Armoured Trains

The territory which would become the independent state of Latvia was occupied by German troops from March to November 1918. In the Russian Civil War, the majority of Latvian units fought on the Bolshevik side. In 1918,² two ‘governments’ claimed hegemony, one being a coalition of democratic parties and the other the Bolsheviks. Both sides armed their troops for the conflict. Alongside them the German troops stationed in Courland together with Germans who had settled in Latvia formed the Landeswehr³ under the command of General Rüdiger von den Goltz. Their aim was to fight the Reds with the aid of the White Russian forces commanded by Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalow, and then to march on Moscow. In October 1919 they began their offensive, but the German troops were halted by the combined efforts of the Allied fleet and two Estonian armoured trains (the Estonians at that time occupying the northern part of Latvia). In November, the ‘Bermondtists’ were beaten, and retreated to Prussia. In January 1920, the Latvian forces went on the offensive against the Bolsheviks, and the subsequent Treaty of Riga signed on 11 August 1920 formally recognised the independence of Latvia, no longer part of Russia.

As the military and political situation evolved, German and Estonian armoured trains were engaged in combat either alongside or against the Latvian forces. On 22 May 1919, a Bolshevik armoured train was captured by the Landeswehr in Riga. It then fell into the hands of the Latvians at the battle of Cesis and was designated BV No 1. The future BV No 2 named Komunistu iznicinātājs (‘Destroyer of Communists’) went into action on 9 July 1919. These units, forming an Armoured Train Battery created on 21 July 1919, were joined by BV No 3 in September 1919 and by BV No 4 (captured from the Bermondtist forces) in November 1919.

The Inter-War Period

At the close of the War of Independence, Latvia possessed six trains,⁴ but by 1921 only two remained in service, and these lacked anti-aircraft armament. In October 1923 the Latvian Government made overtures to France for the construction of six engines, four or six armoured wagons and twenty wagons mounting turrets. However, following a political crisis in Latvia the project was shelved in January 1924.

Between 1925 and 1930, as part of a major modernisation and rearmament programme, four new trains entered service and made up the Armoured Train Battery⁵ based in Riga, which also included three 152mm Canet railway guns. The armoured trains were divided between the Russian gauge (1520mm/5ft nominal) and the standard gauge (1435mm/4ft 8½in) networks. The Latvian Guard (Aizsargs) which came under the authority of the Minister of the Interior, appears also to have used armoured trains as part of its railway regiment.

On 1 July 1926, the Battery was reorganised as an Armoured Train Regiment, and in 1939 it was planned to build two additional units. The Regiment was eventually dissolved on 3 February 1940, because of a lack of ammunition which up until then had been supplied by Czechoslovakia and Germany. The two trains still in service were allocated to the Coast Artillery Regiment.⁶

Occupation by Soviet then German Forces

On 17 June 1940, Soviet forces occupied Latvia, and the armoured trains were incorporated in the Red Army. The following year, the Soviet armoured trains of obvious Latvian conception were cut off and captured by the Wehrmacht, who set about converting the Latvian railway network from Russian gauge to standard gauge. This task was virtually complete by the end of 1941, and the majority of Latvian armoured train units were thereafter reused by the Wehrmacht.

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The badge of the Latvian Armoured Trains Regiment.

PZ 5 of the Landeswehr.

(Photo: Paul Malmassari Collection)

In 1919, the Latvians captured a Bolshevik armoured train of the ‘Krasnoye Sormovo’ type, and put it into service with their own armed forces.