Battle of Cēsis

On the morning of 23 June 1919 Estonian and Latvian troops entered Cēsis (Estonian Võnnu, German Wenden), a small town in northern Latvia on the railway running north from Riga. This ended a battle of several days in which they routed the Baltische Landeswehr (PL) and the German Iron Division, troops subordinate to General Rüdiger von der Goltz. The Baltic Germans, whose landed nobility had ruled Livonia for centuries, were then making their last attempt to keep their influence in the country by force. In Estonia the anniversary of the battle is still celebrated as Victory Day.

The Germans in Latvia

Latvia declared independence on 18 November 1918, a week after Britain recognised the Latvian National Council, but it had no army, and the Red Army was advancing from the east. The provisional government of Kārlis Ulmanis therefore agreed to the formation of a Landeswehr from the Baltic Germans and asked Germany for help. From 1 February 1919 all German troops in the country were commanded by von der Goltz, who a year earlier had led the German intervention in Finland. In the spring the Germans drove the Bolsheviks out of Courland. On 16 April in Liepāja, however, they overthrew Ulmanis’s government, which took refuge on a ship under the protection of the British fleet, and installed a government under Andrievs Niedra that did their bidding. On 22 May the Landeswehr and the Iron Division, made up of German volunteers, took Riga from the Bolsheviks. The Latvian historian Ēriks Jēkabsons writes that Goltz’s aim was to create a base in the Baltic states for German troops in case of a future war with the Allies.

Meanwhile the Estonian army was advancing from the north. Its 3rd Division, together with the Northern Latvian Brigade of Colonel Jorģis Zemitāns (PL), loyal to Ulmanis, had driven the Red Army out of much of northern Latvia. On 1 June the Latvians reached Cēsis. After taking Riga, Goltz’s troops moved north.

The June fighting

On 3 June the Estonian commander-in-chief, Johan Laidoner, demanded that the Germans halt and withdraw southwards. They refused, and the Niedra government sent them to put an end to the “Estonian occupation”. On 6 June the Landeswehr attacked and took Cēsis. An Estonian counter-attack on 8 June was repulsed. On 10 June an Allied mission imposed an armistice, and the powers in Paris forbade the Germans to advance any further towards Estonia, but Goltz did not obey. On the morning of 19 June the Landeswehr went over to the attack again, on 20 June the Iron Division took Straupe (PL), and on 21 June the Germans broke through between the Latvian and Estonian regiments. The Estonians nevertheless managed to stop them, and the Iron Division’s attack on Limbaži (PL) collapsed.

According to Jēkabsons, the Germans had some 9,000 men, 66 guns and 520 machine guns, and the Estonians and Latvians some 7,000 men, 32 guns, 250 machine guns and three armoured trains. By other estimates the infantry forces were roughly equal, while the Germans had the advantage in artillery and cavalry. The Estonian division was commanded by Ernst Põdder, and the armoured trains, built in Tallinn, by the naval officer Johan Pitka (PL).

Victory

Early on 22 June the Estonians and Latvians counter-attacked. They broke up the German advance guard and forced it to retreat, while the armoured trains struck from the direction of Valmiera (PL). The Iron Division tried in vain to save the situation, because Estonian cavalry had already reached its rear. On the morning of 23 June Estonian and Latvian units entered Cēsis, and the Estonian 9th Regiment attacked the Germans near Limbaži and forced them back. On the same day, at the Entente’s demand, the German troops left Liepāja.

According to Jēkabsons, over the whole battle the Estonians lost 110 killed and 405 wounded and missing, the Latvians 13 killed and 43 wounded, and the Landeswehr 65 killed and 15 missing. The losses of the Iron Division are not known.

The Germans fell back all the way to Riga. At the beginning of July the Estonians stood in its suburbs and shelled the city. The Niedra government had already fled on 26 June. On 3 July at Strazdumuiža near Riga, through the mediation of the head of the French military mission, Emmanuel du Parquet, an armistice was concluded: the Germans were to leave Riga and withdraw from Latvia, and the Landeswehr, purged of citizens of the Reich, passed under the command of the British Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Alexander. On 6 July the Northern Latvian Brigade entered Riga, and Ulmanis’s government soon returned. In the autumn many of Goltz’s soldiers went over to the army of Prince Pavel Bermondt-Avalov and tried once more to take Riga.