Territoire de Memel. Prancūzai Klaipėdos kareivinėse

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Karinė įgula; Kareivinės; Šauktiniai; Kovos simbolika; XXI pėsčiųjų šaulių batalionas; Karinis miestelis; Military garrison; Barracks; Conscripts; French garrison; Cantonment.

ENOn 13-15 February 1920, the 21st Foot Huntsmen Battalion of the French Army (21е Bataillon de Chasseurs ä Pied), previously stationed in Gerardmer, Lorraine, came to Klaipėda and took over the barracks complex. In Klaipėda Region, which was officially separated from Germany by the Peace Treaty of Versailles, the French troops carried out the Entente military mission. Before 1921, it was led by General Dominique Joseph Odry, Entente Commissioner for Klaipėda Region, and later he was followed by Prefect Jean-Gabriel Petisnė in the position of Chief Commissioner. During all the stay in Klaipėda, the battalion was supplemented with new conscripts from Gerardmer, however, the French forces in Klaipėda Region kept decreasing due to declining funding and other reasons. The 21st Battalion that arrived in Klaipėda Region consisted just of four Huntsmen and two Machine Gun Companies, as well as a maintenance unit: around 750 men, including 30 officers. Part of them, half of the Huntsmen and half of the Machine Gun Companies, were appointed to Pagėgiai and Šilutė. However, after reducing the forces several times, in the autumn of 1922, only one mixed Company of two Huntsmen and three Machine Gun Platoons were left in the battalion: six officers (including a doctor) and 180 noncommissioned officers and soldiers.The French garrison in Klaipėda was plagued by boredom and isolation, occasionally diversified by brass band performances, French national holidays, and welcomes to ship visits. Battalion soldiers patrolled the streets of Klaipėda and guarded the seat of the Prefecture and the apartments of Chief Commissioners. For the local inhabitants exhausted by war shortages, the food of the French Foot Huntsmen Battalion caused envy; French traditions also looked slightly exotic for the natives. The soldiers of the Riflemen Battalion did not allow local people to abuse them: the military unit first formed in Metz in 1855, just like most of other French units, had lost a lot of blood, and simultaneously had been tempered, in the battles of World War I, with Donon, Artois, and Verdun being just a few among them. Still, due to its size, the French unit in Klaipėda was not able to hold out against the Special Purpose Formation established in Kaunas for the occupation of Klaipėda Region. Formed of 40 officers, 584 soldiers, and 455 riflemen and commanded by Jonas Polovinskas-Budrys, it invaded the region on 9 January 1923 by implementing the resolution of the Lithuanian Government of the autumn of 1922 to occupy the territory by force by faking a local Lithuanian insurrection.On 15 January 1923, the Special Purpose Formation occupied Klaipėda. Ernestas Galvanauskas, Lithuanian Prime Minister, tried to avoid complications and insisted on as few as possible casualties from among the members of the French Battalion. However, two soldiers of the French Battalion were killed in armed clashes, as well as one local gendarme and 12 Lithuanians. After Lithuanian diplomats and the Entente countries agreed to compromise, on 17 February 1923, the Ambassadors Conference announced its resolution on the transfer of Klaipėda Region to the sovereignty of the Republic of Lithuania. On 19 February, the soldiers of the French garrison and mission representatives boarded a warship in Klaipėda port and left Klaipėda. [From the publication]