USSAAR - The alternate chronicles
UPDATE 5: Victory!
1937, the year of war an strife. Not only the Baltic war took place, but also the Second Sino-Japanese war broke out, causing unbelievable suffering to chinese civilians as the japanese army blitzed deep into their territory, establishing a puppet state of Mengjiang in late september. Germans under Hitler continued to scheme. After a coup in Austria, german military assistance was called in by Austrian chancellor, thus causing the infamous "anschluss", the annexation of Austria by Germany.
But for the USSR, the most important event was the Baltic Crisis, which started due to the apology never being issued by the Baltic alliance. The deadline came and went, and the USSR started mobilizing. Lithuania left the Baltic alliance citing, that it was Estonia's and Latvia's actions which brought Soviet wrath. Germany stepped in as a "mediator" warning the Soviets, that they would not stand for any kind of agression against the Baltic states. Unfortunately for him, the USSR called his bluff and soon, thousands of RKKA soldiers crossed the soviet-estonian and soviet-latvian borders.
Soviet troops advancing under baltic fire.
The fighting was as swift as it was brutal. Thanks to ingenious strategy employed by marshal Tukhatchevskiy soviet losses were kept to minimum, coming up to 13294 dead, wounded or missing. Northern front was handled by general Putna, who crossed the border into Narva on the early morning hours of august 1st, central front was commanded by the marshal himself and the southern front by general Shaposhnikov. The orders were simple. Northern front was to capture Tallin, southern front moved in on the latvian capital of Riga and central front was supporting both attacks.
Baltic "civilian guard" holding a street in Riga
Undobtedly, the bloodiest battles were capital sieges. Street after street, block after block, house after house, the fighting sometimes even broke into vicious melee combat, with both sides using equipement unseen since the trench raids of 1918.
Baltic soldiers posing with a dead russian soldier
The war ended with almost 46000 soldiers lost, Estonia and Latvia incorporated as SSR and USSR national morale on the all time high. One of the most beautiful moments was the singing of the internationale followed by the soviet anthem during the memorial mass in The Cathedral of St. Basil on the Red Square. Orthodox chants mixed with communist anthems. True face of Bukharins flavour of marxism.