Baltic Forces 1918-1920
Review of the Osprey Publishing eBook 2nd edition with variant cover of the 2019 original

This is a very well done overview of the various Baltic armed forces during the independence wars of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania during the 1918-1920 period. It provides short summaries of the main events, but you still get a good general overview even in those few pages. The main draw is the amount of research and detail about the various orders of battle and the extremely finely detailed colour paintings of the uniforms. These are often based on black & white photographs of the time, of which there is also a generous number included.

The photographs are mostly from the personal collection of co-author Toomas Boltowsky, a member of the Estonian Armed Forces and a military historian. Boltowsky also participated in an even more expansive Estonian language collection Eesti sõjaväevormi lugu 1918–1940 (The Story of the Estonian Army Uniform 1918-1940) (2019) of 384 pages.

The book is dominated by the front half's Estonian section, likely due to Boltowsky having more material closer at hand from Estonian sources, but also due to the extent of various Scandinavian volunteers (Danes, Swedes, Finns) who joined the Estonian forces. Each of those volunteer units has their own section. The Latvian army section begins at pg. 102 of 189, the Lithuanian section starts at pg. 129 of 189, the German Landeswehr starts at pg. 148 of 189 and the White Russian forces at pg. 162 of 189, the latter includes a section on the Bermontians, German forces under the White Russian command which I hadn't been familiar with previously. There is no section on the opposing Bolshevik Red Army specifically but various components are mentioned in passing esp. the Red Latvian Riflemen.

The concluding section pgs. 176 to 183, consists of rank insignia details and graphics for all the forces.

Armies of the Baltic... is part of the Elite Forces series books published by military history publishers Osprey Publishing.

I read the eBook edition available through Scribd. A useful feature of the online version is that you can click on the images to examine the finer details of the uniforms as painted by contributing artist Johnny Shumate. ( )

I'm going to second the first reviewer that this is one of the best Osprey booklets that have been produced in awhile, as one goes from knowing next to nothing about the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian armies of the period, to having a good overview of these forces. Highly recommended. ( )

I thought this is one of the better-written and better-organized Osprey entries of late. The text was engaging, and the photographs are well chosen, and some of them are rare. This might have limited appeal for some, but I liked it a good deal. ( )