Estonian War of Independence | ||||||||||
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Part of the Russian Civil War | ||||||||||
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Belligerents | ||||||||||
Estonia Latvia United Kingdom White Movement Finnish, Danish, and Swedish volunteers |
Russian SFSR Commune of the Working People of Estonia |
Baltische Landeswehr | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | ||||||||||
Johan Laidoner | Jukums Vācietis | Rüdiger von der Goltz | ||||||||
Strength | ||||||||||
7 January 1919: 4,450 Including
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7 January 1919: 5,750–7,250 Including
May 1919: 80,000 |
June 1919: 20,000 | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
5,000 dead 15,000 injured |
unknown 10,000 captured |
400 killed 1,500 injured |
Independence of Estonia
7 January 1919: 4,450
May 1919: 86,000
7 January 1919: 5,750–7,250
The Estonian War of Independence (Estonian: Vabadussõda, literally "Freedom War"), also known as the Estonian Liberation War, was a defensive campaign of the Estonian Army and its allies, most notably the White Russian Northwestern Army, Latvia, and the United Kingdom, against the Soviet Western Front offensive and the aggression of the Baltische Landeswehr. It was fought in connection with the Russian Civil War during 1918–1920. The campaign was the struggle of Estonia for its sovereignty in the aftermath of World War I. It resulted in a victory for the newly established state and was concluded in the Treaty of Tartu.
In November 1917, upon the disintegration of the Russian Empire, a diet of the Autonomous Governorate of Estonia, the Estonian Provincial Assembly, which had been elected in the spring of that year, proclaimed itself the highest authority in Estonia. Soon thereafter, the Bolsheviks dissolved the Estonian Provincial Assembly and temporarily forced the pro-independence Estonians underground in the capital Tallinn. A few months later, using the interval between the Red Army's retreat and the arrival of the Imperial German Army, the Salvation Committee of the Estonian National Council Maapäev issued the Estonian Declaration of Independence in Tallinn on 24 February 1918 and formed the Estonian Provisional Government. This first period of independence was extremely short-lived, as the German troops entered Tallinn on the following day. The German authorities recognized neither the provisional government, nor its claim for Estonia's independence, counting them as a self-styled group usurping sovereign rights of the Baltic nobility.