Hvor der kæmpes mod Bolschevikerne

Great thanks for very-very intresting document ! Big RESPECT (Y)

Please correct the year 1920 to 1919 in the database, as indicated in the (correct!) commentary.

Just to dispel any doubts that 1919 is correct:
 — The scenes from Pskov were obviously shot during the Estonian occupation 25 May – 28 August 1919.
 — Likewise, those with "батька" ("daddy") Bułak-Bałachowicz are before end of August 1919 when he was arrested and expelled from the Northwest Army.
 — Those where the Danish Corps celebrates Valdemar's Day (15 June) cannot be from 1920; the peace treaty of Tartu was signed 2 February 1920.

Dear D. Iversen
Thank you for your comment. The year has been corrected.
Best regards Maria Knude Oldhøj Nielsen

Great to see my hometown in that period. Thank you so much!

The description is not precise. As an Estonian citizen and a descendant of the participants of the WW I and post-WW I events I speak only on the part of the Estonian history here. The events of 1914-1921 ran different courses in different territories of the ex-Russian Empire.

Yes, the Estonian War for Independence demanded great sacrifice but the main battle was with the local Baltic German nobility which had organised into the Baltic Landeswehr, the army that subordinated itself to the German Headquarters and set its aim to Establish a Baltic German State in Estland, Lifland and Kurland.

The Eastern Front of the Estonian War for Independence coincided with the Russian Western Front of WW I and the Soviet Russian defence line against the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War that the Danish troops, shown in this film, were part of. Although the Estonian Army with its allied support and armoured trains managed to occupy Pskov (ger. Pleskau), we left Pskov soon and left it to the Russian government. Why so?

The two sides of the Russian Civil War had different views on the Estonian independence. Breaking the Czarist Russian Empire into national republics was a left wing project, promoted most consistently by the various territorial national organisations of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, later known as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They were pro Estonian independence that they proved both by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 and the Tartu Peace Treaty in 1920. Their adversaries, the Russian Whites who were supported by their foreign allies, against the secession from the Russian Empire, they wanted to restore the empire in its pre WW I borders without a compromise. This is why the Estonian military did not push further from Pskov, although they were capable for it with the Western support they had, and waited until the Russian Whites were defeated and the Russian Reds recognised the independence of the Republic of Estonia.

It sounds unheard because it tends not to be told. Estonian national independence is largely a Socialist political project, directed against both the Baltic German and the Russian nobility who oppressed Estonians. Both Juhan Kukk, who wrote the text of the Estonian Declaration for Independence, and Jüri Vilms, who declared the independence, were members of the Estonian Labour Party and cooperative activists. There were disagreements and some mistrust inside the Socialist ranks in Estland and Lifland, mostly due to the Bolshevik-Menshevik division, but these disagreements found peaceful resolution and the Estonian Red Riflemen left the theatre of the War for Independence to fight against the Whites in Russia, who were the mortal enemies of the Estonian independence. This is why the Estonian War for Independence never became a civil war between Reds and Whites.