14th Annual Baltic Military History Conference “Military Thought and its Transformation in the Newly Independent States of Europe in 1918-1940”

For the armies that fought in World War I, trench warfare became a problem, with neither side able to achieve any significant success for a long period of time. Such a stalemate consumed huge amounts of human and military resources. Societies had to cope with unprecedented human losses and economic problems caused by the resources absorbed by the war. Rebellions and revolutions broke out in many countries.

The roots of the problem can be traced back to the development of science, technology and heavy industry in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Weapons of much greater destructive power were introduced. The transition of the continental European countries to universal conscription and the resulting large manpower reserves allowed the shattered units to be re-formed over and over again, and new contingents were sent to the front.

Military thinking, however, was of the 19th century. The signs of the problems that were to come – a protracted front, difficulties in commanding a mass army, too slow advance of the manoeuvre, multiplied firepower, etc. – had already become apparent in the Second Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War and the Balkan Wars. However, military planning and the updating of regulations and rules mostly failed to take these experiences into account.

The search for solutions began during World War I. Manpower and firepower were concentrated in the decisive section of the operation. Mortars, assault rifles, submachine guns and machine guns, chemical weapons, tanks and aircrafts were introduced. Artillery was developed, as well as small arms and escorting weapons, anti-tank and anti-aircraft defences were created, new means of communication were introduced, and so on. However, military theory did not support the use of modern weapons and equipment on the battlefield. The art of war needed a way out of the deadlock.

As the weapons fell silent, the revision of the principles of warfare and the development of military technology gained momentum. Many of the technological innovations of the 1920s were hopelessly outdated already by the second half of the 1930s. Mechanisation and motorisation became decisive in the ground forces, and the fleets of the big countries acquired aircraft carriers. Advances in military technology and the desire to avoid at all costs the stalemate of trench warfare of World War I forced the major powers to develop modern warfare theory. Many theoretical approaches emerged, some of which are still influencing warfare in the 21st century. New concepts and doctrines were created: mobile warfare, systematic warfare and deep-operation theory. The concepts of earlier military classics were reinterpreted and adapted to modern warfare.

The losers in World War I were the continental European empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia and Middle Eastern Ottoman Empire. On their ruins, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece strengthened and Albania consolidated its statehood. Serbia and Montenegro merged with the former Austro-Hungarian possessions in Balkans to form Yugoslavia. Second Polish Republic, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Czechoslovakia were born. Austria and Hungary lost a large part of their territory and population. Along with statehood, the new countries had to build up their armies. It mostly began on the battlefields of the wars of liberation and independence, that were the continuation of the World War I.

The inter-war respite was short. In the 1930s, the majority of democracies in the new and reconstructed countries collapsed one after the other and authoritarian rulers came to power. The totalitarian Soviet Union and Germany rapidly increased their military power, and the Eastern European peripheral states, squeezed between them, had to be ready to repel invasion from either direction.

One of the outcomes of the Paris Peace Conference, which ended the Great War, was the creation of the League of Nations which was supposed to prevent the outbreak of equally destructive wars in the future. In 1928, the Briand-Kellogg Pact condemned war as an instrument of national policy. In 1929, the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and the wounded were adopted. The disarmament conference of the League of Nations, held in 1932–1934, had a direct bearing on the military sphere, where unsuccessful attempts were made to agree on the restriction of offensive arms and the banning of some types of weapons.

How did the new European countries see the future war? On what conceptual basis did they want to build their armed forces? What conclusions were drawn from World War I and more distant military history? How were the military theoretical concepts of the major powers taken into account? How was the military potential of the new and reconstructed countries of Eastern Europe assessed by other countries? The conference was jointly organised by the Baltic Defence College, the Estonian War Museum and the Estonian Military Academy.

Focus was on following topics:

• perceptions of theory and levels of warfare in the inter-war period;
• visions of the future war;
• planning defensive and offensive operations in the inter-war period;
• conceptual understandings of the development of the armed forces, but also of the development of armed services and branches;
• the development of military technology and its impact on the military theory;
• international cooperation and other countries’ assessments of the new countries’ military potential and development;
• the position of these countries at the League of Nations Conference on Disarmament;
• the impact of social and economic developments on military theory;
• comparative analysis of theoretical approaches in different countries.

Programme

Day 1

9:15 Registration and coffee

10:00 Conference opening

Opening Remarks

Estonian War Museum – Mr Hellar Lill

Baltic Defence College – COL Dietmar Hartung

Estonian Military Academy – BG Vahur Karus

10:15 Hendrik Sepp Prize

10:30–11:30 Keynote Speaker: Wiss. Oberrat Dr. Frank Reichherzer, The Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces (ZMSBw). Thinking War! Military, Society and Warfare between the World Wars

Introduction by Dr. Igor Kopõtin

11:30-12:00 Coffee Break

Forming the new armies and assessments for the possible conflicts

12.00 – 12.30 Dr. Arto Oll, The Estonian Maritime Museum
The Development of Estonian Naval Strategic Thought and Assessments of the Capability of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, 1919-1939

12.30 – 13.00 LTC Markus Wahlstein, (MA), Director of Army Research Centre, Finland
In the shadow of the red army – threat assessment and the development of Finnish defense during 1920´s and 30´s

13.00 – 13.30 Dr. Valdas Rakutis, Member of the Lithuanian Parliament
Experience of Lithuania Independance Wars in concept of army building: cavalry and aviation

14.00 – 14.50 LUNCH University Cafe

Press as a Platform for the Development of Military Thought

15.00 – 15.30 Dr Kārlis Dambītis, Leading researcher, National Defence Academy of Latvia (NAA)
Representation of theoretical and practical problems in the Latvian army in the 1920s-1930s: an example of military press publications

15.30 -16.00 Maj (ret.) Ph.D. Gintautas Jakštys, lecturer, Klaipėda University
The Rise of Military Thought in the Lithuanian Military Press in 1919-1940

16.00-16.30 Michal Cáp, MA, Junior Researcher at the Military History Institute; Prague, Czech Republic
“The Challenges of our Defence” Military Thought and Officer’s Writings in interwar Czechoslovakia

16.30 – 17.00 Coffee Break

Military thought and the future perception

17.00 – 17.30 Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vytautas Jokubauskas, Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Baltic Region History and Archaeology, Klaipėda University.
Military ideas and defence plans 1930-1940 in the Lithuanian Army

17.30 – 18.00 Maj. Peter Mitchell (MA), United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, Maj. Tanel Tatsi (MA), Estonian Defence Forces.

The Return of the Defensive: Guarding Estonia in the Interwar Period and the Future

Closing Remarks

Day 2

9.15 – 10.00 Coffee
Persons and their influence on the military

10.00 – 10.30 Dr. hab. Tomasz Gajownik, Institute of History University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

Polish Military Thought in the Interwar Period and the Role of Marshal Pilduski
10.30 – 11.00 Col. (ret.) Aarne Ermus (MA), Estonian Military Academy
General Laidoner’s doctrine of active defence and its outputs in the Estonian Defence Modernization Plan 1938
11.00 – 11.30 Prof. dr. Wim Klinkert, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda
A Dutch Liddell Hart. The military thinking of Captain Michael Calmeyer (1932-1939)

11.30 – 12.00 Prof. dr. Jonas Vaičenonis, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
Lithuanian Army Officers’ Assessments of the German Army’s Delay Battles in the Late 1920s – Early 1930s
12.00 – 13.00 Light lunch and coffee

Experience from the Baltic Wars of Independence and their Influence at the Development of Military Thought

13.00 – 13.30 Dr. Egidijus Papečkys, lecturer at Vytautas Magnum University and at the Air Force Command and Staff Course at the Lithuanian Military Academy
The Lithuanian army in 1935–1940: the development and the implementation of modern technologies

13.30 – 14.00 Maj. Adam Buschard (MA), Royal Danish Defence College Copenhagen, Denmark
Preparing for war in the Baltics; the Danish contribution to the Estonian war of independence 1918-1920

14.00 – 14.30 Dr. Kęstutis Kilinskas, Assistant professor (full time) at University of Vilnius, Faculty of history
Weapons supply to military forces of Lithuania in 1919: between the dynamics of battle and foreign policy interests of Germany, France and England.