Lithuania Army - Inter-War History
On 16 February 1918, the Act of Independence of Lithuania was signed, and the state of Lithuania was restored, but the real restoration of the army did not begin until the end of the First World War. 23 November 1918, is regarded as the day of the restoration of the Lithuanian Armed Forces. On that day, the Prime Minister signed Order No 1, establishing the Defence Council. The first temporary statutes were adopted, and military were prohibited from participating in politics. By the beginning of March, there were already some 3,000 volunteers, and during the first mobilisation, the creation of the military force gained momentum. In 1919 and 1920, volunteers fought for Lithuania’s freedom against the Bolsheviks, the White Russians, the disbanded German army and Poland.
From 1921 to 1934, the Armed Forces averaged 20,000 military personnel (in case of war, up to 200,000 could be mobilised). Between 1935 and 1938, state finally completed the legal basis for obligatory military service and carried out reform of the armed forces. The troops were better trained and used modern weaponry. The country constructed its first light aircraft and embraced flying. Brigadier General Antanas Gustaitis designed ANBO training and reconnaissance aircraft. In the early 1930s, a group of pilots led by him flew around Europe in three ANBO-IVs, covering a distance of more than 12,000 kilometers.
The necessity to reorganize the Lithuanian Army already existed since 1926. Under the guidance of Gen. Staff Lt. Col. K. Škirpa a plan for reform was prepared and initiated. After the military coup of December 17, 1926 the modernization process slowed down and the army became only representational. Later some improvements were made in the sphere of military education. However, the army had to be reorganized and modernized completely. When in the middle of 1934 Gen. Staff Lt. Col. S. Raštikis became Chief of the General Staff, he prepared a seven-year plan of army reforms that was based on Škirpa's army reform plan.
Great changes occured in the Lithuanian Army headquarters in the second half of the 1930‘s. Assigned as an army commander, Lieutenant Colonel Stasys Rastikis started to reform the army forces which had been abandoned and poorly prepared for the actions of war. According to the army modernization plan designed in 1935, the reorganization was to last up to seven years and the price for the process called for about 175 millions of litas. During the period of modernization (1935 – 1940) the process itself was going quite consecutively. It wasn‘t only a renewal of armament, for there has been made some serious changes in the basis of law, many laws had been issued, reorganized the structure of the army. The training courses had intensified, methods of training and new programs were designed which increased the knowledge of soldiers.
Lithuania found itself caught between the territorial ambitions of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and hesitancy on the part of the Lithuanian political and military leadership sealed the country’s fate.
In the summer of 1940 the Soviet Union occupied and annexed Lithuania, and during the occupation disbanded the Lithuanian military and deported many officers to Siberia or executed them. Since the outbreak of the Second World War Soviet positions weakened, in June 1941, Lithuanians instigated an insurgency against the existing government and managed to form the Lithuanian Government, thus denying both myths that Lithuania voluntarily joined the Soviet Union and was liberated by Germany. In a few days the German army occupied Lithuania.
The general revolt against Soviet rule which broke out in Lithuania on June 22, 1941, was a complete repudiation of the Soviet lie that the Lithuanians had renounced their independence of their own free will. It is most unfortunate that after the three-year Nazi occupation Lithunia could not be reconstituted as an independent state but fell again under Russian rule -- a second and harsher Soviet occupation.
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