Libau in the First World War

Libau, a port on the coast of Courland, was in 1914 the westernmost port of the Russian Empire and a base of the Russian fleet. It lay, however, so close to the border with Germany that from the start the Russians did not intend to defend it. In the first months of the war it was a target of German bombardments and air raids; in May 1915 it fell into German hands almost without a fight, and until the end of the war it served as a forward base of the German navy. In 1919 it was for several months the refuge of the government of independent Latvia.

A port too close to the border

In the late 19th century Libau grew into a large commercial and industrial port. Its population rose from about 10,000 in 1863 to 84,000 in 1911, and emigrant ships sailed from here to New York. On the orders of Tsar Alexander III a great naval port bearing his name, today’s Karosta, was built north of the town in 1890–1906, with breakwaters, a canal and barracks, and the town was ringed with forts. The German border, however, lay only about 70 kilometres to the south. As early as 1908 the fortress was abolished as a strategic mistake, and some of its guns were taken to Kovno. In line with the mobilisation plan, in the first days of August 1914 the Russians withdrew their ships from Libau and began blowing up the remaining fortifications.

Under fire (1914–1915)

On 2 August 1914, the day after the declaration of war on Russia, the German cruisers Augsburg and Magdeburg appeared off the port. Their bombardment is regarded as the first shots of the war in the Baltic. The Russians, convinced that a landing was coming, blew up their own ammunition and coal stores. In October the first British submarines to break into the Baltic briefly put in here, but they soon moved to Reval. It was for fear of a British base that the Germans blocked Libau on 17 November, sinking old ships in the harbour entrances. On the way to this operation their armoured cruiser Friedrich Carl sank on mines.

The town remained an important railway junction and industrial centre. In January 1915 it was bombed by the German airship PL 19, which fell into the sea on the way back; its crew was taken prisoner by the Russians.

The capture (May 1915)

In the spring of 1915, while the blow at Gorlice was being prepared in Galicia, the German group of Otto von Lauenstein pushed into Lithuania and Courland to draw Russian reserves to the north. Libau threatened its western flank. On 7 May cavalry, a few infantry battalions and the ships of Rear Admiral Albert Hopman attacked the town from the land and the sea. The Russian garrison withdrew to the north, blowing up forts, depots and bridges, and on the morning of 8 May the Germans took full control of the port. In the summer the Niemen Army occupied the rest of western Courland with the coast from Libau to Windau.

A German base (1915–1918)

The German navy cleared the entrances of wrecks and mines, and Libau became a forward base for its forces in the eastern Baltic. The scouting forces that fought in the Gulf of Riga in August 1915 were stationed here, and ships damaged by mines were brought back here. British submarines lay in wait on the approaches: on 23 October 1915 E8 sank the armoured cruiser Prinz Adalbert about 20 nautical miles west of the port; only three men survived. After this loss ships were forbidden to leave or enter Libau by day.

For the inhabitants the occupation meant levies, forced deliveries of workers and carts, poverty and economic decline. By the end of 1915 only 43,600 people remained in the town. The port played its greatest role in October 1917, when the convoy of Operation Albion sailed from Libau: ships with ten dreadnoughts carried about 24,000 soldiers from here to the islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Riga.

After the war (1918–1919)

After Germany’s defeat a British squadron put in at Libau; on 4 December 1918 it left for Tallinn and on the way lost the cruiser Cassandra. In 1919 Libau was for several months the seat of the Latvian provisional government. On 16 April the Germans overthrew the government of Kārlis Ulmanis there, and it took refuge on a ship under the protection of the British fleet. German troops left the town at the Entente’s demand on 23 June, the day of the Battle of Cēsis.