Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

In the western borderlands of the former Russian Empire, which the German army had taken over at the beginning of the First World War (1915), the state institutions of the newly declared independent Lithuania began to emerge in 1918. One of them was the Lithuanian army, established at the very end of the year, which lacked everything at the time, but which was to engage the approaching Bolshevik Red Army as early as January 1919. In the first years, as the Lithuanian army was being built up, it interacted with German troops, some of whom were units retreating from the Eastern Front, and others were newly formed from volunteers who were recruited in Germany to fight against Bolshevism in the east. As the political order in Europe was changing in a way that was very unfavourable to Germany, all hopes that the Germans would be able to maintain their control in the east collapsed. The article examines how under these circumstances the German military leadership’s attitude towards the evolving Lithuanian army changed during the period of the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. Drawing on material in the Political Archives of the German Foreign Ministry and the German Military Archives, the article shows the different impact that two factors, the assessment of the capabilities of the Lithuanian army and the political attitudes of the Germans, had on the image of the Lithuanian armed forces.