Sejny uprising

At about three in the morning on 23 August 1919 units of the Suwałki district of the Polish Military Organisation began an uprising against Lithuanian rule in the Sejny area. One company took Krasnopol (PL) by surprise, and the main force captured Sejny, which the Lithuanians held although, under the demarcation line fixed in Paris a month earlier, it was to go to Poland. Within a dozen or so hours the insurgents had taken a large part of the Sejny area, and some units even crossed that line. It was one of the best-known episodes of the growing Polish–Lithuanian conflict (PL).

Disputed land

The Suwałki governorate had been under German occupation since 1915. The occupiers tolerated Polish self-government in the districts with a Polish majority, but from 1918, when the Taryba proclaimed Lithuania’s independence, they supported the emerging Lithuanian authorities. As the Germans withdrew in 1919, the Lithuanians took their place. At the beginning of May units of the Lithuanian 2nd Infantry Regiment entered Suwałki and Sejny. The Lithuanians regarded Sejny as their own: it was an important place of the Lithuanian national revival, with a seminary and the grave of the poet and bishop Antanas Baranauskas (PL). Polish sources stress, however, that the area round Sejny was inhabited mostly by Poles, and write of harassment of the Polish population by the new authorities.

On 26 July the Supreme Council of the peace conference adopted the demarcation line (PL) between the Polish and Lithuanian forces proposed by Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Suwałki, Krasnopol and Sejny, and further east also Vilna, taken by the Poles in April, were left on the Polish side. The Lithuanians left Suwałki on 7 August but manned a line along the Czarna Hańcza (PL), keeping Sejny for themselves. On 10 August the Germans left the town and handed it over to the Lithuanians. In those days Sejny was visited by the Lithuanian prime minister, Mykolas Sleževičius (PL), who called on his compatriots to defend their settlements, if need be with axes, pitchforks and scythes.

The decision

On 16 August the commandant of the Suwałki POW, Lieutenant Adam Rudnicki (PL) (“Szczerba”), and his deputy, Officer Cadet Wacław Zawadzki (“Rózga”), a former legionary, decided to strike. According to various studies the district had between 1,000 and 1,500 clandestine volunteers, many of them young people. Józef Piłsudski could not officially support such an action, since he was seeking an understanding with Lithuania, but according to the IPN historian Wiesław Jan Wysocki he gave it his unofficial consent in the summer. The government in Warsaw preferred local volunteers to do the fighting rather than the regular army, so that the dispute would not turn into open war with Lithuania.

The first day

During the night of 22–23 August the company of Officer Cadet Piotr Łankiewicz took Krasnopol, disarming a Lithuanian officer and about 40 soldiers, and went on disarming posts along the Czarna Hańcza. Zawadzki’s “Sumowo” group, about nine hundred men in three companies, attacked Sejny from three directions. The insurgents took the Lithuanian military command in the former bishop’s residence and the town hall, but respected the cathedral and the seminary. According to Wysocki they lost two killed and 14 wounded, the Lithuanians nine killed and 28 wounded, and about 400 Lithuanian soldiers were taken prisoner. Other companies took Giby and Berżniki and, beyond the Foch line, also Łoździeje (PL) and Kopciowo (PL). In a proclamation the insurgents wrote: “We did not desire this fight, for we wished and wish to live in harmony with the Lithuanian people.” That same day Rudnicki arrived in Sejny and took command.

The plan was for the insurgents to hold the captured ground for a day and hand it over to the regular 41st Infantry Regiment (PL). The regiment did not come, however, and at noon on 23 August the Lithuanians retook Łoździeje.

In the following days came the Lithuanian counter-attack. According to different sources, on 25 or 26 August the Lithuanians recovered Sejny for a few hours, and Zawadzki was killed in the fighting. The insurgents retook the town the same day, and soon regular troops arrived. On 28 August the last attack was repulsed and the Lithuanians withdrew behind the Foch line. According to different tallies, from about 37 to almost 50 Poles were killed; Lithuanian losses are not known precisely. According to some historians, the premature outbreak of the uprising put the Lithuanians on their guard and contributed to the failure of the coup the POW was preparing in Kaunas. The border along the Foch line has survived here to this day, but the fighting for Sejny poisoned Polish–Lithuanian relations for a long time.