The Freikorps Fights On - Estonia and Latvia War For Independence I THE GREAT WAR 1919
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- Опубликовано: 20 сен 2024
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After the Battle of Cesis it seemed the situation in Latvia and Estonia was about to quieten down. But the German soldiers in the region and the ongoing conflict with Bolshevik Russia meant the 2nd half of 1919 saw even more fighting in the Baltics.
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»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov ( / zalezsky )
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig
Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold
Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved - Real Time History GmbH 2020
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Check out Warship Guides Channel: ruclips.net/video/BhFlYw6lUsA/видео.html
There already is, it's called "Der Untergang" (based on the book) ;-)
@The Great War - Jesse, a question: were any of those German Freikorps fighters men who grew up in the Baltic Republics? Before the Armistice, did Prussia extend into some of the area later regarded as being part of any of the Baltic States? Otherwise, the Freikorps fighters persisting there for so long seem a bit like the Teutonic Knights of old on a new crusade to "Germanize" (read: colonize) the area.
Check out our first episode about the region from Spring. We talk about the origins there.
Thanks, I'll do that!
Great Video Jesse and Team . Last night I saw Drach's Vid and today I watched this one . Collabs work .
Imagine trying to share war stories from this conflict to your grandkids.
"Granpa, what did you do in the war?"
"I was in the West Russian White Army."
"Wow, so did you fight the Red Army?"
"We would have, but the Royal Navy and some Latvians in pleasure boats got in the way."
"But... granpa, weren't they also at war with the Reds? Shouldn't you have been allies?"
"Well, we did try to conquer Latvia a little bit. You'll understand when you're older."
*Child grows older, does not understand and never will.*
Well all this independence movments was not different from communist uprisings, since Courland Governorate was part of Russia.
@@LilMalygos What?! That's nonsense! This is years later after all communist uprisings already happened!
@@raitiC1 civil war was still happend. Bolsheviks conquering some lands and capture goverment buildings don't mean they automaticly rightfull goverment and everyone fell free do anything they want or bolsheviks allow.
At least white armies thought so.
@@LilMalygos I meant in the territory of the Baltic states!
@@raitiC1 baltic states not existed. It was territory of Russian Empire/Republic, which white armies seen as official border of state.
"Latvia declares war on Germany". Nice one. Funny to hear being Latvian.
Come to think of it, Latvia would probably have beaten Germany because the country was under constant instability.
@@jevinliu4658 constant instability, but many many independent Freikorps who would have fought against the enemy disregarding the Versailles treaty of disarmament and limited official troop capacities. So they wouldn't have really a chance of winning because of sheer outnumbering
@@jevinliu4658 Germany still Had some 100k soldier from Versailles. They would have still won
_______
He's right though...
It just sounds weird.
It's like being from Michigan and hearing the Upper Peninsula declared war on Wisconsin...
Wisconsin is full of cheese making Germans. They could mobilize whole cow armies, and mechanize all the regional butter production...
Yeah, the UP would definitely lose. Buncha salmon fishermen going up the fried curd powerhouse that is Green Bay. Everybody of third generation German juggernaut ancestry.
You lose that fight, everytime.
And you know Wisconsin would put a heavy tariff on sour cream and yogurt after the armistice is signed...
Just imagine going to war with The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald as your fight song, lol.
Lol, never heard that crap. I'm a Latvian aswell
If possible, I enjoy these post-war episodes even more than the original WW1 content, mostly because I know even less about this time period than the Great War, and because I find the chaotic nature of the period extremely intriguing. Of course the videos are also extremely well-made, and the team has somehow managed to keep increasing the quality of the videos constantly. I especially like these Baltic episodes, since I'm from the relative vicinity of the region (Finland), yet had little idea about how eventful and complex the post-war era was in the baltic states, save for some basic knowledge about the estonian war of independence, mostly related to the finnish volunteers.
Thanks - it's fun to peek outside what is familiar. I've had a blast reading about this period as well.
Heh, me too. I had no idea there was this much chaos after WW1. Then again, I should have known, since after a big war, there's always lots of little wars that follow up. It really intrigues me.
Same here
"Okay Freikorps, time to come home."
"lolnein"
I feel like that post war Germany is like that why can't you be normal meme. The rest of Europe is like 'why are you still fighting?!' and Germany screams 'we never lost!!!'
The Allies: You are indeed brave, good Germany, but the fight is mine.
Germany: Oohh, had enough, eh?
The Allies: Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no army left!
Germany: Yes I have.
The Allies: Look!
Germany: ‘Tis but a flesh wound.
That's like the whole of Eastern Europe. The Allies at Versailles could not see what was around them, sadly.
they had to fight in order to slow the reds.
Henryk Gödel wait really? That sounds...really odd
It feels like a million little kitty kats are scratching on my balls
The Baltics 1919: everyone is fighting everyone. It's amazing such chaos continued to happen after end of WW1. Great content! 😁👍
Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians didn't fight each other though.
“A great, if Syphlitic lover.” That’s good, I’m using that in my Tinder bio.
This guy
The Baltic wars of independence are sheer insanity. They make me patriotic for three countries I'm not even from.
Well, they deserved the war they got on the German side, having betrayed them is a casus belli for me
@@maxx1014 Yet, I'm glad they did betray them. It was risky, but kicking out foreigners who held power was vital for independence IMO.
@@Lukas-er4nd they were not 'foreigners', they lived in this region since the 13th century. So it would be fine to your logic to kick out hundreds of millions of North and South Americans because they are foreigners and barely are 500 years in this region while natives are there since beginning of times
@@maxx1014 hundreds of millions is too little too late. The native culture doesn't exist anymore (I assume, don't know much about the region), so this is a no-op. Otherwise I'd agree. Calling shots for people of other cultures makes them extinct.
@@Lukas-er4nd pretty sure there are still 2 millions of natives alone in the US. Or another example: would you kick out everyone who belongs to a long established minority in regions? I hope you would not
The more this channel delves into the history of inter-war years, the more I feel like there wasn't even two seperate world wars, but one massive one fought from the beginning of the 20th century all the way to 1945, followed by the Cold War, so the fighting never stopped permanently.
There's some folks who argue that, rather than two World Wars, it was more like a second Thirty Years War.
In my opinion The great war lasted from 1914 to 1945 .After the german defeat in 1918 , came the wars in the baltic , followed by the irish civil war ,the italian abyssian war ,the chinese civil war the japanes attack in manchuria , the spanish civil war , rebellions in india , the bolshevic revolutiont the arab rebellions in the middle east , war on thr north east frontier , with the indian empire and afghanistan , etc , etc .
The general fighting in Europe will die down in the early 20s, though. This "second 30 Years War" is a nice thought experiment but has to ignore or brush over so much in order to maintain its narrative that it becomes somewhat useless as a historical framework.
Just because there's some war happening somewhere, doesn't mean that it's useful to bind them together.
I'm guessing the only fighting in Europe between 1950 and 1989, coups & revolts notwithstanding, happened in Northern Ireland and Basque Country. A great video, "The Fallen of World War II" (ruclips.net/video/DwKPFT-RioU/видео.html) says some people label 1945 onward "The Long Peace", as this was the last time members of the largest 15 economies warred with each other.
By that definition, WWI began at the Italian-Turkish War (maybe) and ended when the Allied Expeditionary forces stopped fighting the Bolsheviks.
"The European Civil War" is another term that has been used.
I remember asking my history teacher who the Bermondtists were. I just settled on a "too complicated, not important". All these years later, I can finally see why!
Before this video, i have had never heard of them, and i'm estonian.
As Latvian i thank you for doing this videos, we fought well for our independence between 2 sides and we won. Greetings to my brothers in arms- Estonians as well. 🇱🇻🇪🇪
"Estonians referred to negotiating with the Soviets as, 'Dancing with the Devil's grandmother.'"
Some things never change, I see.
This is (to me) such an amazing and eye-opening history. In high school, we covered WWI to 1918 with brief mention of a revolution in Russia (reds vs. whites). The map of Europe was redrawn and I was given no clue of all the fighting that continued after Nov. 11 in eastern Europe nor anything suggesting the involvement of Britain, France, U.S., Germany and Japan in these conflicts. Thank you so very much for publishing this series.
Have studed history up to Bachelor in 3 different french "facultés" and do think the same way as @Steve Barrett here. So much facts and *clarity* in any historical serie requires an incredible knowledge (i.e. research), that only a *well* organiwed and motivated team work can achieve.
I only wish I'd taken the time to find a railway map of the Baltic States area before watching this (and of Russia for the previous episodes). I mean trains were so freakin important in these bloody conflicts.
The history of the Baltics is rarely mentioned, thanks for this video
Baltics basicly be like: Hey guys, we exist.
@@eduardpeeterlemming yes
Watching from Estonia,great to learn about the history of baltic states
There are more in-depth estonian videos by EASTORY etc for example, if interested, a fellow estonian history buff here!
Huge thanks to you guys !! coming from the Baltic countries - I feel this channel is so important just because that still 100 years later we are facing russian aggression fake history propaganda etc and it's still pretty hard living here just because of all the damage done in last 50 years of occupation - although we have the country back for 25 years almost - the damage done has traumatized the whole society and we can't even focus on rebuilding as corruption and russian interference in the elections / economy / policy etc tries to revert and destroy everything that's good - so yeah you guys at least give some hope that history will not be forgotten or rewritten as pure fiction
Operation reassurance is on its way mate Canada will stand by Latvia 🇨🇦🇱🇻
Canada is just awesome! need to get there someday
um no - ok I see how you could have misunderstood that and maybe see it as me hating anything rus but it's completely not that - I have friends and family who are Russians Ukrainians etc - and I'm only talking about the government policy right now what I believe in is that we are all humans no matter what edge of the world we come from and we are all in this together and there is not a single thing in the world that justifies some how labeling humans in us vs them or anything like that so what are you talking about globalists internationalists bandits whatever?
@Helion H Well, but those globalist and bandits massively exploats nationalistic instincts of russian people so what?
A cup of coffee, a cigar, and another Great War Episode. What can possibly be better?
Health
There were also Latvians fighting on the Bolshevik side. The Latvian Red Riflemen. Some of the bloodiest battles in the Estonian war of independence were between Latvian Reds and Estonian Army.
Moreover, the Latvian Red Riflemen smashed Denikin’s White Russian and Don Cossack troops in October 1919 in the decisive battle near Orel-Kursk . After the battle the Latvian Red Rifle division was recognized as the elite division and it’s colonel Jukums Vatsetis became the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army.
ooh, crossover with drachinifel, you guys are really killing it with the co-operative content lately
it's important for creators like us to stick together and work together.
Guderian? Oh shit, that name sounds familiar. And Alexander too? What the hell is going on?
Makes this underappreciated period all the more interesting!
Best part of prequels: recognizable characters
Alexander was fairly known even at that time for his heroics during the WWI. His career was on the right track...
I'm really glad to see you guys on here talking about this history. Most history courses and textbooks just say, "So the Armistice was signed, and war ended in Europe. Then Hitler invades Poland in 1939." And that is so far from the truth of it. I'm happy to see some people out here are trying to set the record straight.
This is an incredible story. Its amazing how tough people were 100 years ago. All this brutal fighting was being done but people who’d already been bled white by 5 years of world war fighting.
I think it would be interesting for a video on how all the various FrieKorps and militias were financed and how they obtained arms. Great episode as always.
Can't wait for the Lithuania episode. Greetings from our little corner of the globe 🇱🇹.
Jesse himself said that Lithuania will get it's own episode either at the end of this year or next year's January. Excited to see how it will escalate!
Jesse is so well spoken. Loving these post war videos. Can’t wait for 16 days in Berlin! Had to watch this one twice pretty confusing but very interesting.
Some historians call the time from 1914 to 1945 the second 30 year war instead of separating it into 2 world wars. The more i learn about this time, the more i think they are right.
When one war just isn't enough...
Sometimes a party just has to keep going.
One of the most important moral boosters for Estonians was definitely the help of Finnish volunteers (3500-3700 people) during most critical moments of the War of Independence. Estonians and Finns, both Finnic nations closest to each other, have always helped each other in times of need. For example, Estonians in the Winter War between Finland and Soviet Russia in World War II. Men from Sweden and Denmark also helped as volunteers in the Estonian War of Independence. Thousands wanted to volunteer, especially from Denmark, but their socialist government allowed only a few hundred to come to help. However, supporting Estonia/Estland found great support among the common people.
Seriously, you have an amazing channel here. Your videos are the highlight of my week. Thank you.
Thank You for a well-made episode! Also, the names of Latvian towns were quite well pronounced. This time is not as well-known as it should be in Baltic states themseves because of damage to societies during WWII. I am from Latgale region and I did not know there was a fight for a river crossing not 10km from home until I stumbled upon a memorial stone :D
"The Freikorps will advance, present the colors!" "Has Von Der Goltz nothing to offer me but this Amazons?"
Jesse, Flo and the whole Great War channel: “YOU ARE AWESOME”. Thank you for your great work.
At the time most Latvian soldiers from WW1 were fighting in the Red Army as Red Latvian Riflemen. They hated the cossacs so much that they just had to do it. Without the Red Riflemen there probably would not have been any Soviet Union as the former Imperial riflemen units were higly experienced and organized. So we have to thank Landeswehr who dealt with the reds in Latgale.
Indeed, Jesse, you've made a lot of sense of the fighting in the Baltic, especially for people living in the Near-East like me. Thank you !
Thanks!
I am subscribed to both channels and, before I started this one already had Drach's ready on another tab. Now I see it's a collaboration and am all the happier for it.
I love these collabs!
Latvia is the only country in the XX century which had declared war on Germany and Soviet Russia at the same time, and won.
won
@@smitthone Thanks. Corrected.
True, but barely, since with or without allies getting attacked from two sides rarely ends well.
Estonia also fought both Russians and Germans and won.
Latvia is a madlad country! 😀
Infiltrating the Cheka ánd the Red Army ánd making it out alive. This Paul Dukes is hardcore! Great video!
He was one true madlad! 😀
You guys are amazing! Thanks for keeping history alive. I've watched for years and your passion for truth and history has never waned. Keep it up!
this video illustrates precisely why the Baltic states and Poland are so nervous TODAY over Russia's activities. It has been 100 years and Russian aggression has not changed, they still want to invade every surrounding country.
Let's not exaggerate, if Russia really wanted to invade every surrounding country after the fall of the USSR, it would have done it by now. And remember that the Baltic countries are NATO countries, thus Russia has no interest in attacking NATO.
@Tom Skonieczka - Amen to that!
@@dragosstanciu9866 your comment has not aged so well
Russia has the right to defend itself
@@georgyzhukov6409 lol yes Russia is defending itself currently in the Ukraine, just like it defended itself in 1920 when it invaded Poland or Sept 17th 1939 when it invaded Poland...shall I go on, how many times Russia has "defended" itself while invading Poland and committing genocide?
Thanks a million, Jesse. Your program is a gem for history teachers (like me)
Such a bloody tangle. Many thanks for this vid. Also, not in every year is history made on November 31st! @16:37
So much history forgotten or manipulated! Thanks for setting things right again. There is no way forward without being aware of your past!
Keep it up !
You folks are doing great, the improvement is showing.
The Great War, the only channel broadcasting from the zoo flaktower in 1945.
I'm really glad that you recommend other channels that go into more depth about the subjects you cover. There was a time when I covered a subject that Crash Course was going to be covering. Knowing that they would probably brush past the area I did a video on, (because it was a battle and they generally jumped past those,) I wrote to John Green and told him about the video. I tried to reach him through many different means, and there was no response. When his video came out, sure enough, he had glossed past the battle, so I said in the comments that people could learn more about the battle on my channel. My comment got deleted. I put it up again, and again it got deleted. So he didn't have time to respond to me, but he had enough time to go through comments and delete those that would help someone out. It really disappointed me as I had been a fan up until that point.
So it's good that you're supporting your fellow RUclipsrs.
I never knew any of this history post Paris Peace Treaty…. Great job Jesse. You and your team have done commendable work.
This channel really continues to staggeringly impress. The hectic chaos of this period is so glossed over or ignored in the history books. It’s just. Oh WW1 happened...then suddenly nazis.
If you want to read a account from the German side of this I recommend "The Outlaws"
Interesting that the Freikorps movement in Latvia partially resembled the Battle of Courland 24 years later
I was just reading "The Outlaws" by Ernst von Solomon. Thank for clarifing the conflict!
Fantastic presentation !!
Estonian army did not have any tanks in Riga, only two armored trains, approximately 500 men, 11 artillery pieces and up too 50 MG-s. Our first tank unit was formed on the 23. November 1919. When Estonian army took over the tanks that were given to the North-Western army.
Siim Õismaa, Estonian war museum, www.esm.ee
Thanks for detailing such complex matters.
The Polish-Lithuanian enmity is so disturbing, frustrating, especially since they had an even bigger common enemy, the Red Army.
@Marius Indeed, but still it is so awkward.
Awkward by todays standards
Not if you understand the history
I came to the most recent video to leave this comment. Your channel is amazing! I am currently doing an immersion in history in college and taking a WW1 class, this channel is extremely helpful and insightful. Thank you so much for the great content.
Welcome to the show, glad you are on board.
I didn´t know about the Freikorps sticking around after the defeat under Cesis and that Estonians had further clashes with those forces. Germans posing as Russians, what a clusterf*ck.
If I had to explain what went on in the Baltics 1918-1920 I don´t think I would even try. Very interesting video, learned something today!
it's a complicated situation for sure
When is the Greco-Turkish War coming?
when we find some pictures we can license. This has been a huge problem so far. Greek and Turkish archives are extremely challenging to work with. very frustrating.
@@TheGreatWar Yeah, thats true. Especially Greek History is unfortunately very underdocumented. Good Luck!
@@TheGreatWar the Balkens difficult and challenging? Never
Brilliant as always. There's a great novel and film about this from Marguerite Yourcenar.. Coup de grâce..
"Estonian tanks", not a phrase I would have expected to hear.
Damn, that was a confusing conflict.
As well a I know (as I am not Latvian, perhaps someone can add more details), Ulmanis didn't promise to the German soldiers any land, but the Baltic German landlords did, in their attempt to create the so-called United Baltic Duchy, a vassal state of Germany lead by the Baltic German nobility, in the lands of Latvia and Estonia.
Another part of the video what needs correction is, that it shows like the frontline near Pskov was stable. In fact, Pskov was taken from the Bolsheviks by the Estonian army, but it was soon handed over to the White Russians. As the White Russians failed in that part of the frontline as well, the Bolsheviks took it back. After these events, the frontline was about where the Estonian border was established afterwards.
Loving the new content. Great work. I had no idea how mad post-war europe was.
Please also do a review of armoured trains. These played an essential role in our war of independence, and nowadays nobody thinks that a train can be a terrible weapon.
These videos are even better than the ones about the Great War itself.
It's incredible how, in your standard world and American history class in high school, the extensive post-war violence is ignored, quite simply because the Western Powers wrote the history books and, as they didn't experience significant post-war violence, they did not feel the need to discuss it in the history books.
Makes sense, all countries teach things that are relative to themselves. No point learning about far flung places if your population doesn't know it's own history
US school history skips from November 1918 to The Great Depression to Sept 1939 to Dec 1941. Even WW1 is skimmed over quickly. This is not new, it was that way in the 1960's & 70's when I was in school. I knew almost nothing about WW1 until a couple years ago when I stumbled onto a great RUclips channel, The Great War.
@@LuvBorderCollies WW1 didn't have a huge impact on the American psyche. America just ended up a little richer. Where as in Europe it collapsed 4 Empires, ended a generation of French/British men and led to the rise of communism and fascism.
You cant fit all of history in education
Estonia! 🇪🇪
In my opnion all these wars with the Russian Empire and the ones within it are the most interesting theatre of war on this channel.
Thank you for the video. Greetings from Germany. Schöne Arbeit, weiter so.
I wonder why you would think that looks at profile pic
lol
This is just a meme
Right on, two of my favorite channels teaming up
"Dancing with the Devil's Grandmother". OMG! That my be the funniest thing I've ever heard!!
Great episode
Great history vastly ignored, alas.... great work! Am expecting the best from the Berlin documentary!
To the Baltic nations, no one has ever given or received anything as a gift, we took it ourselves, we have our own land, our own country and our freedom !
Those British warships apparently were quite helpful though.
Hey man, since you are doing the Russian civil war, will you also cover The Czechoslovakian legions? The reason as to why i am asking for this is that I am Czech and that my great grandfather fought there. Sadly i did not have the pleasure to meet him since he died as part of resistance during ww2 but i did hear some stories from my great grandmother about his time while in Russia.
Man i must say, that if even half of thinks in them is true than that twintailed lion of ours in well deserved.
You finally sayed Daugava correctly, congradulations!
WHY HAS THIS HISTORY NEVER BEEN TAUGHT TO US BEFORE BY OUR SCHOOLS OR HISTORY CHANNELS. sorry for shouting but I am really shocked
The result is more useful than the foundation to the directors.
First Last if there are 180 school days in a year, and a 40-minute history class every school day, then there are 120 hours of in-class time for teaching history in a year. Assuming a school teaches 2 years of World History, thats 240 hours. To cover everything for people who don’t yet know the importance of the steam engine or that the mongol empire facilitated the bubonic plague.
Busy teaching one-sided politics
@@demonprinces17 Right-wing politics, that is.
John Lawson Haha, Als ob!
What school are you going to?? 😂
I didn't expect a second episode on the Baltics. Russian subs for the previous one are half-done, I will finish and move to this one after that.
thanks for the help with the subs. We will continue to cover the region. It's super interesting and the local archives are super helpful.
@@TheGreatWar It is me who is to thank you for publishing my previous subs.
@@LukeVilent It makes me very happy that we have been able to add your Russian subs - I hope in the future we can do more to reach the Russian-speaking community! Thanks a lot for your efforts.
@@jessealexander2695 Russian description and subs for the June episode are ready. Took me the whole day to catch all the typos.
Very interesting! Few people know how much fighting there was before 1914 and after 1918.
This is fascinating and depressing.
Die Grenzwacht hielt im Osten, dem Feinde lange stand...♩
"So what happened after WW1?"
*Deep draw on cigarette*
"Well...."
16:35 ". . . and by November thirty-first . . . ." What an extraordinary year was 1919! A November with thirty-one days.
Mirrored in 1945 Yugoslavia and Greece. Great vid, man.
Superb coverage of a little known year. The maps are VERY helpful.
This is probably one of the most interesting and confusing conflicts I've heard about for a very long time....
Time to delve deeper and deeper until it's not confusing anymore....... but I'm starting to think it'll always be a confusing mess of a conflict lol
Will you guys do the treaty of Sevres and the Turkish war of independence? It starts in 1919 aswell.
I bet soon. Look at what he said at the end of the video.
@@jevinliu4658 yeah, i commented before i started watching :P
All throughout this, I have to say, German troops can hold out. They are being resisted by 3 countries and the local people, have no support of any country, no reinforcements and they continue going.
I live in Latvia ❤️
What a mix . Renegade germans , Royal Navy , red russians , white russians , estonians , lenin , trotsky, cossacks , endless .
It's very rare that you hear about the history of the Baltics
Thanks
Daugava 🤔 I thought you said Dagobah 😁
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."
Excellent series, thank you.
Damn, so much violence in our continent in just one century. Human life was so banalized.
When people say we are a spoiled generation, we truly are (the bad parts and the good), because our ancestours fought so we could be "spoiled", but ironic that the people who usually say that are so spoiled compared to that generation. We truly have it good.
And the "peace" was just the start of so many micro wars and big wars thanks to bad decisions and years old ethnic tensions.
Keep up the great work pls!
4:00 he looks like a character. Syphilitic or not, he appears to have lived to the age of 96.
Great episode.
Where did the Germans in Baltics came from? They were part of Russia or Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth for few hundred years.
german merchants dominated the baltic sea for centuries from the middle ages onwards. riga was even part of the hansa.
German merchants yes, nobleman and mostly native Latvians who "become" German to gain social status by being part of craft guilds, etc...
Try to google a Livonian Crusade.
Baltics was part Denmark, Teuronic order, Livonian Order, Sword-Brothers, Hansaetic League, Sweden etc.
Fascinating! I never would have believed I'd learn something about guderian at this point
Any Latvians?
This is more history I have never heard of, thank you.
Glory to heroes who fought to defend their homes!