At the time of the World War I Armistice on November 11, 1918, when most European nations were grieving their war losses and looking towards rebuilding their countries’ infrastructures, one region was still involved in a hot war with a multitude of combatants seeking to gain territorial control of the lands south of the Gulf of Finland and east of the Baltic Sea. Author Steve R Dunn looks at this conflict in his book, ‘Battle in the Baltic – The Royal Navy and the Fight to Save Estonia & Latvia 1918-20’ [Seaforth Publishing 2020], through a British naval perspective. The Royal Navy supported the indigenous Estonian and Latvian peoples fight for independent countries, providing artillery support from the sea at strategic targets and onto land battles, while also preventing the Bolshevik controlled Russian navy from being able to range far from its Kronstadt base.

From 1918 into 1920, British Royal Navy battleships patrolled the Baltic Sea from home base Copenhagen to outside the mined waters of the Russian naval fortress at Kronstadt at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland 30 kilometers west of Petrograd. One battle theatre where the Royal Navy fleet provided escort assistance and artillery cover fire was east of Reval [Tallinn] for General Juhan Laidoner’s Estonian freedom fighters helping push back the Bolsheviks at the end of December in 1918. Other important battles where the Royal Navy’s ships heavy artillery bombardment played a major role was at Riga and Libau in Latvia in November of 1919, when the Royal Navy’s firepower aided the Latvians in driving back German forces.

Dunn also relates that when the White Russians were preparing to attack the Bolsheviks in Petrograd in October 1919 with Royal Navy action against Kronstadt, Finnish General Mannerheim was willing to take his troops into that battle against the Bolsheviks, if the White Russians would commit to Finnish independence after the war. That Finnish offer was rejected by White Russian Admiral Kolchak and the subsequent Whites’ attack fizzled. Was this a potential history changing moment missed?
Although the Royal Navy did not land any troops for battles during their Baltic campaign, they still suffered significant losses on and under water, as 128 men were killed [including 5 Royal Air Force], 60 wounded and 9 taken prisoner. In total, 238 ships were deployed to the Baltic during this campaign, of which 19 were sunk and 61 others needed to return to home base for repairs. Back in London there were many differing views about the Baltic operation, and it was an unpopular assignment for the sailors serving as they experienced many hardships with poor pay for this undeclared war. However on the sea, Rear Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair and Rear Admiral Sir Walter Henry Cowan both took assertive control, and with their fleet and crews provided timely assistance and effective cover for the freedom fighters in all situations. Admiral Cowan explained the Royal Navy assignment in the Baltic this way, “… until all nations bordering on it have found a stable government and are at peace with each other, or until I receive further orders”.

Steve Dunn’s research and thorough documentation in ‘Battle in the Baltic’ are conveyed in an easily readable manner. This book will become a reference manual for the ‘Royal Navy’s Baltic Campaign of 1918-20’ for Estonian and Latvian wars of independence historians. Dunn delivers a perspective from an important ally, magnifying a key reason why the Latvian and Estonian freedom fighters were successful. Estonia with the Treaty of Tartu on February 2, 1920, and Latvia with the Treaty of Riga on August 11, 1920, signed peace treaties with the Bolsheviks, so as per Admiral Cowan, it was “mission accomplished for the British Royal Navy in the Baltic Sea in 1920!”


Toomas Trei

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