The Policy of Kaiser Germany Towards Estonia During the German Occupation of 1918

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Estonia, particularly the area around Reval (Tallinn), occupied a unique position within the Russian Empire due to its advantageous geographic location. At the same time, the indigenous Estonian population, poorly represented in local governments controlled by the German minority, was not united within a separate national-territorial administrative unit and was located within the boundaries of the relatively small Estland Governorate and the northern part of the larger Livonia Governorate. Apparently, this is why, unlike, for example, the Kingdom of Poland or the Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire, which had their own clearly defined political claims, such a problem practically never arose in this Baltic region before World War I. The political ambitions of the local national elites initially focused on gaining territorial autonomy within the boundaries of the compact settlement of the indigenous Estonian population. Faced with the threat of German occupation and witnessing the internal disintegration of the old Russian army, driven by the polarization of its individual units as civil war escalated, the Estonian Land Council declared its secession from Russia in the fall of 1917, proclaiming Estonia an independent democratic republic and assuming its temporary governance. This decision was motivated by the somewhat naive assumption that Imperial Germany, still at war with Russia, would refrain from occupying the self-proclaimed «independent» Estonian state if it were no longer considered part of Russia. However, reality proved harsh: this hope was dashed, and occupation by German troops became inevitable. At the end of 1917, they occupied the islands of the Moondzun archipelago off the western coast of Estonia, and in early 1918, they continued their advance on the mainland. Even before German troops completely occupied the territory of the former Estonian Governorate, events occurred in the region that were not taken into account by the local land council when deciding to declare its independence. Germanys final defeat in World War I and the consequent inevitable weakening of the German army led to the relatively rapid liberation of the territories previously occupied by it. In this situation, the Estonian bourgeois provisional government attempted to reclaim the power it had lost during the German occupation.