Alleged Russian capture of Memel

A British chronology of the war gives under 11 November 1914, with the reservation that the date is approximate, the capture by the Russians of Memel, in Lithuanian Klaipėda. It was the northernmost town of the German Empire, a port at the entrance to the Curonian Lagoon, right by the border with Russian Lithuania and Courland. Today Klaipėda lies in Lithuania.

What the sources do not confirm

The available German and English-language studies do not confirm that the Russians took Memel in November 1914. At that time the fighting in East Prussia was taking place much further south. In the autumn the Russian Tenth Army occupied the eastern fringes of the province, including Stallupönen and Goldap, but in mid-November the Germans halted it in front of the line of the Masurian Lakes. The country along the lower Niemen and the town itself remained away from the main operations. According to German sources, Russian detachments had crossed the border of the Memel district as early as the first days of the war, on 2 August 1914, when they destroyed the telegraph equipment at railway stations and tore up the tracks leading to Memel. They did not, however, take the town itself at that time.

The raid of March 1915

The Russians entered Memel only a few months later. On 18 March 1915 several columns of Russian troops crossed the border from the north and east, from the direction of Courland. According to German accounts they numbered between 6,000 and 10,000 men. They were mainly militia (opolchenie) battalions with a few old guns, several squadrons of cavalry, two companies of sailors and border guard units from Riga and Libau. The weak German Landsturm forces withdrew through the town onto the Curonian Spit.

The Russians entered Memel on the evening of 18 March and took the mayor and three other inhabitants as hostages. In the town and surrounding villages there was looting and arson, several civilians were killed, and some of the inhabitants were deported to Russia. The Germans quickly brought up reinforcements. On 21 March, after street fighting, they drove the Russians out of the town, and in the following days pursued them all the way to the border. Some sources extend the Russian presence in the town and its surroundings to 25 March. According to German figures the Russians lost about 500 prisoners and several guns.

The raid on Memel had no great military significance, but it caused outrage in Germany. The German authorities announced reprisals for the destruction in East Prussia. Most probably it was the events of March 1915 that found their way, with a wrong date, into the British chronology under November 1914.