CHAPTER 15

THE PYGMY WARS: LATVIA

Latvia had been one of the most industrialised parts of the Russian Empire; Riga alone had a population of over 800,000, with most workers employed in industry. When the war began, many Latvians volunteered to join the army while others were conscripted, often in a heavy-handed manner that provoked unrest, even riots. Nevertheless, Latvians featured in large numbers in the ranks of the Russian Army in the early phases of the war, with the Russian XX Corps being 80 per cent Latvian. This corps was effectively destroyed during the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes in 1915, and over 20,000 Latvians were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

The origins of the Latvian Rifles have already been described. Recruited largely from the industrialised parts of Riga, where Bolshevik activists had been energetically at work for much of the war, most of their personnel rapidly sided with the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution, though some of these soldiers fought for the Bolsheviks as a result of Lenin’s promise that he would grant Latvia independence.⁴⁶⁴ The Latvian Riflemen took an active part in suppressing anti-Bolshevik risings in Moscow and Yaroslavl in 1918, and were some of the Revolution’s most reliable troops. In Latvia itself, the industrial heartland of Riga remained fertile ground for Bolshevik ideology, and there had been many recruits in the dying months of Imperial Russian rule and during Kerensky’s regime. Accustomed to leading an underground existence, these communist cells remained in existence when the Germans occupied the city and waited for their moment.

Latvia itself was almost completely under German control by the end of the war with Russia. As part of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Russians ceded any claim to the Baltic region, and from the autumn of 1917 Baltic German communities began to form local councils, which they dominated. In April 1918 a Provincial Assembly consisting of 35 Baltic Germans, 13 Estonians and 11 Latvians called upon the kaiser to recognise the region as a German protectorate. They declared the existence of the Duchy of Courland and the Baltic State Duchy, the latter covering the rest of Latvia and all of Estonia, but the kaiser did not afford them recognition until September 1918. Shortly afterwards, a regency council based in Riga was formed to administer the two duchies. This council, headed by Baron Adolf Pilar von Pilchau, elected Adolf Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin as head of state, a post that he never took up; originally, the regency council had intended for the kaiser to become head of state, but his abdication brought any such proposal to an end.

Other parts of the Baltic German community had doubts that Germany would be able to offer meaningful support on her own, and Baron Heinrich von Stryk was sent to Sweden to seek Swedish support for a pro-German Baltic state. Anatol von Lieven, the son of a prominent local family, started work on raising a combat unit composed of White Russians. It is a measure of the longevity of the German involvement in the Baltic that Alexis von der Pahlen, who became Lieven’s chief of staff, was a descendant of Johannes de Pala, one of the first governors of Riga in 1120. Another notable recruit was the 16-year-old Heinrich von Behr who would see service as a senior officer in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War.⁴⁶⁵

At the same time as these moves by the Baltic Germans, Latvian nationalists established the People’s Council of Latvia and issued a declaration of Latvian independence with Kārlis Ulmanis as Prime Minister. Ulmanis had been a participant in the 1905 Revolution and after serving a spell in prison in Pskov he fled to the USA, from where he returned to Latvia in 1913. With Germany engulfed in increasing turmoil, the Baltic Duchy’s regency council was dissolved, leaving the Ulmanis administration as the only effective government of the region. This proved to be short-lived, as Bolshevik forces – led by units of the Latvian Rifles – invaded Latvia almost at the moment that independence was declared. The nationalist government announced the creation of a new nationalist army, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Oskars Kalpaks and began to mobilise manpower, but was severely hindered by a shortage of weapons.

Many of the German units in the area had been badly affected by desertion. Like German regiments elsewhere, they contained within their ranks large numbers of men who were strongly affected by the new socialist ideology. Most units had created soldiers’ councils in deliberate emulation of what had happened in the Russian Army; these councils effectively controlled their deployment, and in many cases in Latvia they were in contact with the advancing Bolsheviks. Consequently, as Russian forces approached west, the councils ensured that their units simply withdrew rather than fight. Desertion was widespread, further reducing the fighting strength of the German regiments and divisions. Major Josef Bischoff, who had served as a soldier in the German genocide of the Herero in Namibia and had been awarded Germany’s highest decoration, the Pour le Mérite, for his conduct on the Western Front in 1918, scraped together a few combat-worthy elements into a formation that he named the Iron Brigade. This was one of the few significant anti-Bolshevik units in the field around Riga.

The Latvian nationalist government was desperately short of troops. With no prospect of aid from any other quarter, Ulmanis turned to the Germans. August Winnig, the German Baltic plenipotentiary, was fully aware of Ulmanis’ weakness and took advantage of this late in 1918 to secure two agreements with the Latvian government. According to these agreements, Latvia would grant citizenship to any foreign soldiers who had fought for Latvia for at least four weeks. Baltic Germans would have the right to join any German volunteer units, and Germany would be able to provide officers and NCOs to the newly formed Baltic German militia, the Baltische Landeswehr. The Landeswehr would consist of seven companies of infantry supported by two artillery batteries, while the Latvians would raise 18 companies themselves, plus a company of Baltic Russians; the numbers of Baltische Landeswehr companies would be increased should the Latvian army be expanded further in keeping with this ratio.⁴⁶⁶ Meanwhile, advertisements appeared in Germany for recruits to join volunteer units such as the Iron Brigade; such formations became part of the formations widely known as the Freikorps, and were ultimately deployed in many parts of Germany to oppose communists and others perceived as hostile to ‘traditional’ German rule. Posters calling for recruits to serve in the Baltic States appeared all over Germany, stressing that the new volunteer units were needed to defend both the Baltic States and Germany from Bolshevik Russia and listed several conditions of service. These included favourable settlement opportunities for soldiers who were still serving at the end of hostilities, and similar concessions would be offered to those wounded during the fighting, or the families of soldiers who were killed while serving against the Bolsheviks.

Other advertisements made promises in a more lavish style:

Wonderful Settlement Opportunity! Anyone who wants to own his own estate in the beautiful Baltic, report to one of the following recruitment offices …⁴⁶⁷

For many German soldiers and officers newly discharged from the army who were struggling to settle into civilian life, the lure of returning to military service with the promise of huge rewards was an attractive one. The Freikorps grew rapidly, with tacit – and sometimes overt – support from figures like Gustav Noske, the new German defence minister. Despite every attempt to conduct an orderly ‘revolution from above’ in which politicians led the way and thus avoided civil unrest, several ‘Soviet republics’ came into being in Germany in 1919; the largest of these was in Bavaria in April and May, and all were suppressed, many violently. In the case of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, a force of about 10,000 regular troops supported by 30,000 men of Freikorps Epp and Marinebrigade Ehrhardt entered Munich in early May and forcibly deposed the Bolsheviks, killing at least 1,000 in street-fighting; nearly as many were subsequently killed without trial.

The promise of land in the Baltic region for volunteers would prove to be a source of considerable dispute. The defunct regency council had intended to provide land for large numbers of German soldiers after the war in order to boost the German population and the Ulmanis government had already committed itself to land reform, including the offer of land grants to landless Latvians who served in the new army that was being raised, and it seems that August Winnig – without seeking confirmation from the Latvians – assumed that a similar offer would apply to Germans. The poster-writers in Germany then exaggerated matters further. It is questionable whether the offer of land made much difference to recruitment, but the suggestion that Germans might be given land in Latvia, where so much land was already in the hands of the Baltic German nobility, did cause considerable anti-German sentiment in Latvian circles.

France and Britain had mixed feelings about the presence of German combatants in the region and made unsuccessful attempts to encourage Sweden to take an active part in matters. Finally, the Entente Powers accepted that the Germans were the only force likely to prevent a Bolshevik victory and invoked Article 12 of the Armistice Agreement, which allowed German units to remain outside German territory if the Entente Powers judged that this was desirable in view of local circumstances.

On 17 December the Bolsheviks announced the creation of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic headed by Pēteris Stučka, and pressed on towards Riga. There was insufficient time for the nationalists to organise a proper defence: German units continued to withdraw, many after discussions between their soldiers’ councils and the advancing Bolsheviks, and British warships departed from the harbour on 1 January 1919. Riga fell three days later, and Ulmanis’ government was forced to flee, first to Jelgava and then to the Baltic coast and the port of Liepāja. It has been suggested that the German units in and around Riga may have deliberately pulled back rather than fight to hold Riga on the grounds that a brief period of Bolshevik occupation might make the population more receptive to future German hegemony, but it seems likely that the remnants of the German Army in the area were simply in no condition to put up prolonged resistance.⁴⁶⁸ The total number of soldiers fighting for the nationalist cause in December has been estimated as amounting to only 400 Latvians, 500 men in the Baltische Landeswehr, and 200 Germans in the Iron Brigade.⁴⁶⁹ Bolshevik forces in the region have been estimated as being as many as 45,000, partly through mobilisation of men in the areas controlled by them, but in reality the number of combatants at this stage was probably closer to 10,000.⁴⁷⁰

With the arrival of the Bolsheviks in Riga, the local communist cells that had been in hiding for many years came into the open. Many peasants at first welcomed the new regime, hoping that it would bring with it a redistribution of land, but one of the first policy announcements of the new regime was the nationalisation of agrarian land. This, combined with compulsory central purchasing of all agricultural produce – at prices that the peasants regarded as too low to be financially viable – resulted almost immediately in widespread food shortages. In the cities and towns, the food shortage rapidly brought illness, increasing the unpopularity of the Stučka regime, but a far greater source of anger was the widespread wave of repression. The clergy were particular targets, and many were executed in the most summary fashion. Several thousand people were shot or hanged in a few short weeks and many families had their property confiscated. The breakdown of normal commerce with the surrounding countryside brought not only food shortages but also a lack of firewood. In the middle of the Baltic winter, this added hugely to the hardships of ordinary people and the unpopularity of the Bolshevik regime.

By the end of January 1919, a small segment of Latvia on the Estonian border was under the control of Estonian forces, and Liepāja and much of the western coastal area remained under Latvian nationalist control; the rest of the country had fallen to the Bolsheviks. At the end of the month, the Bolsheviks attacked the isolated port of Ventspils, or Windau, in northern Courland. The Baltic German garrison of about 100 men beat off the first attack but realised that it was too small to put up prolonged resistance and entered into negotiations with the besieging Bolsheviks. In exchange for a guarantee of safe passage, the Germans laid down their arms; with the exception of two badly wounded men, the garrison was locked in a barn and then massacred. However, a general drive by the Bolsheviks to destroy the rest of the nationalist remnants along the Baltic coast failed to develop. Many of the soldiers of the Red Latvian Rifles had deserted to return to their homes, and Soviet supply lines were unable to support both the Latvian and Estonian offensives at the same time. Nevertheless, in the small enclave around Liepāja, there were fears that the German units in the area, disillusioned and war-weary like their comrades elsewhere, might desert, and there was considerable pro-Bolshevik feeling in the town itself. Three garrison battalions had been raised to prevent an uprising, but two were effectively under the control of their soldiers’ councils rather than the garrison commander. The pro-German community was hugely relieved when Generalmajor Rüdiger von der Goltz was sent to take command of the German elements, collectively organised as VI Reserve Corps.

After his successes in Finland, Goltz had been posted to Silesia, where he experienced first hand the breakdown in order and discipline in the German Army:

When he wanted to dismiss a battalion commander who was completely under the control of his men, General von Kessel was arrested and only released after several hours. Every attempt to establish order there, or to discharge surplus, troublesome men, came up against strong resistance. They no longer recognised the external foe, who threatened the Homeland, only the internal foe, who wished to restore the State’s authority there.⁴⁷¹

Goltz now took command of what remained of the German Eighth Army, reduced to the forces grouped around Liepāja. He arrived in the port by train from East Prussia on 1 February 1919. One day later, Major Alfred Fletcher, a German artillery officer whose ancestors hailed from Scotland, arrived to take command of the Landeswehr.

In his memoirs, written less than two years later, Goltz’s disdain for the Latvian government is clear, as are his own prejudices:

The Latvian government that had been established in Riga in November 1918 was strongly anti-German, [and] had many members who preferred the Bolsheviks to the Germans, but at first out of fear for their own lives and their ministerial posts appeared fairly subdued. Many of the important personalities were outspokenly slavish, fawning and friendly to your face, for example when they needed me, [but] deceitful, false, and always ready to defraud my staff and me and to do the opposite of what they had agreed to do.⁴⁷²

However, he also showed some insight into the poor relationship between Latvians and Germans, as he recorded in his diary:

Mishandling of the Latvians during four years of occupation, the cruelty of the revolutionised hordes of the Eighth Army, the ongoing plundering by [Freikorps] volunteers who wish to make themselves comfortable here, and centuries of old hatred against the Balts has resulted in groups who are allegedly not Bolshevik, but who look upon the Bolsheviks more favourably than upon the Germans.⁴⁷³

Goltz concluded that he was facing four enemies: the Bolsheviks; the soldiers’ council in Liepāja; the anti-German government of Latvia; and the Entente Powers. He decided that it would be best to deal with them one at a time. Two days after arriving in Latvia, he had a meeting with the soldiers’ council. The council had played a part in the dismissal of his predecessor, but Goltz made clear his intention to proceed how he saw fit, and to fight any who attempted to obstruct him. According to his own account, his forceful manner played a major part in bringing matters under control; it is likely that the ever-present threat of a renewed Bolshevik attack was also an important factor in concentrating the minds of the leaders of the council.⁴⁷⁴ There continued to be friction between Goltz and the council and between both parties and the local police, but Goltz gradually achieved control. In the meantime, Major Fletcher mounted a surprise night attack on the town of Kuldīga, or Goldingen, and retook it. His men then held the town in the face of several Bolshevik counterattacks. Although the victory was a minor one, it was an important psychological boost for the Germans and Latvians in their little enclave. For the Baltic Germans, from whose families the Baltische Landeswehr was recruited, this first victory was particularly welcome.

By the second week of February, reinforcements were arriving in a steady stream from Germany, as volunteers swelled the ranks of the Freikorps. Bischoff’s Iron Brigade was expanded into an Iron Division, and elements of the 1st Guards Reserve Division – a new Freikorps formation, based on the original division of the same name that had served in the war – began to disembark in Liepāja. This was a powerful additional asset for Goltz, numbering about 5,000 men, and consisted of an infantry brigade, a cavalry regiment, an artillery regiment, and even its own combat aircraft. Using a combination of his Landeswehr and the newly arrived reinforcements, Fletcher advanced to Ventspils at the end of February and retook the town after a brisk fight. Lacking warships, Goltz nevertheless arranged naval support in the form of merchant ships with field guns deployed on their decks.⁴⁷⁵ An Estonian warship arrived shortly after the recapture of Ventspils, too late to take part in the fighting; however, it was clear to both the Estonians and the Latvians that they had common interests, and the two countries entered into a mutual assistance agreement. Colonel Jorģis Zemitāns took command of Latvian troops raised in Estonia, forming them into the North Latvian Brigade.

During this operation, Goltz was in Skrunda, or Schrunden, and took advantage of the opportunity to visit a Latvian battalion in the town, personally led by Oskars Kalpaks, the commander of the fledgling Latvian army. He was favourably impressed by the rank and file, whose attitude and demeanour more than compensated for their lack of combat experience. As ever, his comments give insight into his own views:

Well-built, straight-backed, from mainly from the upper and lower middle classes, filled with pride and self-confidence, they were ready to risk life and well-being for their Fatherland … one saw grey-haired men and half-grown youths doing their duty side by side. There was a self-imposed, voluntary discipline … which can only exist in a people with minimal party and class differences, with a longstanding love of their country.⁴⁷⁶

At almost the same moment, Heinrich von Stryk returned from his mission to Sweden aboard the freighter Runeborg. He was accompanied by both German and Swedish officers, and documents in the possession of the Swedish Lieutenant-Colonel Eklund were confiscated by the Latvian authorities. Examination of these documents revealed details of a proposal to move some or all of the Baltische Landeswehr to Sweden where it would be re-equipped and enlarged prior to returning to Latvia, reinforced by Swedish volunteers, in order to establish a pro-German state incorporating Latvia and Estonia.

Goltz later recorded that he had been warned about Stryk’s unrealistic views but knew nothing about Stryk’s plans prior to being told about them by Stryk himself, shortly after the incriminating documents had been seized. He then learned that a company of Baltic Germans intended to return to Liepāja to prevent any arrest of Stryk and his fellow conspirators. Goltz recorded that he told his informer, ‘a prominent, formerly reserved and careful personage’, that this company of Baltic Germans would not be able to prevail against the Latvians in Liepāja, and that the proposed pro-German state would never receive the approval of the Entente Powers, nor indeed the support of the current German government, which would in all likelihood withdraw all German troops from the area.⁴⁷⁷

As rumours and messages crossed the town, Goltz issued orders that troops could return to Liepāja from the front only with his express permission. He also placed a detachment from 1st Guards Division on standby and issued an arrest warrant for Stryk. He then offered a German guard to the Latvian government; given the suspicions that must have been circulating, it was hardly surprising that Ulmanis rejected this offer, though Goltz expressed irritation that his gesture had been spurned. Stryk was placed under arrest, but Hans von Manteuffel – a leading member of the Baltic German community who could trace his ancestry back to the Livonian Knights – used his Landeswehr unit to ‘liberate’ him from prison.⁴⁷⁸

After the success at Ventspils, Goltz felt ready to advance on a broader front. The newly arrived 1st Guards Reserve Division began to deploy to the south of the Iron Division on 28 February with orders to push forward towards Šiauliai (Schaulen) in Lithuania; this would secure the southern flank of the operation. The Iron Division, now concentrated on a narrower front, would advance directly towards Jelgava, while the Landeswehr, with a single battalion of Latvian soldiers on its southern flank, would attack towards Tukums, and from there would turn south towards Jelgava, cutting the Jelgava–Riga road to prevent the Bolsheviks from retreating. The operation was divided into three phases, Tauwetter (‘Thaw’), Eisgang (‘Ice melt’) and Frühlingswind (‘Spring wind’). At first there was concern that the operation might be hindered by the imminent warmer weather, which normally brought muddy conditions that made many roads almost unusable. This year, however, there had been little snow, so there was correspondingly little melt water to hinder movement.

The assault began on 3 March. Wherever possible, the German advance avoided frontal attacks against strongpoints, preferring to bypass them. A serious mishap occurred on 6 March when the Latvian battalion of the Landeswehr was involved in a ‘friendly fire’ incident with a German unit. There were casualties on both sides, but the most notable was the death of Oskars Kalpaks, the Latvian commander. In some parts of the battlefield, the conduct of the Freikorps and Landeswehr on the battlefield strained relations with the Latvians. The nationalist government was keen to recruit disillusioned members of the Red Latvian Rifles into its new army, but in most cases, the Freikorps and Landeswehr simply shot any prisoners who fell into their hands.⁴⁷⁹

The extreme right flank of the 1st Guards Division reached Papile on 8 March, achieving the objectives of Tauwetter. Within two days, two companies of the 2nd Guards Reserve Regiment reached and captured Šiauliai, supported by an armoured train. The next day, the Iron Division took Auce (Autz), opening the way for an advance directly towards Jelgava. Farther north, the Landeswehr made steady progress, reaching Tukums on 15 March. Resistance, weak at first, grew steadily stronger as the advance proceeded. The final phase of the operation, Frühlingswind, involved an advance on Jelgava simultaneously from the south, west and north, with the intention of encircling the Bolshevik forces fighting to the west of Jelgava before they could retreat into the town. Fletcher’s Landeswehr moved to cut the road to Riga to prevent any escape in that direction, but heavy resistance along the River Aa at Kalnciems (Kalnzem) stopped the Baltic Germans in their tracks. Nevertheless, other elements of the Landeswehr reached Jelgava from the west on 18 March and seized the town.

As the regional capital, Jelgava had seen much activity by the Bolshevik authorities. About 70 of its citizens, mainly clergy, teachers and landowners, had been executed. Others were rounded up and forced to accompany the retreating Bolshevik forces towards Riga.⁴⁸⁰ Goltz interpreted these events as further proof of the unacceptability of Bolshevism, particularly their arbitrary nature. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Jelgava, the arrival of the Germans unleashed a new wave of executions. About 500 Latvians were killed without trial as Bolshevik sympathisers, and a further 200 were killed in Tukums.⁴⁸¹ Goltz’s memoirs make no mention of these deaths.

With almost all of Courland in German hands, the advance came to a halt. Soviet counterattacks occurred at several points and even succeeded in temporarily recapturing Tukums. The garrison in Jelgava too came under pressure, but was able to hold out until reinforcements arrived to stabilise the situation.

Goltz’s VI Reserve Corps was, nominally at least, under the command of the German Armee Oberkommando Nord (AOK Nord, or Army High Command North), which now ordered him to stop, declaring that the objectives assigned to the corps had been achieved. Goltz regarded his operations as essential to prevent an ultimate Bolshevik advance into East Prussia and felt that the liberation of Courland should help restore pride and self-confidence in Germany in general and the army in particular. He was therefore disappointed by the belittling of his achievements in the German press, and that he was regarded in some circles as little more than an adventurer. He blamed several agencies for this. The soldiers’ council, he believed, feared a decline in its influence if there were military successes and was in regular contact with socialist groups in Berlin, including the press. The Latvians and their nationalist government under Ulmanis showed no gratitude for the deeds of German soldiers, dismissing them – with considerable justification –as merely replacing Bolshevik domination with German domination. Goltz had little time for Latvian aspirations of independence; without German support, he felt, neither Latvia nor Estonia had any realistic prospect of holding out against Russia. He believed that the British encouragement of Ulmanis raised expectations unreasonably; the British would not risk the lives of their soldiers to preserve the independence of the Baltic States, and consequently Latvia and Estonia ultimately would have to choose between Russia and Germany.⁴⁸² Relations between Goltz and the Ulmanis government, already strained by the Stryk affair, grew steadily worse. The German general’s protestations that there was a difference between Germany as an occupying power, as had been the case during the First World War, and her current role as an ‘aiding power’ fell on deaf ears. The growing friendliness between Ulmanis and representatives of the British government probably did not please Goltz either.

Another source of friction was the new Latvian army. The agreements of December between Ulmanis and Winnig had called for the creation of 18 Latvian infantry companies, but fewer than half of these had been created by mid-March 1919. The Latvians accused the Germans of blocking their attempts to acquire sufficient weaponry, and made progress only when they were given several thousand rifles by the British, while Goltz maintained that the number of Latvians volunteering for service was low, and any attempt to enforce conscription was tantamount to arming Bolshevik sympathisers – somewhat at odds with his previous comments about the Latvian troops he had met during the winter.⁴⁸³ He attempted to stop the British-supplied weapons from being unloaded, claiming that they would find their way into the hands of those who would mount a pro-Bolshevik rising.⁴⁸⁴ It was, of course, of great advantage to Goltz for the Latvians to remain almost entirely dependent upon German and Baltic German military power.

Goltz also resented the demands of the Latvian government, supported by the British, for control over the civilian police. When the area free from Bolshevik occupation was relatively small, with the ever-present threat of a further Soviet attack, it had made perfect sense for the entire area to be under military control but now, with nearly half of Latvia liberated, Ulmanis’ government demanded that it take over the police, particularly in Liepāja. Once more, Goltz refused to cooperate. Relations with the British and French authorities in Liepāja plummeted to new lows. Aware that German Freikorps reinforcements continued to arrive in Latvia, the British imposed a partial naval blockade. This had only a limited result, as Goltz’s gains in Latvia and northern Lithuania had opened the rail link to East Prussia. Nevertheless, it added to Goltz’s growing sense of grievance.

The civilian government and the British were not the only parties growing increasingly hostile to Goltz. He stirred up further antagonism from the Liepāja garrison soldiers’ council when he placed the three garrison battalions under the command of Major Götze, a tough disciplinarian. When the soldiers’ council tried to interfere with Götze’s orders, the major had several men placed under arrest. Anticipating trouble, Goltz ordered a detachment of reliable soldiers to return to Liepāja from the front line, and when the soldiers’ council tried to enforce its will Goltz was able to face down its mutinous members. He then used the affair to justify the dissolution of the soldiers’ council, thus removing one of his perceived enemies. It is not clear whether he deliberately provoked this showdown, or whether he simply took advantage of events.

With the front line relatively quiet, the German command established a series of troop rotations to allow units to be withdrawn to the rear area for rest and replenishment. One such rotation involved the replacement of the German unit that Goltz had used to overcome the soldiers’ council by a Landeswehr unit. According to Goltz, Major Fletcher suggested that Hans von Manteuffel’s Stosstrupp (‘shock troop’) should move to Liepāja. These troops were therefore close to the centre of matters when constitutional issues were discussed on 15 April. A proposal – suggested by the Americans, in Goltz’s account – was put forward that would allow the Baltic Germans autonomy within the new Latvian state, though all legal matters would remain within the jurisdiction of the central government. Although this was less than Goltz and his Baltic German allies wanted, he later recorded that he would have found this an acceptable compromise, but the Latvian government refused to accept it. The following day Ulmanis met Goltz and complained about trouble caused by a newly arrived Freikorps unit commanded by Hauptmann von Pfeffer. Goltz replied that he had heard rumours of a pro-Bolshevik rebellion being planned by Latvian dockers for 17 April, and that he therefore needed additional troops in Liepāja to prevent this, hence the prolonged stay of Pfeffer’s unit in the town. The meeting ended with angry exchanges.

It transpired that the problems with the Freikorps unit were due to the arrest of a German officer by the Latvian authorities. The officer was freed by Pfeffer’s men, who then went on to disarm several hundred Latvian soldiers on the grounds that two of their own number were missing, presumed either to be in Latvian custody or to have been killed. While Goltz was investigating the matter, he learned that Manteuffel’s Stosstrupp was deploying near the shore. Further enquiries revealed that the Landeswehr unit had moved against Ulmanis’ government and had attempted to arrest officials, an act made easier by the disarming of Latvian troops by Pfeffer’s men. Goltz maintained that these events were unconnected and that Manteuffel’s attempt to arrest the nationalist government was not preceded by any detailed planning. In any event, Ulmanis and the majority of his ministers escaped; Ulmanis himself sought refuge aboard the steamer Saratov, which had brought British arms to Liepāja for the new Latvian army. The presence of ships and personnel from the British naval squadron in the Baltic prevented Manteuffel’s men from pursuing Ulmanis and his ministers.

Ulmanis attempted to write to Goltz but the latter refused to intervene, claiming that his task was to keep order throughout the area of military control, and the exact nature of the Latvian government was no concern of his. As unrest spread through the countryside, spilling over into exchanges of fire between German and Latvian troops, Goltz felt it necessary on 24 April to issue a proclamation confirming that he remained the sole military authority and that he would not tolerate any unrest.⁴⁸⁵ As he admitted in his memoirs, it could be argued that this was not consistent with his failure to order Manteuffel’s Stosstrupp to release the government officials that it had arrested. His justification that the overriding imperative was to prevent civil war and a Bolshevik victory seems unconvincing. However, Manteuffel was removed from his command, and when the Stosstrupp threatened to restore him to his post by force, Goltz made clear his intention to enforce his order regarding discipline, if necessary by ordering German troops to fire on the Stosstrupp, and the dangerous moment passed.

There are other accounts of the coup, suggesting that the disarming of Latvian troops by Pfeffer’s Freikorps unit on the same day as Manteuffel’s move against the Ulmanis government was not a coincidence, and that Goltz’s dismissal of the soldiers’ council was a prelude to the coup, as it removed an agency that had in the past sided with the Ulmanis government against Goltz.⁴⁸⁶ Given that the overwhelming balance of military power in Latvia lay with Goltz and the close relationship between senior members of the Landeswehr and the German commander, it seems inconceivable that the Baltic Germans would have made any move without knowing where he stood. On 25 April, the Entente Powers demanded the restoration of the Ulmanis government and Goltz met senior members of the Baltic German community. He wrote that he advised them that ‘a new administration must be established by midday the following day, or the entire Baltic game is over’.⁴⁸⁷ This does not sound like the statement of a man trying to stay neutral in political matters.

The following morning, the Baltic Germans met once more with Goltz. They advised him that they had formed a new government, including a number of Latvian ministers. The new head of the government was to be Andrievs Niedra, a Lutheran pastor from Riga. Before becoming a pastor he had enjoyed some success as a poet, and had written extensively on the subject of the relationship between the Baltic Germans and ordinary Latvians. He was strongly opposed to socialism and revolution, arguing that progress could come only through gradual evolution. It was these features that made him an attractive candidate to Goltz and the Baltic Germans. He and the other Latvian members of the new government were, in Goltz’s opinion, ‘great patriots, who placed love of country above [love of political] party’.⁴⁸⁸ Needless to say, there were many in the Latvian community who had a different opinion of Niedra. In mid-May a group of Latvian officers attempted to arrest him, but he escaped and returned to Liepāja five days later. Jānis Balodis, who had replaced Kalpaks as commander of the Latvian army, was offered the role of defence minister in the new government but he refused, saying that his allegiance to Ulmanis remained unchanged. However, in the interests of the war against the Russians, he would continue to cooperate with Goltz and the Baltic Germans.

For the Entente Powers this coup was a deeply unwelcome development, but they knew as well as Goltz that there was little they could do. Goltz countered their demands for restoration of the Ulmanis government by threatening to withdraw all his men from Latvia, which would have resulted in a swift victory for the Russians. The German forces in Latvia were effectively the only means of preventing a Bolshevik takeover, especially as Goltz continued to place obstacles in the path of any attempt to increase the size of the Latvian forces. As was the case in relations between the Western Powers and Estonia, a further complication was that Britain and France actively supported the White Russian cause – and the White Russians had as their goal the complete restoration of the Russian Empire, with no room for independent Baltic States.

Shortly after Niedra took power, Gustav Noske – the German defence minister – visited Liepāja. He expressed the opinion that the new Niedra government was unlikely to prove successful as it did not enjoy the support of the majority of the population. In Goltz’s opinion, the same was true of the Ulmanis government, but he was unable to persuade Noske of this. A few days later Goltz travelled to Berlin for further discussions with government officials. He was relieved to learn that the German government had no intention of giving in to demands from the Entente Powers for his removal. When it came to consideration of an evacuation of German troops from Latvia, Goltz responded that many men had volunteered in the expectation of being allowed to settle in Latvia; even if this was undeliverable, he argued, it would be worth allowing troops to remain in Latvia in Latvian service as a means of protecting East Prussia from possible Bolshevik attack.

There were also discussions about Riga, which remained in Soviet hands. The main difficulty was not the Bolshevik defence; rather, there were fears about the reaction of the Western Powers, particularly as the peace negotiations at Versailles had not yet been completed. Goltz declared that the best way to proceed was with an attack on the city by the Landeswehr. As this force was composed of Baltic Germans from Latvia, such an attack could be regarded as an internal Latvian matter. Goltz also learned that the Estonians planned to attack south into Latvia, and thus the prospect arose of catching the Soviet forces between two pincers, or at least preventing them from concentrating their forces. The discussions went on to speculate whether, with modest reinforcements, it would then be possible to mount a successful attack towards Petrograd, with a view to overthrowing the Bolshevik regime.⁴⁸⁹ This must have been music to the ears of the passionately anti-Bolshevik Goltz; however, shortly afterwards he learned that, far from receiving reinforcements, he was ordered to release the 1st Guards Reserve Division, which would be redeployed within Germany.

This version of events is based upon Goltz’s own recollections, and there is little by way of corroborative evidence, particularly regarding the discussion about pushing on to Petrograd. Many in the German government regarded Goltz as a dangerous reactionary, just as he regarded them as suspiciously left wing. It is therefore quite possible that the discussions with Goltz did not cover these topics, or at least not in this manner. However, minutes of a cabinet meeting suggest that the foreign minister, Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, was of the opinion that a strong anti-Bolshevik stance by Germany might help in the Versailles negotiations; it seems that he did not persuade many of his fellow ministers.⁴⁹⁰ When it came to the possible advance on Petrograd, Goltz recorded that this arose during a discussion with ‘a senior person in the Foreign Ministry’ – but does not name the person concerned.⁴⁹¹

When he returned to Latvia, Goltz was briefed by his staff. A signal intercept suggested that a large group of prisoners being held by the Red Army were in a camp to the south of Riga, in an area within striking distance of the 1st Guards Reserve Division. The planned attack to recapture the Latvian capital was modified to allow the Freikorps division to move towards the camp before it returned to Germany. The overall plan of attack was the same as the original German assault of 1917: the main thrust would be east from Jelgava to the Daugava valley, before turning north to attack Riga from the south and southeast. Although this was portrayed as a Landeswehr operation, the Iron Division was ordered to ensure that it remained in contact with the Landeswehr, and would thus provide considerable support.

The attack began on 22 May. The Red Army had feared an attack earlier in the year immediately after the German attack that recaptured Jelgava, but the intervening weeks of calm had reduced their alertness. Goltz had his staff officers distribute instructions for the attack in person to reduce the risk of alerting the Russians by increasing signals traffic. From their start line, which was quite close to Riga, the Landeswehr made rapid progress. The swampy front-line area was cleared in a dawn attack by Walter Eberhard von Medem’s battalion, which penetrated nearly 18 miles (30km) in its first attack. Without pausing for breath, Medem pushed on into Riga, making the very most of the element of surprise, and reached the Daugava bridge towards midday. With two light field guns and four machine-guns, Medem galloped over the bridge, securing a bridgehead on the east bank. From there, accompanied by Manteuffel and his Stosstrupp, Medem moved towards the citadel and the main city prison. As they approached they came under fire, and the 25-year-old Hans von Manteuffel was killed. He was one of only a handful of Landeswehr casualties during the entire day. Although Medem was able to seize the prison and a nearby convent that had been used to hold female prisoners, he was too late to save many of those who had originally been held in the prison camp south of Riga. Some of these men, who had been brought to Riga over the last few days, had already been executed.⁴⁹²

South of the city, the fighting was more intense. The Iron Division found itself confronted by a Soviet armoured train, which it succeeded in driving off. At the southern end of the advance, near Bauska, to the southeast of Jelgava, Major Graf Yorck’s battalion of the 1st Guards Reserve Division came under heavy attack. Fighting lasted all day, but, despite growing short of ammunition, Yorck’s men held on. Towards dusk, the Red Army pulled back beyond the Daugava. Yorck’s battalion suffered the greatest losses of the entire operation, but official accounts of the battle, as reported in newspapers in the days that followed, attempted to emphasise that the assault had been carried out almost exclusively by the Landeswehr. Many Freikorps soldiers were angry that their own deeds and losses had been overlooked for political reasons, and Goltz marked this moment as the beginning of the decline in morale of the Freikorps.⁴⁹³

Another of the casualties in the fighting around Riga was Anatol von Lieven, who had created a small White Russian unit to fight alongside the Landeswehr. He was badly wounded, and taken to Jelgava. Amongst his command were elements commanded by Pavel Bermont-Avalov, who would later play an important role in Latvia’s struggle for independence. Yudenich, the White Russian commander in the region, ordered Lieven and his men to move to Narva, in Estonia, to take part in the planned White Russian attack towards Petrograd. Lieven was against this move, preferring to remain in Latvia; he hoped that in conjunction with Goltz and the Landeswehr, he would be able to strike east into Russia and cut the Moscow-Petrograd railway line, and thus facilitate the advance against Petrograd, but eventually agreed to obey Yudenich’s orders, albeit reluctantly. Bermont-Avalov refused to move his men to Narva, claiming they weren’t ready for such an operation. Consequently, when Lieven and the rest of the contingent moved north, Bermont-Avalov and his men were left behind.

Much of the population of Riga was starving, so many greeted the arrival of the Baltic Germans and their allies with genuine relief. Also, the Bolshevik occupation of Riga had been marked by a wave of arrests and executions, colloquially known to the population as the ‘Red Terror’. The arrival of the Landeswehr resulted in a new wave of executions, which were named the ‘White Terror’.⁴⁹⁴ As had been the case in Jelgava, anyone suspected of being a Bolshevik, or even of having sympathised with them, was liable to arrest, imprisonment, or worse. The French envoy recorded that dozens of prisoners were executed every day in the main prison, having been forced to dig their own graves first.⁴⁹⁵ As was the case with Jelgava, Goltz condemned the excesses of the Bolshevik regime, but was silent about the executions that followed the city’s ‘liberation’. The Latvian brigade under Jānis Balodis took part in the attack towards Riga but played no part in the actual recapture of the city; whether this was purely due to operational reasons, or whether Goltz wished to ensure that the recapture was an entirely Baltic German affair, is impossible to say with any certainty. After the battle Balodis’ troops moved through Riga and were deployed to the east of the city. When he became aware of the widespread killings of suspected Bolsheviks, Balodis protested both to Goltz and to the representatives of the Entente Powers. Perhaps as a result of his protests, the ‘White Terror’ then died down.⁴⁹⁶

Orders now arrived from Germany, setting a strict limit on how far German and Baltic German forces were to advance. Furthermore, Goltz was ordered to remain outside Riga. The senior officer in Riga was the commander of the Baltische Landeswehr, Major Fletcher, and he now had to take on all dealings with Latvian civilian authorities and the Entente Powers. Meanwhile, the Estonian 3rd Division, supported by the North Latvian Brigade – raised mainly from Latvians who had fled the Bolsheviks into Estonia, and former members of the Red Latvian Rifles – crossed the border on 24 May and drove the Bolsheviks back on a broad front. On 28 May, a cavalry unit from Balodis’ Latvian brigade deployed to the east of Riga, made contact with the advancing Estonians and Latvians and placed itself under the command of the North Latvian Brigade. For the Germans and the Landeswehr, this was a most unwelcome development. They were aware that the Estonians continued to regard the Ulmanis government, still protected by the Royal Navy aboard the steamer Saratov, as the legitimate government of Latvia.

Goltz was acutely conscious of the mutual mistrust between Berlin and himself and wished to press on with his plans while he still had the ability to do so. He therefore encouraged the Landeswehr to start advancing northeast, and on 29 May Fletcher ordered his men to move out. It was a development of huge significance. Much of eastern Latvia was still under Russian occupation, and if the Landeswehr had moved east, with or without German support, it could have claimed to be continuing its anti-Bolshevik liberation of Latvia. An advance to the northeast could only be directed against Estonia. Perhaps to quieten any objections, Fletcher told his men, particularly new recruits who had joined the Landeswehr in Riga, that the Estonians and Latvians in northeast Latvia were pro-Bolshevik forces.

Fletcher deployed his forces in four columns. One was sent down the Daugava valley, towards Jēkabpils (Jakobstadt), while the other three headed northeast. Of these, the leading Landeswehr unit, composed of Medem’s battalion, encountered the advancing Estonian forces near Cēsis, or Wenden, which had been liberated by the Estonians on 2 June. At first communication between the two sides appeared cordial, and Jorģis Zemitāns, commander of the North Latvian Brigade, invited the Landeswehr to move east against the Bolsheviks. The Niedra administration, on behalf of the Landeswehr, asked the Estonians to withdraw to the linguistic border between the two countries. For the Estonians, this was unacceptable: with their troops operating against Russian forces in the Pskov area, such a withdrawal would leave a potential hostile force almost astride their supply lines, and in any event the Estonian government did not recognise Niedra’s authority. The following day, a small Landeswehr unit moved into Cēsis, but left when asked to do so. As it became clear that the Landeswehr had no intention of moving east to face Russia, Laidoner, the Estonian commander-in-chief, sent a telegram to the Baltic Germans on 4 June, effectively ordering them to withdraw beyond a small river to the southwest of Cēsis. In the absence of such a withdrawal, the Estonians would assume that hostilities had started. No reply was received.

On 5 June two Estonian armoured trains moved forward from Cēsis towards Ieriķi as part of an operation to secure the line of the River Gauja. A message arrived that a Landeswehr delegation was on its way from Riga but Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Reek, chief of staff of the Estonian 2nd Division and commander of this expedition, decided that he would receive the delegation only if Estonian demands for a Baltic German withdrawal had been met. As the first Estonian armoured train approached a bridge midway between the two towns, it slowed while a team checked that the bridge was safe to cross. At this stage, the train came under fire from a group of Baltic German infantry in nearby woodland. There was an exchange of shots with casualties on both sides before the train withdrew back to Cēsis. The Estonians claimed that it was the Germans who started the shooting; the Germans responded that Laidoner’s telegram made it clear that a German refusal to withdraw would be regarded as the commencement of hostilities. It appears that neither side was particularly inclined to avoid a confrontation.

The Estonian-Latvian force in Cēsis consisted of an Estonian regiment, two Latvian artillery batteries, and the two armoured trains, a total of about 1,600 men. The Landeswehr attacked the town on 6 June with three infantry battalions supported by two cavalry squadrons and four artillery pieces, and fighting raged all day. In mid-afternoon the Estonian commander ordered a withdrawal to the north, and the town’s garrison withdrew in some disorder. The following day, reinforced by a further regiment of Estonian infantry, the force advanced back towards Cēsis. A formal assault by two infantry battalions, supported by the armoured car Estonia – the Estonian Army had so few armoured cars that they all had individual names – and the armoured trains, as well as artillery batteries, began on 8 June against Landeswehr positions immediately to the north of Cēsis. The Baltic Germans had destroyed a small railway bridge, preventing the trains from supporting the attack effectively, and poor coordination prevented the Estonians from bringing all their available forces to bear. During the afternoon the Landeswehr counterattacked and the Estonians were driven off. However, their casualties were relatively light, suggesting that their attacks may have been little more than a probing advance.

The following day, the Landeswehr advanced farther and briefly seized a railway bridge over the Rauna, a small river to the northeast of Cēsis, effectively cutting off the two armoured trains. An Estonian counterattack succeeded in retaking the bridge, and the trains were able to withdraw behind the river. German attempts to cross the river continued all day and though a small bridgehead was secured, it was soon abandoned when it came under heavy Estonian artillery fire.

On 10 June the American Lieutenant Colonel Warwick Greene, a member of the Allied Military Commission in the Baltic, succeeded in getting both sides to accept a ceasefire. Greene was a relative newcomer to the Baltic region and appears to have been largely sympathetic to the German side, encouraging all forces to turn against the Bolsheviks, with Latvian units – including the North Latvian Brigade, which had been raised in Estonia – coming under the command of the Landeswehr and therefore acknowledging the Niedra government. Three days later General Hubert Gough, the British head of the Allied Commission, took over personally with a far less friendly attitude towards the Germans. He ordered that the Landeswehr withdraw to a point about midway between Cēsis and Riga. Goltz regarded this as unacceptable – he assumed that the Entente Powers would establish the Ulmanis government in northeast Latvia, from where it would be able to wage war against the Baltic Germans and the Niedra government. Nevertheless he continued to negotiate with Gough, but largely to win time. The Landeswehr could turn east, the Germans insisted, only if the Estonians withdrew to the linguistic border first.

Goltz felt that it would be impossible for him to support the Landeswehr openly, particularly as the Versailles negotiations were not yet complete:

On the other hand, the question was put to the commander of the Iron Division, Major Bischoff, if he was willing to transfer his volunteer troops to the service of the Niedra administration. The troops had enlisted for service in Latvia not merely to defend their Fatherland here against the Bolsheviks, but also to seek a new home for themselves here … but it was clear that this would only be possible if a government that was not hostile to Germans honoured Ulmanis’ promises, and that Ulmanis, the lackey of the Entente, would never do this. After discussion with their subordinate officers, Major Fletcher and also the commanders of a few other Freikorps units agreed.⁴⁹⁷

As has already been discussed, the issue of land and settlement rights for Freikorps veterans was a controversial matter and Ulmanis had not made any explicit promise to offer land to German soldiers. But the fundamental policy of Goltz and his Landeswehr allies had always been to ensure that the Baltic German aristocracy would continue to hold a pre-eminent position in Latvia, and such a position was unlikely to continue should Ulmanis be able to consolidate power. Therefore, all hinged on a Landeswehr victory; it was probable that the Baltic German aristocrats could be persuaded to offer land in Courland for German veterans who wished to settle in the area, and this was the only manner in which this particular promise was likely to be delivered.

And such a victory over Ulmanis was only the first step of Goltz’s master plan, which saw no future for independent Baltic nations:

‘Niedra or Ulmanis’ was not the question, rather a pro-German, autonomous Latvia in a modern and orderly Russia, or a vassal state dependent upon England, which could not hold out against Russia, where anarchistic Bolshevik ideals triumphed, and due to Bolshevik leanings in part of its population, there remained the danger of it once more becoming Bolshevik.⁴⁹⁸

Finally Gough sent a telegram to Goltz demanding amongst other things that the German troops should withdraw from the front line, that half of Goltz’s command should return to Germany, and that Ulmanis should be restored to power. Goltz responded by stating that he rejected Gough’s right to issue orders to him and that Gough’s demands would be forwarded to higher authorities who would respond via diplomatic channels. It was effectively the end of all prospects of a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

In the fighting that followed, a proportion of the German forces available played no part. Goltz recorded that he had intelligence of an imminent Russian attack along the Daugava valley towards Riga and consequently had to retain forces in reserve, including a proportion of the Iron Division deployed at Ogre. The Stosstrupp formerly commanded by Manteuffel, now renamed the 1st Regiment, was also absent; it was in Riga, heavily involved in the ongoing hunt for, and execution of, Bolshevik sympathisers. There was also concern in German circles that the combined Estonian and British control of the sea might allow for landings almost anywhere along the coast. Consequently, Goltz decided on an early assault on the main Estonian forces north of Cēsis in the hope of achieving a swift victory.

Aerial reconnaissance suggested that the area around Limbaži, a little to the west, was relatively clear of Estonian troops, and elements of the Iron Division were ordered to advance in this direction to secure the western flank of the German advance. The bulk of the division under Major von Kleist would attack a little farther east between Limbaži and Cēsis to take Stalbe. The Landeswehr would then advance in three groups from Cēsis. The Estonians decided that they would allow the Germans to attack them first, not least because it would allow them to portray the Germans as the aggressors. The bulk of the 6th Regiment was placed astride the road that the Iron Division would use, with the Latvians and the 3rd Regiment extending the front line to the east. The Estonian 9th Regiment would be deployed to the west.

On 19 June the Iron Division’s left flank guard under Hauptmann Blankenburg set out for Limbaži. It ran into Estonian forces near Vidriži, and took the town after desultory fighting. The following day Blankenburg was ordered to advance to Limbaži from where he was to turn east and push towards Valmeira. Confused fighting continued all afternoon, and in the early evening the Germans managed to infiltrate forward using the cover of a rye field and surprised the Estonians. Before they could exploit their success they in turn were surprised by an Estonian counterattack, which took advantage of another rye field to turn the German flank. An Estonian attempt to envelop the Germans then failed, but Blankenburg was killed in the fighting and his men withdrew to the south. On the same day, the Iron Division began to advance towards Straupe, and despite capturing the town was unable to advance farther. The following day, further advances were made in the face of determined resistance, but just as the Estonian lines started to look as if they might give way, two Estonian armoured cars – the Estonia and Toonela – supported by a company of infantry from one of the armoured trains, arrived and restored the front.

The Landeswehr attack north of Cēsis was intended to start once the Iron Division had broken through at Straupe. An erroneous aerial reconnaissance report suggested that this had been achieved, and the three columns set off.⁴⁹⁹ Fighting became generalised during the morning; in an echo of the First World War, German gunners used gas shells on Estonian artillery positions. A gap began to open between the Latvians on the extreme east wing and the Estonians to their west, and towards the end of the day the Landeswehr approached the town of Lode from both the south and east, while the Latvians were driven back through Starti. In heavy fighting, during which the Baltic German gunners once more used gas shells, the Estonians were driven back farther. An Estonian counterattack with the newly arrived Kuperjanov Battalion made little headway, as did a further Landeswehr attempt to exploit their modest successes. Late in the day, a small group of Estonian infantry mounted a raid to the outskirts of Cēsis, causing much alarm before they withdrew. The consequence of this raid was out of all proportion to the number of men involved. Fearful that the Estonians might infiltrate into Cēsis, the Germans moved a battalion of infantry from the Iron Division, one of their few reserve formations, into the town as a precaution. Late in the day, the Kuperjanov Battalion managed to recapture some ground, but despite this success, there remained a substantial gap in Estonian lines to the east.

On 22 June, the Estonian units nearest the coast began to move forward. The Iron Division formations facing them put up only sporadic resistance and by the end of the day the Estonians had reached Lēdurga, behind the flank of the Iron Division. Meanwhile, without the battalion that had been ordered to protect Cēsis, the Freikorps could make no progress. In the early evening, finally learning that the reserve battalion sent to Cēsis would not be joining him, the German commander made a last attack. Despite inflicting considerable casualties, he was unable to break through to Stalbe and aware that Estonian units in Lēdurga were now behind his flank, he issued orders for a withdrawal.

Farther east, the Estonians attempted to deal with the Landwehr salient to the east of Lode. At midday, the armoured car Vanapagan led a charge into the village of Starti. After a short, sharp fight, the Germans were driven back. Short of fuel, the armoured car stopped in the village, but the accompanying infantry advanced steadily south. At the same time, the Kuperjanov Battalion attacked Lode directly, completing the elimination of the salient. At the extreme eastern end of the battlefield, Böckelmann attacked the Estonians in the ruins of the old Livonian Order castle at Rauna for two hours before he was forced to give up the attempt.

It was effectively the end of the Landeswehr assault. The western flank was badly endangered by the Estonian outflanking move, and with Böckelmann’s column blocked and Malmede’s driven back, the main Cēsis position was in danger of being outflanked on both sides. Total Estonian and Latvian losses are estimated to be about 500 dead, wounded and missing. By the scale of the battles of the First World War and the fighting that was to come some two decades later, the Battle of Cēsis was a relatively small action, but it was a defining moment in the Latvian War of Independence. It effectively ended any lingering dreams of a pro-German state incorporating Latvia and Lithuania, thus preserving at least some of the gains of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Goltz identified a number of reasons for the German defeat. He was critical of the intelligence reports he received about the numbers and abilities of the Estonian troops, who he felt had not excelled themselves against the Bolsheviks (an odd assessment, given that they had successfully driven the Russians from Estonia), ‘but fought against the Baltic Germans and the Germans with passion, had been well-equipped and armed by the English, and were also well-led’.⁵⁰⁰ However, he went on to acknowledge failings in his own troops:

I alone know of four cases of catastrophic panic that forced the higher command to order a retreat. These are therefore signs that there was no longer a universal spirit of fighting for a cause, which gives an invincible will to win, and that there wasn’t a good enough spirit to compensate for lack of combat experience and training, and finally that the middle and lower officer ranks failed on several occasions.⁵⁰¹

He also noted that many of the officers in the Freikorps had extensive experience of trench warfare, but little experience of mobile operations. The relative ease of successes against the poorly trained Red Army probably masked such deficiencies. In some cases, it seems that many soldiers in the Iron Division were unhappy that they were fighting Estonians, not Bolsheviks. To an extent Goltz attempted to dismiss such arguments, on the grounds that the men were not fighting ‘for the barons, but for their own future against enemies of Germany and half-Bolsheviks’.⁵⁰² Whether the soldiers saw it this way is hard to assess. Goltz blamed some of the failure on Bischoff, feeling that the Iron Division commander had not assessed the mood of his men properly when the original plan to ‘loan’ the Iron Division to the Landeswehr was mooted. Unsurprisingly, Bischoff felt otherwise, saying that he had always been unhappy about the arrangement and had doubted its prospect of success.

On 23 June, the Iron Division was ordered to retake Lēdurga but made little effort to do so. The Estonians secured Straupe during the morning, at about the same time that reconnaissance troops cautiously entered Cēsis to find that the Landeswehr had withdrawn to the south, leaving considerable amounts of equipment behind in their haste. Between Cēsis and Riga were field positions that had been constructed earlier during the First World War, and the Germans withdrew into these positions. Lieutenant Colonel Reek was anxious to prevent the Germans from digging in, and ordered two of his regiments to attack. One regiment was held up, but the other pressed forward on its own. The Iron Division beat off the attack, but Bischoff decided on a further withdrawal. The following day, the Estonians attacked the Landeswehr, which had taken up positions around Inčukalns. Once more, they made little progress, but the Baltic Germans pulled back during the night.

In just a few days, the position of the Baltic Germans had worsened beyond recognition. With morale in the Iron Division collapsing, an attempt was made on 26 June to organise a truce, which the Estonians rejected. The Iron Division and Landeswehr withdrew farther to a line that took advantage of the Jugla, Ķīšezers and Baltezers lakes and the lower Gauja valley, immediately to the east of Riga. As reinforcements arrived, the modest numerical advantage the Estonians had enjoyed was eliminated, and the presence of the lakes allowed the Germans to concentrate their forces far better than before. The Estonians probed the defences on 28 June without success, and once more the Germans used gas shells. Two days later Estonian troops crossed the river near Carnikava but fled back in the face of a German counterattack. Finally, on 1 July, the Estonians managed to advance along the coast, turning the flank of the German positions.

Colonel du Parquet, a French member of the Allied Commission, started a series of journeys between the two sides to secure a truce, and the Estonians redoubled their efforts to achieve victory before hostilities came to an end. On 2 July they pressed forward, reaching the Daugava estuary. A truce came into effect on the morning of 3 July, though as Colonel Harold Alexander, one of the British officers present recorded, it was not easy to get all parties to agree:

The whole proceedings were very dramatic. We all sat round a table in a bare room with candles flickering in the draught. On our side, Tallents, tremendously alert and business-like; Victor Warrender of the Grenadiers, cool and correct; Harrison, our shorthand typist, rather journalistic; Colonel du Parquet, the Frenchman, obviously not understanding a word of the discussion in English, but looking frightfully formal and severe; Colonel Dawley, the American, making long-winded speeches entirely off the point, and getting rather snubbed by the Germans; the Estonian, frightfully suspicious and not at all anxious to sign an armistice but longing to get at the throat of the Germans.⁵⁰³

Under the terms of the truce, the Landeswehr would withdraw towards Tukums and the Freikorps to Jelgava. Latvian troops moved into Riga on 5 and 6 July. On 8 July, Saratov arrived in Riga, and Ulmanis was restored to power. The truce also required the Estonians to withdraw to their border. There had been some tension between Ulmanis and the Estonians in the past few days, and Ulmanis was not enthusiastic about an Estonian advance into Riga itself. The Freikorps was to withdraw back to Germany, but for the moment Goltz was able to postpone this, citing transport difficulties.⁵⁰⁴ However, he accepted the appointment of a British officer to take command of the Landeswehr. The person nominated was Colonel Alexander, who would ultimately rise to the rank of Field Marshal, with an illustrious service record in the Second World War. He took his new command east, and alongside troops from the Latvian and Polish armies, the Landeswehr played a prominent role in driving Bolshevik forces from the province of Latgale in eastern Latvia.

There had been looting and plundering by the Freikorps since the advance across Courland, but these now worsened with the added demoralisation of defeat. Attempts to restore order via courts martial were only partially successful, mainly within formations that had high-calibre officers. A large part of the blame for this, Goltz, asserted, was the revolution that had swept through Germany, destroying traditional loyalty and discipline. The left-wing press, he wrote, had little interest in reporting the true facts, and merely encouraged the disorder.⁵⁰⁵

With the Landeswehr effectively removed from the scene, Goltz desperately sought new allies. He found one in the unlikely form of Pavel Bermont-Avalov. Born in Georgia in 1877, he served as a musical director in a Cossack regiment before serving in a lancer regiment in the First World War. He was an uncompromising royalist and started to recruit like-minded officers into a new body after the fall of the tsar. After refusing to accompany Lieven north to join Yudenich, he enlarged his forces by incorporating Russians formerly held as prisoners of war by the Germans. The small army acquired an unpleasant reputation for indiscipline, something that Goltz blamed upon leftists who he alleged were trying to discredit Bermont-Avalov.⁵⁰⁶ The Russian’s mistrust of the British was another factor in raising him in Goltz’s esteem. In any event, the existence of this body of troops seemed to offer one last opportunity for Goltz to achieve his goals for the Baltic:

As the German soldiers did not wish to return to their Homeland, but were unable to remain as settlers and had not prevailed against the unfriendly Ulmanis regime by force, the only option for them was to go into Russian service.⁵⁰⁷

Goltz fantasised about a Russian-German drive into Belarus, while at the same time other White Russian forces – Admiral Kolchak in Siberia, and General Denikin in the Ukraine – also advanced into Russia, bringing about the longed-for fall of the Bolshevik government. The threat of a renewal of the Anglo-French blockade of Germany, Goltz speculated, could be sidestepped through the capture of resources in Belarus. Whilst such notions are easily dismissed as mere dreams, they gained some currency amongst the circles of German army officers who felt that they had been betrayed at the end of the First World War and still held out hope for restoration of German pre-eminence in Europe, perhaps as a result of an alliance with a post-Bolshevik Russia. Regardless of the extreme dreams of this fringe, there were others within the German government who were reluctant to see a German withdrawal from the Baltic States. Goltz was therefore given a fairly free hand to prevaricate about a German withdrawal from Latvia. He provided detailed calculations to Gough and the Allied Commission, showing how it would take a minimum of 70 days for a complete evacuation. The Commission grudgingly accepted these delays, which Goltz put to good use trying to secure financial and political support for the transfer of German troops to the Bermont-Avalov force.

In late July, Goltz summoned all German officers from battalion commanders upwards to a conference. He explained to them his reasoning that the only circumstances in which they or their men could remain in Latvia was as part of Bermont-Avalov’s corps. He also outlined the difficulties posed by such a plan: the Entente Powers would probably attempt to prevent it, but most important of all, the financial basis for the proposal was not yet established. There was a shortage of winter clothing, making an autumn attack against Russia difficult, if not impossible. He asked his officers to determine how many troops would be willing to stay on in Latvia in such circumstances, even in the absence of adequate financial support. Many men, particularly those with families, chose to return home. However, many others chose to stay, and the remnants were consolidated into fewer formations; as a result, the overall mood and fighting spirit of those who stayed in Latvia was considerably enhanced. Meanwhile, Goltz recorded, he considered the circumstances facing the new Russian-German project. It would be doomed to failure if the Baltic States were hostile to it; therefore, it was particularly important to ensure a friendly regime, particularly in Latvia and Lithuania, before an advance into Russia could be considered. It is arguable that this had always been his primary intention, and that the Russian adventure was little more than an excuse.⁵⁰⁸

Gough and the Entente Commission began to run out of patience. On 2 August Gough informed Goltz that the Commission required the Germans to accelerate their evacuation plans and complete them within 18 days. Goltz stubbornly insisted that this was physically impossible, given the shortage of rolling stock on the railways. Weeks passed with more meetings and discussions. Goltz travelled back to Germany to meet senior government officials, including President Friedrich Ebert. He was advised that the German government would not take action against any Germans who chose to remain in Latvia, as this was a private decision of the individuals concerned. The government also agreed, at least until October, to finance the Bermont-Avalov army – in other words, Germany accepted that German troops would remain in Latvia under the Bermontian flag of convenience, and Germany would continue to pay for them. It was further suggested that, should it become financially impossible for the troops to remain in Latvia, it was possible that they could enter Lithuanian service as there continued to be tension between Lithuania and Poland; such an arrangement, the government felt, would help bind Lithuania to Germany. Clearly, Ebert’s administration had not given up hope of retaining substantial influence in the Baltic region.

When Goltz returned to his headquarters in Jelgava, he found that, despite the departure of men who wished to return home, the troops of the Iron Division were in a state of unrest. They demanded that if they were to be returned to Germany, they should be given land within Germany as recognition of their service and the failure of the Latvians to grant them citizenship and land. They also demanded that 30 per cent of the new 100,000-strong Reichswehr should be made up of men who had served in the Freikorps. In the absence of such assurances, they refused to be sent back to Germany. Goltz told them that he would pass their demands to his superiors, aware that this delay in evacuation, which he could blame upon the soldiers, gave him more time to make progress with Bermont-Avalov.

The vexed question of finance continued to rear its head. For a while, Goltz and like-minded individuals in Berlin, who were in discussion with Major General Neill Malcolm, a British representative in Berlin, appear to have believed that there might be support from the Entente Powers for their proposed anti-Bolshevik war, but it was felt that Goltz and Bermont-Avalov were barriers to such a move. Consequently, Goltz considered trying to persuade Bermont-Avalov to put the entire venture under the command of General Biskupski, a Russian-Polish officer who was nominally serving under Bermont-Avalov, even though the two men had fundamental disagreements. When a further Entente demand for the complete evacuation of Latvia by the Germans arrived, Goltz lost faith in such discussions and felt that the entire episode confirmed his views of the British:

In the eyes of naïve German politicians, General Malcolm appeared to be a supporter of the beliefs of the inter-allied anti-Bolshevik opposition, but raised only objections … [If he had been genuine] he should long since have asked for his removal given his constant failure, or the British government should have replaced this diplomat who was not carrying out its policies. Instead, these clever British constantly sent us diplomats, politicians and officers who led the most intelligent Germans around by the nose. Britain knew who it was sending to Germany.

I have never trusted these Englishmen, nor will I trust any member of this most callous race until the day of my death.⁵⁰⁹

We do not have Malcolm’s version of events, nor is there any documentation to suggest that the British government actively considered supporting such a policy. Whilst having lunch with Ludendorff in 1919, Malcolm discussed the collapse of Germany that resulted in the end of the war, and said to Ludendorff, ‘It sounds like you were stabbed in the back, then?’ Ludendorff was very taken with this phrase, and it became widely accepted within German army circles. Malcolm was therefore no stranger to making statements that might vary from the policy of his government, and it is therefore possible that he had some rather speculative conversations with German officials whilst in Berlin. It is also possible that some of these officials, desperate to salvage something from what they regarded as the shameful peace settlement at Versailles, heard what they wanted to hear and acted accordingly.

Regardless of the opinion of Goltz’s friends in Berlin, the government had to deal with ongoing pressure to comply with all the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Goltz was ordered to charge Major Bischoff with repeated disobedience for not ordering his men to board trains back to Germany, but he responded that the men had chosen not to return, so their officer was blameless. On 21 September, with growing evidence that Latvian and Estonian troops might be deployed against the remaining German units, and occasional artillery exchanges with the Germans – despite the ceasefire officially still being in force – Goltz sent a signal to Bermont-Avalov, informing him that the Germans who had stayed in Latvia of their free will were now entering Russian service. He also asked Bermont-Avalov to invite the Latvian government to join in their proposed venture against Bolshevik Russia. On 30 September, the German units were ordered to concentrate their forces in preparation of a resumption of hostilities. Meanwhile, in an attempt to resolve his financial problems, Bermont-Avalov had started to print his own money. It was to be redeemed by the value of his future conquests.

Although Goltz had received a signal on 26 September from Berlin granting permission for Germans to join the ranks of Bermont-Avalov’s army, new orders arrived on 3 October.⁵¹⁰ The Entente Powers had issued a final ultimatum to Berlin on 27 September, insisting on an immediate withdrawal of Goltz and all German forces – if this was not carried out, Britain and France threatened to re-impose their blockade of Germany.⁵¹¹ Berlin now ordered the immediate evacuation of all German forces from the Baltic. A further order informed Goltz that he was recalled and would be replaced by General Walter von Eberhardt. A day later came another development: German troops were not permitted to enter Russian service. Why these orders took so long to reach Latvia is unclear, but they allowed Goltz to reason that, as his men who had already entered Russian service were no longer Germans, this order did not apply to them.⁵¹² On 5 October, he wrote to the German general staff:

There are only Russian citizens at the front now, and all of my efforts can, as before, only be to keep Germany out of the game. On my part, I wrote a letter of resignation to General Burt on 4 October, and must stay in the shadows, as otherwise the troops would become unsettled.⁵¹³

Aware that Latvian forces were about to be reinforced by Estonian troops, Goltz and Bermont-Avalov decided that the die was cast. Bermont-Avalov announced the creation of a West Russian government, and called upon Latvians and Lithuanians to join with him in a war against the Bolsheviks. He and Goltz maintained that their original plan had been to attack east from Daugavpils, or Dünaberg; but with potentially hostile forces massing against them in and around Riga, they decided that they had to deal with securing Latvia first.

Estimates of the strength of the so-called West Russian Volunteer Army, as Bermont-Avalov’s force became known, are varied. The highest estimate is 52,000, but this figure probably includes all rear-area units.⁵¹⁴ The true number of combatants is likely to have been closer to 22,000, of whom the majority were German. Many of his men were deployed to secure the rear area in Lithuania, and the number of men available to attack Riga was probably in the region of 8,500, opposed by about 6,500 Latvians.⁵¹⁵

The plan for the coming campaign was for the Petersdorff battalion and the Riekhoff detachment, both formerly Freikorps units, to guard the right flank of the advance. Four battalions of former Freikorps troops, grouped together as the ‘German Legion’, would advance on Ķekava, a little to the southeast of Riga, while the Iron Division launched the main attack on the Latvian capital in three groups. A Russian column would secure the coastal flank – an indication of how small the Russian element of the West Russian Volunteer Army was. The advance began on 8 October and despite heavy resistance reached Ķekava during the early afternoon, in heavy rain and cold wind. Late in the evening, the Iron Division penetrated into the western Rigan suburb of Torņakalns, though a Latvian counterattack during the night drove the Germans back. The following day Bischoff decided against a resumption of the frontal assault on Riga and moved one of his regiments to the southeast to support the advance of the German Legion in an attempt to turn the flank of the defenders. In heavy fighting, the combined force slowly moved forward, reaching Torņakalns late in the day. During 10 October the German grip on the west bank of the Daugava in Riga was secured, and over the two following days the Russian element of the force moved up to the river as far as the estuary. British and French warships moved out into the Gulf of Riga to stay out of range of German artillery, which now subjected Riga to a desultory bombardment; ammunition was in too short supply for a more intensive attack. Bermont-Avalov offered the Latvians a ceasefire, on condition that they agreed to support his plans for an attack on Russia; the Latvians made no reply.⁵¹⁶

On 14 October, Goltz left the Baltic. He was confident that Bermont-Avalov had achieved as much as he could, and that the Latvians would agree to support a future operation into Russia. As with all hopes for this venture, it was misplaced. Under constant pressure from Britain and France, Germany refused to allow supplies of winter clothing to be sent to the Bermontians, and detained soldiers from the force who had returned to Germany on leave and wished to return to Latvia. British and French warships imposed a complete blockade on German shipping in the Baltic, further reducing the supplies reaching the West Russian Volunteer Army.

On the same day that Goltz left for Germany, the Latvians made their first counterattack across the Daugava. They had detected German troop movements, with elements being sent further upstream and also back into Courland in order to secure more territory there. The attack was largely repulsed, but by the end of the day the Latvians were substantially closer to Ķekava. On 15 October, several British warships moved close to the coast and bombarded Russian positions on the coast, and under cover of their fire Latvian troops crossed the Daugava estuary and secured positions on the west bank.⁵¹⁷ Supplies were now arriving in Riga for the Latvian forces, as well as reinforcements from Estonia. British and French warships continued to bombard coastal positions, though not without consequence; on 17 October, the light cruiser HMS Dragon came under fire from a shore battery, and nine sailors were killed. Two days later, the German Legion made its last attempt to cross the Daugava upstream of Riga, and was repulsed.

On 3 November the Latvians had moved sufficient forces across the Daugava estuary to the west bank to allow them to start a major attack. With fire support from Admiral Cowan’s cruisers, they made steady progress in driving the Bermontians out of the western suburbs of Riga, clearing the area completely by 11 November. From here they advanced on Jelgava, reaching the town on 16 November. Under pressure from his increasingly rebellious subordinates, Bermont-Avalov resigned as commander of the West Russian Volunteer Army, and the following day both the Iron Division and the German Legion requested that they be re-incorporated into the German Army. Their position on the battlefield was perilous, as they were nearly surrounded in Jelgava, but help arrived just in time. General von Eberhardt, Goltz’s successor, was relieved to find that he had at his disposal the 1,000-strong Freikorps Rossbach, which had marched from East Prussia across Lithuania despite orders from Berlin not to do so. This unit now counterattacked, allowing the Iron Division to withdraw from near-encirclement.⁵¹⁸

The fighting was pitiless and brutal. Rudolf Höss, who would later be the commandant of Auschwitz, fought in the ranks of Freikorps Rossbach:

The fighting in the Baltic was more savage and desperate than anything else in all the Freikorps fighting I saw before or afterwards. There was no real front to speak of; the enemy was everywhere. And whenever there was a clash, it turned into butchery to the extent of total annihilation.⁵¹⁹

Discipline broke down amongst the demoralised troops, who turned their anger against local civilians:

The soldiers of the Iron Division and the German Legion unloaded all their despair and fury in one wild power-blow against the Letts. Villages burst into flames, prisoners were trampled underfoot … The leaders were powerless, or else they looked on with grim approval.⁵²⁰

The weather worsened with early snow, and Lithuania too joined the war against the Bermontians. Yet another commission was dispatched to the region by Britain and France, led by the French General Henri-Albert Niessel. Having agreed to ceasefires in the past, which failed to result in any final resolution of their problems, the leaders of Latvia were reluctant to allow another such ceasefire, particularly as they felt they had the upper hand on the battlefield. Consequently, Ulmanis rejected a German offer of a ceasefire on 18 November and when Niessel arrived the Latvian prime minister refused to receive him, claiming that he was too ill. On 26 November, the Latvian government announced that a state of war existed between it and Germany, and four days later the Latvian army drove the last remnants of the Iron Division and the German Legion across the border into Lithuania. The Latvians were keen to pursue their defeated foes, particularly as the retreating Germans had stripped the countryside of anything they could take with them, including most of the cattle in Courland, but Niessel managed to persuade the Latvian government to stop its army at the border. Some western officers, such as Admiral Cowan, regarded this as a serious mistake, but the remnants of the Freikorps withdrew across Lithuania towards the East Prussian frontier.

Fighting had continued on the eastern frontier too, where Latvian troops and the Baltische Landeswehr tried to drive the Red Army from the province of Latgale. The Bolshevik government offered a ceasefire in September, which the Latvians rejected, but they made little progress until Poland dispatched troops to help. Finally, in February 1920, an armistice was agreed. Curiously, the armistice was not made public, resulting in ongoing skirmishes along the frontier. In July, Latvia concluded a peace treaty with Germany, and the Riga Peace Treaty the following month finally brought the war with Soviet Russia to an end. The Latvians received four million roubles in gold, as well as the right to cut timber in Soviet territory, and Russia renounced ‘for all time’ any right to Latvian territory.⁵²¹

Following his somewhat ignominious departure from Latvia, Goltz returned to Germany, embittered by the outcome of the German intervention in the Baltic. For many Germans, particularly from the old aristocratic families, this episode seemed to mark the end of the Drang nach Osten (‘drive to the east’), which had become so prominent during the second half of the 19th century. For them, this movement was merely the latest articulation of a long-term move by Germans to spread their influence and culture across Eastern Europe, and just a few short months after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk seemed to open the door for such an expansion, all their hopes were dashed by – what seemed to them – the vindictive Entente Powers, who they felt failed to recognise the menace of Bolshevism. Like many other disillusioned German officers, Goltz became involved in right-wing politics. In 1920, he was involved in the attempt by Walter von Lüttwitz and Wolfgang Kapp to resist the disbandment of Freikorps units; the total strength of the German armed forces was 350,000, with a further 250,000 in the ranks of the Freikorps, far in excess of the 100,000 armed forces personnel allowed by the Treaty of Versailles. The ‘Kapp putsch’ as it became known, was initially successful and the government fled from Berlin, first to Dresden and then to Stuttgart, but a general strike forced the leading conspirators to flee to Sweden. Thereafter, Goltz was a member of the Harzburg Front, a political alliance of the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP, or German National People’s Party), the National Socialists, the Stahlhelm (‘Steel helmet’, a right-wing veterans’ group) and the Alldeutscher Verband (Pan-German League), and in 1934 became leader of the right-wing Deutsche Staatspartei (German State Party). He was also in charge of a government department responsible for the military education of German youth. He died in November 1946.

Latvia paid a heavy price for its independence. Compared to the pre-1914 population, the country lost perhaps 700,000 citizens – killed or deported – before independence was achieved; more than a quarter of its population. For Ulmanis and his fellow politicians, the task of rebuilding their nation, and keeping its independence, lay ahead.