The Baltic States And The Great Powers

Foreign Relations, 1938-1940

David Crowe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000314809
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This is the first complete account of the diplomatic relations and military steps leading to Estonia's, Latvia's, and Lithuania's forcible absorption into the USSR in 1940. David Crowe—making use of recently opened archival sources—traces the Baltic states' relations with the Soviet Union, Germany, Poland, Great Britian, France and with one another from 1917-1940. He starts with an overview of 1917-1936 and then offers a detailed description of the diplomatic maneuvering that marked Europe's collective slide toward war. Crowe covers the Sudeten and Memel crises involving German communities in 1938, the German-Soviet Pact in August 1939, the mutual assistance pacts between the Baltic States and the USSR, the Baltic German migration, Soviet use of Estonia's military installations during their assault on Finland, and the subsequent Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. The story ends with the election of new, Soviet-sponsored legislatures that sought admission into the USSR as Soviet republics in 1940—a step that most Western countries never recognized, and one that the Baltic states finally reversed when they regained their independence fifty-one years later in August 1991.

1
Seeds of Discord: 1918–1938

THE BALTIC STATES—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—emerged as independent nations at the end of World War I. Over the next twenty years, they struggled to create the political, economic, and social institutions necessary for survival in the chaotic interlude between the twentieth century's two world wars. The Baltic states also tried to develop diplomatic ties that complemented their tenuous geographical and strategic positions along the southeastern Baltic littoral and that would allow them to enjoy normal status in the international community. Domestic political immaturity as well as the abnormal swirl of events in Eastern Europe between 1918 and 1940, however, severely compromised the ability of their leaders to pursue completely independent foreign policies. In addition, Baltic leaders discovered that the two nations that had played such an important role in their history prior to independence—Germany and Russia—though temporarily crippled after World War I, would continue to play important roles in determining their future.

The Germans had been an important force in the southeastern Baltic region since the Middle Ages, when the Teutonic Knights and the Knights of the Brotherhood of the Sword conquered and settled the area. For 800 years, they and their descendants, the Baltic Germans, remained a dominant force in Baltic society. Russian influence entered the area in the eighteenth century, when Peter the Great and his successors gradually brought most of ethnic Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania under Romanov control. Yet even under the tsars, a Baltic German superstructure dominated Estonian and Latvian life, whereas Polish culture, which had grown steadily since the Polish-Lithuanian union of 1569, dominated ethnic Lithuania.¹

Emergence of Baltic Independence

Despite the stifling cultural and political climate of imperial Russia, an Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian cultural renaissance, buffeted by mild tsarist economic and agricultural reforms, emerged after the French and Napoleonic revolutions and stimulated a growing sense of ethnic identity in each area. By the time of the 1905 Revolution, several Baltic political movements emerged that paved the way for independence efforts after 1914. The Russian revolutions of 1917 and the Russian civil war provided the background for this struggle, which resulted in Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian nationhood as the former Russian provinces of Estland (Estonia), Livland (Livonia) and Kurland became the independent republics of Estonia (February 1918) and Latvia (November 1918) and much of the three former Russian provinces of Kaunas, Vilnius, and Suvalkai became independent Lithuania (November 1918). Afterward, leaders of the newly independent states worked to gain international de jure recognition of their status and join the community of nations. They also tried to adopt foreign policies that complemented their position in northeastern Europe.² Unfortunately, their policies often followed confused directions because of the peculiar power vacuum that existed in the region after World War I. This conflict had severely crippled Germany and Russia—the area's traditional powers—as the new Polish state, prodded by France, tried to expand its influence in the region.³

Great Britain, the other major Western power with interests in the area, continued to pursue its historical goals there; those goals centered on maintaining the balance of power in the Baltic while creating a buffer between Germany and Russia. As part of this plan, the British voiced encouragement for Baltic independence efforts after the October Revolution in 1917, but the encouragement constituted "mere exercises in tactics and propaganda" designed to weaken German influence in the region. By fall 1918, British policymakers saw strengthened support for Baltic state independence as a means of realizing their goals, weakening Bolshevik Russia, and limiting "German influence" in the region. They left the door open, though, for the possible reunion of the Baltic states with a stable Russia because they were uncertain of the ability of these countries to remain independent. By mid-1919, the Foreign Office began to support the concept of "limited independence for the Baltic states based on a treaty, 'solution by agreement,'" with federation ties to a non-Bolshevik, independent Russian state. Primary in this change was a desire to enhance Britain's economic interests in the area and to bring about peace.⁴

Changing fortunes in the Russian civil war later prompted London to accept the idea of separate Baltic peace negotiations with Lenin's government, though London would not grant the Baltic states de jure recognition. The Baltic republics now "had to assume complete responsibility regarding their own war and peace decisions." Furthermore, London discouraged them from any aggressive policy toward the Soviets, because the British were not inclined to offer the new countries any more than "material support" in case of a renewed Baltic-Soviet conflict.⁵

London's antagonists, Germany and Russia, had struggled for control of this important strategic region throughout the Russian civil war. Germany had occupied Lithuania in 1915 and brought the rest of Russia's Baltic provinces under its sway over the next year. Imperial German officials saw this region as "a German-guarded colony and buffer zone." As World War I ended, the government of Prince Max von Baden adopted an "October policy" that sought to protect the Baltic German minorities and German economic interests in the southeastern Baltic region. The Allies insisted in Article 12 of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, that Germany maintain forces there to prevent the region from falling into Bolshevik hands.⁶

Britain, a strong advocate of a continued German presence in this area, supported Baltic German Landeswehr efforts to drive Bolshevik forces from Latvia by early spring 1919. Unfortunately, these activities revived German ambitions in the region and resulted in a Baltic German coup against the Latvian government of Karlis Ulmanis on April 16, 1919. For Britain and its allies, the question now was which nation, Germany or Russia, made "the greater threat to British national interests."⁷

The British government concluded that Germany presented the most immediate threat and demanded that it take actions to restore "the previous status quo" in Latvia. Landeswehr forces, however, continued to operate independently and by early June 1919 were in conflict with Estonian and Latvian troops. The Allied demand that Germany "immediately halt the advance of its forces" was aided by a Landeswehr defeat at Wenden on June 22, though it did not end the Baltic German threat.⁸

The Baltic German commander, Graf Rüdiger von der Goltz, merely re oriented his policy with an eye toward cooperation with White Russian forces in the region. He hoped to use the Baltic states as "a base of operations" to topple Lenin's government, "restore the old order," "lift the Versailles Peace Treaty off its hinges," and then "perhaps reinstate the German Monarchy." These dreams were dashed by the end of 1919, however, when a combination of Allied diplomatic and military pressure, native Baltic resistance, and the removal of official German support saw the defeat of German–White Russian forces in Latvia and Lithuania.⁹

Soviet Russia, the other villain in the Baltic wars between 1918 and 1920, was equally unsuccessful. The Russian civil war, which came to engulf the southeastern Baltic area, began in 1918 as an effort by anti-Bolshevik forces to dislodge Lenin's regime. Estonia, strategically important to the British and the Germans as "a passageway to Russian markets," had fallen under Bolshevik control several weeks after the October Revolution; however, within three months, the Bolsheviks were forced out of the country by the Germans. The Bolsheviks chalked up important electoral gains in Livonia and in Riga before the Germans took it over in early September 1917, and Lithuania and Kurland, occupied by Germany in fall 1915, remained under German control. Germany acquired Livonia and Estonia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 3, 1918.¹⁰

The collapse of the German war effort in November 1918 opened the door for new Soviet Russian opportunities. Red Army forces successfully invaded Estonia and Livonia within weeks of the November 11 armistice, and by early January 1919 had taken the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. In Estonia and Lithuania, the Bolshevik military threat ended by February 1919, though communist forces were not driven from Latvia until the following summer. At this juncture, Lenin's government began to consider peace with the individual Baltic countries, which, rebuffed in their desire to gain Allied de jure recognition, saw peace with Soviet Russia as a means of acquiring recognition of this status. For Moscow, such treaties would bring international recognition and end its diplomatic isolation. After some hesitation, Estonia and then Lithuania and Latvia concluded prisoner exchange agreements with the Kremlin on November 19, 1919; separate, formal peace treaties were signed the following year.¹¹

By the end of 1920, the Baltic states had applied for membership in the League of Nations to acquire its "guarantee" of their "territorial integrity." Although initially rejected for fear of a confrontation with Vladimir Lenin's Soviet republic, Estonia and Latvia were granted de jure recognition by the Allied Supreme Council in January 1921. Lithuania did not gain complete Allied acknowledgment of its independent status until summer 1922 because of its territorial disputes over Vilnius and Memel (Klaipeda). All three countries, though, were allowed to join the League of Nations in fall 1921.¹²

The Search for International Identity

Their acquisition of independence and international recognition gave the Baltic states reason to be optimistic about their future. At the same time, they were determined "to strike a balance between their need for foreign aid and their understandable refusal to be dominated by outside economic interests." Consequently, they remained receptive to diplomatic and economic overtures from all countries yet retained an idealistic view of Britain "as their principal benefactor and protector." This attitude was fortified by a strong British presence in the Baltic in the immediate postwar years, which saw London emerge as an important Baltic trading partner. Unfortunately, neither London nor Paris accepted the absolute permanency of the Baltic states and both governments refused to adopt any stance that would force either of them to defend Baltic sovereignty in the future. This policy reduced the impetus of England's commercial policies, in contrast with France, whose goal imbalance was the reverse, and Germany, whose "political and economic goals were increasingly overlapping."¹³

Weimar Germany, Britain's principal competitor in the Baltic region during this period, saw trade as a means of restoring its international stature and the Baltic states as "springboards" to increased economic ties with the Soviet republic. Weimar leaders sought "to resume economic penetration in the East" to gain "access to Russian markets"; this goal, in the view of the Weimar government, "was dependent on better relations with the border states." One of the most serious obstacles that German diplomats had to overcome was a strong antagonism on the part of the Baltic states toward Germany and toward their German minorities, particularly in Latvia. Because Berlin felt this group was "a vital key to the success of the Weimar Republic's proclaimed goal of friendly Weimar-Baltic relations," one of its principal diplomatic aims in Estonia and Latvia in the 1920s was to get the Baltic peoples to distinguish between "the Reich German and the German Bait." Berlin chose to emphasize "a German policy and not that of the Baltic barons."¹⁴ Unfortunately, German efforts, linked to formal trade discussions with Latvia and Estonia in 1921 and 1922, failed to temper both countries' harsh nationalization laws aimed principally at the Baltic Germans. At the same time, the commercial talks collapsed because Tallinn and Riga insisted that their war claims against Germany be settled simultaneously with formal trade agreements. Gustav Behrendt, head of the Eastern Department of the Auswärtiges Amt, (Foreign Office, Ministry) concluded that "the regional Baltic alliance projects were a crucial factor in the obvious reluctance of Estonia and Latvia to finalize trade deals with Germany." These discussions, though, "contributed indirectly to the eventual stabilization of relations between Germany and Russia"—the two countries signed a trade accord on May 6, 1921—and paved the way for a stronger German economic role in the Baltic states later on.¹⁵

Poland, the southeastern Baltic's other significant power, also presented difficulties for the area's new countries, particularly Lithuania. Led by Vilnius-born Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, who envisioned a Polish-led federal union of small countries in the region, Warsaw tried unsuccessfully throughout the 1920s to assume a dominant leadership role among its smaller neighbors. A number of internal and external conflicts arose that destroyed these efforts, particularly in the Baltics.¹⁶

I he most serious conflict was the illegal Polish seizure of Lithuania's ancient, polonized capital, Vilnius, on October 6, 1920. The Lithuanian government, which considered itself in a "state of war" with Poland because of this move, antagonized many countries because of its stubborn efforts to seek international redress on this issue. The government's response also had a negative impact on its Baltic-state neighbors, which, as one League of Nations official put it, "had a certain common international identity." Lithuania's efforts also "hampered Polish ambitions of organizing a Baltic bloc" and antagonized the British and the French, who, though initially angered by the Polish coup, tended "to look at Kaunas through Polish glasses."¹⁷ These problems intensified when the Lithuanian government, following Poland's example, seized Memel on January 10 and 11, 1923, at the same time that French and Belgian forces occupied the Ruhr. Although the major powers sanctioned Lithuania's move with the Memel Statute of 1924, the Lithuanian government found the district hard to administer because of the resistant German population. As a result, Lithuania became even more isolated at the very time its Baltic neighbors were searching desperately for a diplomatic vehicle that would collectively strengthen their position in the area.¹⁸

The region's other meddlesome power, at least from the perspective of Britain and Germany, was France, Poland's closest ally. Although its influence in the area eventually waned, France emerged from World War I seeking to counterbalance Germany and to contain the Bolshevik presence in Eastern Europe. Initially Paris regarded the Baltic states as "temporary ramparts" against Lenin's government and assumed they would ultimately be reunited with a "resurrected liberal Russia." French leaders looked to Poland as the only large country in the southeastern Baltic that could play a leadership role in this process, which rested on the creation of a "cordon sanitaire around Russia composed of the new small states on the Soviet borders." The linchpins of this system were Poland and Czechoslovakia, which Paris felt were strategically important as "'bastion states' projecting as salients deeply in German territory." French influence among the Baltic states rested on its encourgement of a Polish-led bloc of nations that included Estonia, Latvia, and at some point, it was hoped, Lithuania. The French government, though, did not back up its efforts with a strong economic presence among the Baltic countries, a policy that neutralized some of the effectiveness of its political goals.¹⁹

Concern over the threat of Bolshevik Russia, uncertainty about a momentarily crippled Germany the emergence of a new and aggressive Polish state, and Lithuania's conflict with Poland deeply affected Baltic diplomatic and military considerations. As the Baltic nations sought to heal the wounds of war, their diplomats struggled to find ways to maneuver through this complex maze of regional instability to develop protective but nonantagonistic foreign policies with each other and with their large neighbors.

Seeds of Baltic Unity

One of the most important efforts by the Baltic states centered on some form of Baltic unity. Seeds for this approach had arisen during the wars of independence between 1918 and 1920, when Baltic military and political leaders met to discuss mutual concerns aimed at winning independence from the Soviet Union. Their most significant efforts dealt with the formation of some type of regional coalition of states tha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• A Note on Currency
• 1 Seeds of Discord: 1918-1938
• 2 The Third Reich and the German Minorities Question (March 1938-March 1939)
• 3 The Anglo-Soviet-French and German-Soviet Discussions of 1939
• 4 Stalin, Molotov, and the Forced Mutual Assistance Negotiations (September-October 1939)
• 5 The Third Reich and the Baltic German Exodus (September 1939-January 1944)
• 6 The Winter War and the Polish Refugee Crisis (November 1939-May 1940)
• 7 The Soviet Conquest and the Absorption of the Baltic States (May 1940-August 1940)
• Epilogue: The Bitter Road to Independence (August 1940-October 1991)
• Acronyms
• Notes
• References
• About the Book and Author
• Index