Lithuania Takes On the World

May 1936-May 1937: Scandinavia in Flames

1936

Having annexed her smallest neighboors, things looked good for Lithuania- but only on paper. Technically, every Latvian and Estonian was now a Lithuanian, and traces of the previous regimes had been prohibited, but the population in the new territories still felt Latvian and Estonian, and was everything but friendly to the Lithuanians. A resistance organization was already working underground full time, blowing up bridges, broadcasting propaganda, and stalking collaborators, with support from several foreign nations.

The factories of Riga and Tallinin had been rebuilt but Lithuanians had to be brought to work there as the locals would sabotage them whenever they had a chance. Riots and strikes would erupt almost weekly and there were millions of 'Go home Liths' chalk writings on the walls. Equipping vengeful foreigners with weapons was a bad idea so Lithuania couldn't even use the manpower in the region.

It seemed that the conquest had only tied up the tiny Lithuanian army. Lithuania would have to stop her conquests for some time and take a deep breath to re organize and build up better her military. All invasions were cancelled or pushed back behind Christmas at best.

Using her new resources, Lithuania would start the production of a new infantry division- a great undertaking. 10,000 men needed to be trained, weapons needed to be produced, along with their ammunition- it would take long. Incompetence slowled down the project several months. The goal was to build a new army- 3 infantry divisions in total, duplicating the size of the army.



Nothing interesting happened while the calendar approched the new year- people did not care about the Spanish Civil War or the Chinese warlords conflicts. Newspapers were focused more on the Estonian/Latvian resistance.

But in August an unpleasant surprise happened. In Mazirbe, Latvia, during one of the frequent riots, the outnumbered by far police, in fear, opened fire against the crowd. This enraged the local population, that joined the mob, and assaulted the police station, burning it down. When news of this spread like the plague, the rest of the population joined the revolt- anarchy ruled the city. A division was sent to re-gain control of the city, but after four days of brutal urban warfare, they had to retreat having lost 1/3 of their men.



The rest of the Lithuanian army was called in and in the largest scale operation since the invasion of Latvia they managed to re-gain control of the city. It is still unknown wether this was premeditated or not. This was seen as huge victory by the Estonians and Latvians.

1937

By April 6th the Second Lithuanian Army was ready. It consisted of 3 divisions, equipped with Great War Era weapons. It's HQ would be set up in the Estonian city of Tallinin, right in the heart of the resistance, and it would be used to quell it until further notice. It's commander was Lt. Gen Liatukas.



With this new force ready it was time for Lithuania to go on with her world conquest. This time the choice was between Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Denmark was worth gold- it's owner decided who entered the Baltic. But the West was keeping a closeful eye on it's backyard and it would be impossible to take it without some kind of retaliation. The same with Sweden- Lithuania would wait until someone else lighted the fuse. Finland was the only choice.

The Kiegsmarine and the Lithuanian Army would be working closely this time. German transports ships were lended to Lithuania as in that matter the country was handicapped.

On April 9th, without a formal declaration of war, German ships sneaked to the port of Vaasa, in the northern part of the country, and unloaded three Lithuanian divisions, as well as many German reinforcements, that quickly secured the port and set up a defensive perimeter around it.



The Finnish were shocked the next morning as a Lithuanian invasion was absurd. But conscious of the Nazi-Lithuanian alliance they could have seen it coming; still, they reacted quickly, dispatching most of their army to push the invaders back to the sea. They didn't know that the Vaasa invasion was just a distraction- as soon as the port was under heavy attack, some days later, more Lithuanian divisions were unloaded in the south, in Helsinki, finding no opposition, as all available Finnish forces were fighting in Vaasa.



A defense element was left in the city while the troops spread West and East to capture Turku and Viipuri and force the Finnish into surrendering. They did so and in a matter of days they were repelling disorganized Finnish counter-attacks.



With the only useful parts of their country lost, the Finnish had no reason to continue fighting. Negotiations started but there was only one real option in the table: inconditional surrender. On May 1st Finland was annexed into Greater Lithuania.


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