Small, Forgotten Small Wars

[Stan]

Stan,

A lot of this is from my memory of Ian Kershaw's book, specifically on how the Holocaust developed to the extent it did out of the German war effort in the East. Timothy Snyder's The Reconstruction of Nations also has a lot of good stuff on Lithuania and Poland, specifically on the development of ethnic nationalism separated out different groups which previously did not define themselves by ethnic categories. Most of the slaughter of the Jews in the Baltics was in Latvia and Lithuania - Estonia had a very small Jewish population, IIRC.

As for the slaughter of Jews in the Baltics, a large number of these were not "national" Jews because the Germans shipped many Jews from all over Eastern Europe to Baltic camps for extermination. Vaivara, for instance, housed thousands of Jews from all over the Baltics in Estonia, and thousands of Czech Jews were shot at Kalevi-Liiva (US HHM website).

Thanks for the link Tequila! It was to say the least, strange and even my Estonian better half (at nearly 50) remains skeptical over the sheer numbers in the article. We were coincidentally in Vaivera County for a friends wedding last year. Stranger yet is the County's far eastern location to the Russian border (most of the German camps were not directly on the land borders with Russia - at least not long lived camps). There are Estonian articles referring to the UK Guardian's reports on Kalev-Liiva in 2008, but darn little evidence that would substantiate the numbers (even Wiki has but 1,000 deaths).

Back to the thread I guess !

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Thanks, davidbfpo, for starting this thread.

Links that should be of interest to students of Estonian Irregular Warfare:

Forest Brothers

reconnaissance group Erna

Estonian Legion

The post-WW II armed resistance to Soviet power in Estonia

[AdamG]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...rising-author/

Two hundred years ago, slaves outside New Orleans launched the largest revolt in American history, but this bloody event has been ignored by history, says Dan Rasmussen, author of a new book, American Uprising.

The revolt was meticulously planned, politically sophisticated, and ethnically diverse—and a fundamental challenge to the system of plantation slavery. Dressed in military uniforms and chanting “On to New Orleans,” they rallied a rugged army of around 500 slaves to attempt to conquer the city, kill all its white inhabitants, and establish a black republic on the shores of the Mississippi.

[davidbfpo]

A war that fits the thread's title and is currently in the RFI thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=12285

[davidbfpo]

Found via the Finnish leisure thread the Wikipedia entry:http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mets%C3%A4veljet

[Stan]

Found via the Finnish leisure thread the Wikipedia entry:http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mets%C3%A4veljet

Hello David,
I had no idea you were scanning the Finnish language sites. For that matter, I had no idea you spoke Finnish

The thing about this info that bugs me are the estimated numbers of Estonian Forest Brothers as they don't jibe with most historical documents (unless you happen to be a former Estonian Prime Minister being cited as a source - which there just so happens to be ). This would have a one-50th of the population hiding in the woods the size of Rhode Island

I did enjoy the short brief on "Scary Ants" being a bandit, hero and legend.

[carl]

The Caste War in Yucatan lasted from 1847 to 1901, with the Mayans in rebellion. The Mayans gave the Conquistodores a lot of trouble also. The Cristero Rebellion lasted from 1926 to 1929. There are probably a lot of small wars in Mexican history, or at least a lot us Gringos don't know about.