The Baltic Riflemen

The Baltic Riflemen was a paramilitary organization aimed towards freeing the Baltic States from occupation by the Soviet Union. The paramilitary consisted of 3 main army groups:


 * The Lithuanian Army (Group)
 * The Latvian Army (Group)
 * The Estonian Army (Group)

And the 3 army groups consisted of more army groups for each region of the nations. So there would be for example: The Samogitia Army Group, The Vidzeme Army Group and the Narva Army Group, simple enough, right?

Creation of The Baltic Riflemen In 1944, Edmundas Čiurlionis gathered a couple people around in a concealed place where he declared the creation of the "Lithuania's Liberators" group who's objective it was to liberate Lithuania (Obviously). But this gained very little attention and it wasn't in good form until word got to Lithuania that there was a paramilitary organization created in Latvia called "Courland Warriors" and how it was getting extremely popular. And so people started asking around if there was a Lithuanian version of that and then one man exclaimed "Yes there is! Edmundas Čiurlionis' group!" Thereafter people started joining and got more organized and militarized and so forth. The Estonian version was the last one to be created, having been created in late 1945 by Kaarel Anvelt which the local authorities gradually stopped the growth of but it did succeed in the end. The Courland Warriors paramilitary was created by Ēriks Kviesis and Kaspers Čakste using the same techniques as Borislav did in 1939.

Some time after the Estonian version was created, Kaspers Čakste had sent a telegram to both Edmundas and Kaarel to meet in Jelgava at a classified place. And to Kasper's surprise, on the date of the meeting, the 2 other men showed up on time to the correct place. Due to differences in Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian, the majority of the meeting had to be spoken in Russian but there were some moments where they had to use some German sentences, words. And in some cases, Edmundas used some Lithuanian words which Kasper clearly understood and then translated the Lithuanian word into either German or Russian for Kaarel's case. In the meeting they discussed about the creating of a trans-national paramilitary organization. A paramilitary organization of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. They had already cleared up that they were gonna make this into a thing, for real, but Kaarel couldn't stop asking "What about the name?" Which Edmundas and Kasper kept answering to Kaarel with: "We'll discuss that later." Once Kaarel had already asked for the seventh time "What about the name?", once Kasper actually took a minute to think about the name, he got reminded of The Latvian Riflemen and so he suggested: "What about The Baltic Riflemen?" Kaarel and Edmundas seemed amused with the name and so once they got finished discussing the name they could actually discuss more without disruptions from Kaarel. And so once they had finished and had everything settled, they started to get the plan into motion. But before they did that, they all went out for a drink together.

But thereafter, they all went home and started sending telegrams and spreading word of the new organization orally as well. Now that the paramilitaries are now under one banner, more and more people are now interested, but more people means more cost. More and more had to begin risking it and stealing guns from police stations and other supplies, but fortunately some people who were partisans or soldiers during WW2 had stashed some weapons and uniforms, and so they began giving the guns and uniforms to fellow soldiers to identify each other with. Of course, some people just preferred armbands but, some clothes which would be recognizable and also not too flashy would be practical.

The first marches

After some time of gathering supplies such as guns and ammunition, the people were ready to liberate the Baltics, but they did not all start at the same time. On the 6th of August, 1946, many Courland Army Group soldiers marched into Liepaja and began shooting any Soviets they could find. Just before beginning their march on Liepaja, a raw recruit asked a sergeant "Some Latvians unwillingly work for the police, so how will we know which is which?" and then the sergeant answered with: "It all has to do with the smell, the face and the aura." The raw recruit still didn't get his question exactly answered but he had a good laugh. On the 7th of August, 1946, Lithuanians began their march into Kaunas, same protocol as in Liepaja. The Estonians (Specifically, the Narva Army Group) had taken a bit more time to prepare, and so they only marched into Narva on the 10th of August. Nonetheless, it was a victory for the 3 groups, but some had a harder time than others. And so began the liberation.