Lietuvos kariuomenės dezertyrai Nepriklausomybės kovų ir valstybingumo įtvirtinimo laikotarpiu 1918–1923 m.

ENIn 1918, when Lithuania declared its independence, the question of consolidating its statehood and preserving the territory arose. There were increasing threats from an external enemy. The Lithuanian Army was composed entirely of volunteers, and was not able defend national borders and consolidate statehood. It was therefore decided to organise a mobilisation of the men of the country. After the first call for mobilisation, some of the men mobilised joined the military service reluctantly; they went into hiding and fled abroad. Up to 20% of those mobilised fled from the Lithuanian Army. The total number of Lithuanian army defectors (who did not join the military service and soldiers who escaped) during the fights for independence (1918–1920) exceeded 20,000. This behaviour of the soldiers was not always influenced by the natural fear of being killed on the battlefield or being crippled. Other factors such as the lack of technical materials, the lack of professional personnel and the possibility of military training, and often the lack of national consciousness were no less important. There were those in the Lithuanian population who still barely understood the aspiration of statehood, and exposed to hostile propaganda or driven by practical interests voluntarily joined the armies of other countries. A number of Lithuanians were recruited in German prisoner of war camps or mobilised by the Polish government. In 1920, 48% of all deserters from the Polish army were mobilised from Suwalki (Suvalki), Grodno and Vilnius counties at the Lithuanian-Polish front.The large number of defectors from the Lithuanian Army forced the country’s political and military leadership to undertake strict measures. The penalties for evasion of military service were increased and the movement of citizens was restricted. As the country was at war, more civilian criminal cases concerning defector issues were transferred to the Military Courts, and Military Commandants punished civilians with administrative fines independently. Thanks to the entrenched legal and institutional measures, the losses due to the defection in the Lithuanian Army were eventually significantly reduced. This was influenced to some extent by the process of reducing the army, which began in 1922 and the Law on Amnesty, adopted the following year, exempting soldiers who had deserted from punishment and providing preconditions for the return of defectors who had fled abroad. Acceleration of land reform strengthened the confidence of citizens in their state. The children of farmers and agriculture workers constituted the largest number of conscripted and mobilised soldiers; therefore, the reason for the decreasing number of defectors at the end of the fights for independence was related to the issue of land management – the possibility of getting land at the end of the mobilisation was the key factor influencing the determination of the Lithuanian population defining their relationship with the state. [From the publication]