Recognition of Latvia and Estonia

On 11 November 1918, the day of the Armistice of Compiègne, the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a letter to the Latvian politician Zigfrīds Meierovics, who was in London. In it he confirmed in writing that Britain provisionally recognised the Latvian National Council as a de facto independent body. On the same day in Tallinn, still under German occupation, the Estonian Provisional Government resumed its work. The British chronology of the war says that London recognised “the Provisional Government of Latvia as an independent government”. This is a simplification: there was as yet no Latvian government, and the recognition concerned the National Council and was provisional.

Latvia

The Latvian Provisional National Council, formed in December 1917 at Valka, had already in January 1918 declared for Latvian independence. In the summer it sent Meierovics, later Latvia’s first foreign minister, to London. On 23 October 1918 Balfour received him for a twenty-minute conversation and assured him that until the peace conference Britain recognised the Council as the representative of Latvia. The letter of 11 November was a reply to a memorandum in which Meierovics had asked Britain and its allies to take Latvia under their protection. Balfour wrote that His Majesty’s Government viewed “with the deepest sympathy” the aspirations of the Latvian people, who wished to free themselves from the German yoke. He was glad to confirm its readiness to recognise the Council provisionally as a de facto independent body until the peace conference laid the foundations of a new era of freedom and happiness for the Latvian people. London agreed to treat Meierovics himself as Latvia’s unofficial diplomatic representative.

Balfour had earlier made a similar declaration to the Estonians, when he confirmed his readiness to recognise the Estonian provincial assembly. In Latvia the letter changed nothing for the time being. The country was still occupied by the Germans, who did not recognise the National Council and preferred to deal with the Latvian Social Democrats. Only a compromise between the two groups led to the creation of the People’s Council, which on 18 November proclaimed the independent Republic of Latvia in Riga. A day later the provisional government of Kārlis Ulmanis was formed.

Estonia

In Estonia news of the revolution in Germany caused a stir as early as 9 November, when red flags were raised on German ships in Tallinn harbour. For several days the inhabitants of Tallinn had been demonstrating against cuts in the bread ration. On 10 November the German military governor of Estonia, General Adolf von Seckendorff, agreed to meet Jaan Poska, a member of the government announced in February after the proclamation of independence. Since March that government had operated underground, because the Germans recognised no Estonian authority. On 11 November four of its ministers, Poska among them, met in Tallinn for their first session. The next day the government was completed and the portfolios divided, with Konstantin Päts remaining prime minister and minister of the interior. Päts was still a prisoner of the Germans at the time. Arrested in June, he had been held in German camps, most recently in the Grodno governorate. According to the Estonian encyclopaedia of the 1930s, he regained his freedom only on 17 November.

The Germans handed over power formally and gradually. The final agreement was signed in Riga on 19 November. Their troops, however, were to remain in the country for some time, because the Armistice of Compiègne required them to leave the former Russian territories only when the Allies considered it appropriate. The Estonian authorities had to build their own forces quickly. On 11 November the volunteer Kaitseliit (Defence League) was formed to keep order and guard the seat of government, and on 12 November the government decided to create a regular army. For the Red Army was approaching from the east, ready to occupy the lands the Germans were leaving. Two weeks later the Estonian War of Independence began.