Immediately following the end of World War I, amid the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, bitter fighting broke out in the Baltic region as Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania struggled for their independence, and Red and White Russian armies began their civil war. There were also German forces still active in what had been the northern end of Germany's Eastern Front. This book offers a concise but detailed introduction to this whole theatre of war, focusing on the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and relevant German and Russian forces, plus Finnish, Danish and Swedish contingents. For each region there is a detailed map as well as meticulous orders-of-battle and insignia charts. Detailed for the first time in the English language, this fascinating book concisely tells the story of the birth of these Baltic nation states.

Immediately following the end of World War I, amid the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, bitter fighting broke out in the Baltic region as Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania struggled for their independence, and Red and White Russian armies began their civil war. There were also German forces still active in what had been the northern end of Germany's Eastern Front. This book offers a concise but detailed introduction to this whole theatre of war, focusing on the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and relevant German and Russian forces, plus Finnish, Danish and Swedish contingents. For each region there is a detailed map as well as meticulous orders-of-battle and insignia charts. Detailed for the first time in the English language, this fascinating book concisely tells the story of the birth of these Baltic nation states.

A fascinating look at the British naval intervention in the Baltic in 1918–20, and at the British, Soviet and Baltic nationalist fleets that fought. Following the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Baltic states became a battleground between Russian Reds and Whites, German troops and emerging Baltic independence forces. In November 1918, the British government decided to intervene, to protect British interests and to support the emerging Baltic states. This initial small force of cruisers and destroyers was eventually augmented by other British warships, including aircraft carriers, a monitor, as well as a handful of submarines and torpedo boats. Opposing them was the far more powerful Russian Baltic Fleet, now controlled by the Bolsheviks. The campaign that followed involved naval clashes between the two sides, the most spectacular of which was an attack on the Soviet naval base of Kronstadt in June 1919 by a force of small British torpedo boats. They torpedoed and sunk the Russian cruiser Oleg, an action which effectively bottled the Baltic fleet up in port for the remainder of the campaign. Finally, in early 1920, the British squadron was withdrawn, following Soviet recognition of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This New Vanguard title explores the naval side of this little-known but strategically crucial campaign fought by the war-weary navies of Britain and Russia and by warships of the emerging Baltic states. Describing the political background to the conflict, and the key points of the naval campaign as well as the warships involved, this is a concise and fascinating account of an overlooked naval campaign that helped reshape the map of Europe.

The Battle of Warsaw in August 1920 has been described as one of the decisive battles of European history. At the start of the battle, the Red Army appeared to be on the verge of advancing through Poland into Germany to expand the Soviet revolution. Had the war spread into Germany, another great European war would have ensued, dragging in France and Britain. However, the Red Army was defeated by 'the miracle on the Vistula'. This campaign title explores the origins and outcomes of this momentous battle. In May 1920, the Polish Army intervened in war-torn Ukraine, pushing all the way to Kiev, but the Red Army, by now triumphant in most of the theatres of the Russian Civil War, turned its attention to this new threat. By the late summer of 1920, two Soviet armies had advanced into Poland and the overconfident Soviet leadership dreamed of advancing over a prostrate Polish Army into neighbouring Germany to ignite a Communist revolution in the heart of Europe. Thanks to the low density of forces on both sides and the huge distances involved, the conflict was a war of manoeuvre, with a curious mixture of traditional and advanced tactics. Horse cavalry played a dominant role in the fighting, but aeroplanes, tanks, and armoured trains lent the war an air of modernity. This illustrated study explores the war through the lens of the Battle of Warsaw, the turning point when, after a summer of disastrous retreat, the Polish army rallied and repulsed the Red Army at Warsaw and Lwow.

Drawing on innovative scholarship on Finland in World War II, this volume offers a comprehensive narrative of politics and combat, well-argued analyses of the ideological, social and cultural aspects of a society at war, and novel interpretations of the memory of war.

“Riveting . . . There is a wealth of new information here that adds considerable texture and nuance to his story and helps to set Russia apart from previous works.”—The Wall Street Journal An epic new account of the conflict that reshaped Eastern Europe and set the stage for the rest of the twentieth century. Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. The doomed White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky’s Red Army and the single-minded Communist dictatorship under Lenin. In the savage civil war that followed, terror begat terror, which in turn led to ever greater cruelty with man’s inhumanity to man, woman and child. The struggle became a world war by proxy as Churchill deployed weaponry and troops from the British empire, while contingents from the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Czechoslovakia played rival parts. Using the most up to date scholarship and archival research, Antony Beevor assembles the complete picture in a gripping narrative that conveys the conflict through the eyes of everyone from the worker on the streets of Petrograd to the cavalry officer on the battlefield and the doctor in an improvised hospital.

Osprey's examination of German troops in the post-World War I (1914-1918) period. The troops returning home to Germany after the 1918 Armistice found their country riven by internal unrest, and its eastern borders threatened. Though reluctant to support the new Republic, the many Free Corps formed by ex-Imperial soldiers fought furiously against Communist revolutionaries at home and Polish and Bolshevik Russian pressure on the frontiers. Later providing much of the manpower for the new Reichswehr, the Free Corps would have strong links with the nascent Nazi Party. This concise account of a little-known but central episode in the history of 20th century Germany is illustrated with rare photographs, and ten colour plates showing unprecedented details of uniforms and insignia.