Home : Book details : Book description

Description of  Soldiers of fortune: Swedish and Danish volunteers in the Estonian civil war, 1918-1920

The withdrawal of German troops from Estonia which they had occupied from February to November 1918 signified the beginning of a Civil War in the country. Fought between detachments of the Red Army supporting a Soviet republic of the Estonian working people, and forces of the national bourgeoisie aided by British, Finnish, Swedish and Danish arms and troops, it continued throughout 1919 and ended in a peace signed at Tartu on 2 February 1920. The role of the foreign troops in that struggle has hitherto been but superficially studied. This book by the Tartu University historian Kaido Jaanson adds a lot of information to the role the mercenaries recruited in Sweden and Denmark played in the war, with the recruitment and anti-recruitment campaigns well in prominence.