Klaipėdos universitetas

The formation of national units in the Russian army began in 1914 during the First World War. They allowed for the creation of national formations of Poles, Czechs, Armenians, Georgians and Latvians. After the February revolution of 1917, at a similar time to the Estonians and Ukrainians, Lithuanian soldiers who served in the Russian army also started to create units. Formed in different places, the Lithuanian units did not reach the homeland in an organised manner. However, there were repeated attempts to present this Lithuanian military organisation in Russia after the war as the origins of the national army. These attempts intensified when veterans of national units started to come together in Lithuania, and in 1937 they established a separate organisation, the Kariuomenės pirmūnų sąjunga [Association of Army Predecessors]. It highlighted the contribution of Lithuanians to the Great War, but there was not enough time before 1940 to develop its activities as planned. The article reveals the reasons for and the circumstances of the creation of Lithuanian national units, and examines how and why former soldiers from these units, who lived in Lithuania during the interwar period, joined the organisation.

During the struggle for Lithuania’s independence, defence and guerrilla units started forming in the countryside, and fought against the Bermontian and Soviet forces and gangs of marauders. In 1919, intellectuals and public servants from Kaunas formed a sports-military guerrilla organisation, and called it the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (LRU). The organisation accepted not only new members, but also people who had already fought with guerrilla units in northeast Lithuania. Therefore, the ranks of the LRU grew rapidly, and the new paramilitary organisation played an important role in the struggle for Lithuania’s statehood. The LRU was active throughout the interwar period, until 11 July 1940, when, after the Soviet occupation, it was officially disbanded. This paper deals with issues of the scope and structure of the LRU, which until now have hardly been dealt with in historiography. The paper has three objectives: 1) it tries to establish changes in the numbers of riflemen in the interwar period, as well as the numbers of people who belonged to the LRU in different periods, and their total number throughout the interwar period; 2) the ethnic, religious and social composition of the Riflemen’s Union is analysed, with the aim of developing ‘a social portrait of a rifleman’; and 3) the internal structure of the Union is addressed: the numbers of reserve and combatant riflemen.

The article deals with the Lithuanian Army Headquarters’ defence plans for Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory) and Klaipėda City against Germany of the 1930s, providing options of implementation in the event of a military conflict between Lithuania and Germany. The article also provides the data on the Lithuanian armed forces at disposal in 1939, the size of the forces deployed in Klaipėda Region and on its borders, the Army Headquarters plans to use the said military forces, and the potential scenarios of the events. In terms of the military doctrine, an overview of the condition and its potential significance for the sea frontier defence of the Lithuanian Navy is given.