Post WW1 action in the Baltics

[BigT]

I am not sure if GWF has a strict rule on the period of interest. However if I may mention a Book I recently read entitled "Northern Shores" by Alan Palmer. The Book is a history of the Baltic area and nations, but there two chapters covering the Great War period and its aftermath in the area post war. The War may have finished ( or halted) on the Western Front but there was plenty of action in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia, mainly involving the Russians and Germans with nothing else to do with their time. One item of interest is that one Col Alexander ( later Field Marshal) commanded a unit of Landswehr for seven months in 1919 mainly against the Russians. " It was an honour to command a force consisting of nothing but Gentlemen"

[bob lembke]

I am not sure if GWF has a strict rule on the period of interest. However if I may mention a Book I recently read entitled "Northern Shores" by Alan Palmer. The Book is a history of the Baltic area and nations, but there two chapters covering the Great War period and its aftermath in the area post war. The War may have finished ( or halted) on the Western Front but there was plenty of action in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia, mainly involving the Russians and Germans with nothing else to do with their time. One item of interest is that one Col Alexander ( later Field Marshal) commanded a unit of Landswehr for seven months in 1919 mainly against the Russians. " It was an honour to command a force consisting of nothing but Gentlemen"

I would think that the interesting and tangled events in the Baltic region and elsewhere that flowed out of the events of WW I would be reasonable fodder, perhaps in the range of a year or two. Col. Alexander commanding a Landwehr unit for seven months is a new one to me.

I am presently reading about the tangled events in the Trans-Caucasias (sp?-I am reading it in german); really quite a mess. Just read about Turkey, driving to regain provinces that it had lost in 1878, and had been awarded at Brest-Livosk, pushing into Baku, presently the capital of Azerbazian, to find combined units of Armenians and Nestorians under British command, which they quickly shot up and put to flight. One Armenian formation in the area was three infantry divisions, artillery (64 guns), and a brigade of cavalry. A year or two later some Armenian units in the area shot up the Tartar population in the area and then fled to the Turks for protection! Also German and Turkish units fighting each other.

Perhaps we can have a "tangled matters" competition between the Baltic and the Trans-Caucasus regions?

Bo0b Lembke

[Terry Denham]

I am not sure if GWF has a strict rule on the period of interest.

As WW1 did not legally end until 31.08.21 for the UK, I don't see you have any problems discussing this!

[bob lembke]

One item of interest is that one Col Alexander ( later Field Marshal) commanded a unit of Landswehr for seven months in 1919 mainly against the Russians. " It was an honour to command a force consisting of nothing but Gentlemen"

Trevor, why not tell us a bit about that.

Landwehr men were originally reservists who left the Reserves (per se) at 27 and served in the Landwehr for seven years till they "graduated" to the Landsturm, where they were till 45. As the war went on Landwehr units were formed, and tended to fight more on the East Front, as the West Front featured a higher level of "competition". Also, younger men with some physical defect, or incompletely healed from being wounded, would be put in to Landwehr units. (The principal reason was to have men physically match so that they could keep up with each other on the march.)

So, a typical Landwehr unit on the East Front would have been mostly mature men, and despite the stress of the war German troops generally had good morale, or at least considerable discipline and cohesion. (Generalizing horribly here.) Of course in late 1918 things were breaking down, but troops stranded out in the middle of nowhere, like the East Front, generally realized that they had to hang together and cooporate if they were to get home safely. Once units made it back to their hometown they almost all dissolved in seconds. Even the most elite units dissolved, and that is why, in order to fight the Bolsheviks, entirely new units had to be formed, with the 2% of the men that really enjoyed the fighting and the war (like my father) joined the Freikorps and happily went after the Reds.

So I would imagine that a Landwehr unit stuck out in the East would have hung together and been disciplined, if for nothing than to eventually get back to the homeland in one piece.

So tell us what Alexander was doing commanding Landwehr for seven months.

Bob Lembke

[BigT]

I dont really know. I suppose he was part of some British Intervention in the Russian Civil War, To quote from the book " The Colonel--admired the fighting qualities of German militia.He led them in a three week offensive which by February 1920 had thrust the Reds back 150 kilometres across the Latgale---- briefly the young colonel wondered if he might resign his commission, buy an estate in Latvia anf farm,hunt and paint in rural tranquillity once peace was secured "

There was also a British naval squadron in the Baltic under Rear Admiral Alexander Sinclair consisting of 20 vessels.

[Dolphin]

I recommend Geoffrey Bennett's Freeing the Baltic, ISBN 1 84341 001 X, for a good account of the Royal Navy's actions in the Baltic in 1919. The war may have ended on the Western Front in November 1919, but there was still an active German army in the east in the following year.

Gareth

[Paul Hederer]

The source for postwar action in the East is "Darstellungen aus den Nachkriegskämpfen deutscher Truppen und Freikorps," which rivals the German OH in length.

Paul

[Gibbo]

According to Alexander's entry in Who's Who in Military History by John Keegan & Andrew Wheatcroft he raised & commanded a militia of German-Latvians. Quite possibly the German speaking Latvians would have called such a unit Landwehr. That certainly sound more plausible to me than a British officer commanding a German Army Landwehr unit

[bierast]

According to Alexander's entry in Who's Who in Military History by John Keegan & Andrew Wheatcroft he raised & commanded a militia of German-Latvians. Quite possibly the German speaking Latvians would have called such a unit Landwehr. That certainly sound more plausible to me than a British officer commanding a German Army Landwehr unit

The unit in question would be the Baltische Landeswehr, a locally raised force containing Latvians, Estonians and Baltic Germans and discussed in detail in the Osprey book on the Freikorps.