Great Britain's mediation in establishing the Lithuanian-Latvian Frontier, 1920–1921

Abstract

Today the newly freed Baltic republics of Latvia and Lithuania have no territorial claims against each other. Immediately after the First World War, however, the two states had difficulty in agreeing upon a common border drawn along ethnic lines which also met their economic and military needs. Centuries of foreign rule had left them with an outmoded border 610 kilometers long. The historical background of the frontier was complicated. The 1426 Treaty of Melno established Lithuania's northern frontier with the German state of Livonia from the Baltic Sea along the Sventoji River, through Pasila and Seda, in the direction of Dabikine and Joniskis. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this border was pushed northward in places. From Sventoji it went to where modem Skudas, Mažeikiai, Žagare and Joniskis, then past Bauska up to the Daugava in the direction of Breslauja.1 When Russia annexed the Baltic lands in the eighteenth century, this border became the administrative line between Kurland and Vilna (later Kovno) gubemiias. The Russian authorities ignored ethnic principles in setting their administrative boundaries in the region. In 1819 Palanga, with its mostly Lithuanian population, with its coastline from the Sventoji River to the Prussian border, was added to Kurland guberniia.2 The reason for this was a desire to coordinate customs to extend the customs frontier of coastal Kurland to Prussia, and to leave only overland customs posts in Vilna guberniia. By adding Palanga to Kurland, the Russian Tsar also satisfied the interests of the Baltic barons. As the noted Lithuanian diplomat and historian Petras Klimas noted, Latvia's barons, as crusaders of old, here built their bridge with Prussia.3 As a result, the administrative line dividing Kurland and Kovno gubernijas was not a satisfactory boundary between the newly emerging national states of Latvia and Lithuania after World War I. Ethnic, economic, and geopolitical factors intertwined across the entire border between the two new states. Lithuania demanded all of Kovno gubernija plus the Aluksta district in the east and Palanga shore; some Lithuanians laid claim to Liepaja, Daugavpils, and even all of Latgale. Latvia rejected such claims, itself demanding all of Kurland with the exception of Palanga. In exchange for Palanga, Latvia wanted compensation from part of Kovno gubernija, in particular the so-called Mažeikiai railroad triangle. Lithuanians constituted a clear majority of the population along the Palanga coast, but there were also a significant number of Latvians. The German army occupied Palanga during the First World War, and at the end of the war, Palanga passed to the