 700 years of oppression that they had had to endure. However, as the war went on and casualties surmounted, anti-war sentiment slowly swept in.

The beginning of the war caused persecution of the Baltic-Germans. Their newspapers, societies, clubs and schools were shut down; the use of German on trams and trains, later even on the street, as well as letters and adverts was banned. The activities of other social societies, including Estonian ones, were also restricted and censorship was tightened.

Overall about 100 thousand Estonians were mobilised to the Russian army and about a tenth of them perished in the war. Estonians partook in all large battles and offensives on the Eastern Front and had their biggest losses in the battles of Tannenberg (1914) and in the Augustow forests (1915).

The fear of a German invasion increased as the war went on. In 1915 the Germans conquered Curonia, the South-Western part of Latvia and for the two following years the front stood on the Daugava river. In 1915 Germans warships bombed Kuressaare and Pärnu and in 1916 Paldiski. The attacks of German airships and planes on Estonian towns also increased. Although they did not cause a lot of damage, they did cause anxiety amongst the populous.

As the front neared the amount of army units in Estonia increased. The reserves of the troops on Daugava were located here, new units were put together, equipped and trained. Solely in the Tallinn garrison there were 30 000 army soldiers and 20 000 sailors. Other larger cities were turned into war camps as well. By the autumn of 1917 there were about 200 thousand soldiers in Estonia. Tens of thousands of Latvian refugees also found shelter here.

The war took a toll on the Estonian economy. As the men were mobilised, there were not enough workers and cities soon found themselves without sufficient food supplies. Factories were repurposed for the war industry, which caused a great deficit of consumer products. The value of the Russian ruble plummeted and the cost of living soared. Several factories were destroyed over the course of the war, the equipment, resources and workers of many others were evacuated to Russia. The countryside was hit hard by the requisition of horses, herd animals and produce.

The war also increased the activity of the national movement. Many civic organisations concerning the war were established, the most notable ones were the Linnadeliidu Komitee (Union of Cities Committee) in Tallinn and the Põhja-Balti Komitee (Northern-Baltic Committee) in Tartu. Officially they dealt with providing aid to the Russian army and the refugees, but in their meetings they also discussed pressing domestic questions, as well as questions about the future of Estonia. They came up with the idea about creating wholy Estonian units within the Russian army, with Estonians soldiers serving under Estonian officers.

The support for the reorganisation of society also gained backing during the war, spearheaded by a group of young intellectuals. One of the most charismatic leaders of those young radicals was lawyer Jüri Vilms, who in 1916 for the first time publicly demanded national autonomy for Estonia.



Jüri Vilms (1889-1918). He would be executed by the German Army.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

 Hello, dear reader. I have compiled the contents of this blog over the course of one year. The chapters have been written in a way that they expect one to have read the preceeding ones to get the full picture. Unless you are already versed in Estonian history I would recommend you to follow this principle. If you have any questions or anything else to say, do not hesitate to make comments.  As it was a hobby project, I went more in-depth on topics that interested me, do not hold it against me :P   I hope you will enjoy this journey :)
Read more

Chapter 0: Prelude

Image
Estonian history begins with the Livonian Crusade in the early 13th century. The written sources before that time period are few and far between, so the time before the 13th century is classified as “muinasaeg” or “ancient time”. Most of the information about that period has been gathered via archeology. The earliest possible mention of Estonia could be from 98 AD, when the Roman historian Tacitus wrote in “Germania” about a people called “Aestii”, who lived on the eastern shore of the Baltic sea. However, it is very much questionable if he really referred to ancient Estonians. Estonia was covered by a glacier up until about 11 000 years ago. It was also around that time when the first people arrived here. Over the course of the following millennia there were several other waves of migration, during which there were seismic shifts in culture, for example how pottery was decorated or how people were buried. Modern Estonians are basically a mixture of these people, genetically speaking. ...
Read more

Chapter 1: The Ancient Era

Image
Estonia was not a single united country. Instead it was divided into loads of smaller “counties”, which were something between a tribe and a country. A map showcasing the approximate size and locations of ancient counties. (Fun fact: in Finnish Estonia is called Viro (from Virumaa) and in Latvian it is called Igaunija (from Ugandi) As can be seen from the map, the counties on the border were larger than the ones which were inland. The reason behind this is theorised to be the fact that border areas were more vulnerable, so it motivated smaller counties to peacefully unite into larger ones in order to be more powerful. However, there is a possibility that eventually the counties would have united to form a single kingdom. People exclusively identified themselves with their specific county during earlier periods, but by the 13th century there were already some specific mentions of “Estonians” and “Estonia”. The chiefs of all counties had annual meetings in Raikküla, which was in Harjumaa...
Read more