Baltic Anzacs in the First World War

Around this time last year I posted several pieces on Lithuanian Anzacs of the First World War.  Here are some more observations, this time on Anzacs with origins in the broader Baltic region.

How many Baltic-born Anzacs were there?

Elena Govor's Russian Anzacs website (http://russiananzacs.net/) and associated blog provide a detailed study of over one thousand men who were born in the Russian empire and served in Australian forces during World War One; the section on statistics summarises the territorial origins of the men who came from the empire's Baltic provinces:

• Latvia - 156;
• Estonia - 97;
• Lithuania - 40 

The website also has a great map which plots the birthplaces and subsequent residences of these men (click here).  It also highlights the range of ethnicities covered by these statistics: ethnic Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, Germans, Slavs, Jews, Western Europeans.

The statistics also suggest they joined up in numbers proportional to those of their Australian- or British-born counterparts (over a quarter of all eligible males enlisted).  The 1933 Australian Census recorded for the first time the birth locations for Baltic migrants (while the absolute numbers around the time of WW1 would have been different, the relative proportions may very well have been similar):

• Estonia - 643 males;
• Latvia - 320 males;
• Lithuania - 155 males. 

Why did these men enlist to fight for the British empire?  Their reasons would have been varied, just like those of the broader population: some joined up because of patriotic feelings for Britain or their new Australian homeland, others because friends, relatives or colleagues had enlisted, or perhaps for adventure; however push factors not shared with the bulk of the broader population probably spurred many Baltic men towards enlisting. Many had arrived in Australia as seafarers and found themselves stranded and out of work once hostilities started, with little prospect of employment. The option of service in the AIF became a means of survival. In addition, many of those who were Russian subjects were pressed to enlist by the Russian consuls in Australia who were promulgating the czar's order that eligible men should either return to Russia or else join allied armies.  

Remembering the Baltic-born Anzacs

The Baltic Anzacs endured similar WW1 experiences to Australian-born Anzacs, including casualty rates; around 1 in 5 were killed or died during the war.  The Russian Anzacs website lists 28 ethnic Latvians who are commemorated on the Australian War Memorial's panels, 18 Estonians and 6 Lithuanians. These figures would be higher if we searched for men with Jewish, German, Slavic or other heritages.

Here are just a few representatives:

KILLED IN ACTION. (1915, November 21).
Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 - 1954),
p. 2. Retrieved April 20, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45345785

Janis (John) AMOLIN was born at Riga in 1889; he arrived in Australia at Port Pirie in 1911, was naturalised in 1914, and killed in action at Gallipoli on 23 August 1915.

THE LATE PRIVATE H. T. SEPP. (1917, May 19).
Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954),
 p. 40. Retrieved April 20, 2016,
from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87608967

Henri Teodor SEPP was born in Parnu, Estonia, in 1877; he arrived at Port Adelaide in 1911, was naturalised in 1913, and served in Gallipoli and on the Western Front where he died in April 1917.

AWM memorial panel 41

Anthony PURIS was born in Padustis, Lithuania, in 1888; he arrived at Sydney in 1914, served in the AIF as a Russian national, and was killed in action on the
Western Front in May 1917.






Selected sources and references:

Govor, E., Russian Anzacs in Australian History, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2005.

Putnins, A.(ed), Early Latvian Settlers in Australia, South Yarra, Sterling Star, 2010.

Lithuanian ANZACS - summary

Immigrants in the AIF

Over 420,000 men enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) during the First World War, of whom around 332,000 were sent abroad.  Almost a quarter (22 per cent) of those who embarked for service overseas were not born in Australia, with a range of minorities represented amongst the English-born majority.  These minority groups are currently receiving some renewed attention:

• German Anzacs and the First World War (John F Williams, UNSW Press, 2003) looked at men of German origin and their war-time experiences, including internment in Australia.  Williams speculated that there may have been as many as 18,000 young men of German origin (not necessarily born overseas) who served abroad with the AIF;
• Anzacs and Ireland (Jeff Kildea, UNSW Press, 2007) focused on Irish-born members of the AIF.  Subsequently the UNSW's Irish Anzacs project has established a database of almost 6000 Irish-born Anzacs who served in the AIF;
• Next of Kin Untraceable; Foreign Born in Australia's First AIF was the title of a paper presented by Karen Agutter at 'The First World War - local, global and Imperial perspectives', The University of Newcastle, 25-27 March 2015 [this paper has not been sighted - JM]; 
• Elena Govor, author of Russian Anzacs in Australian History (UNSW Press 2005) has identified 1036 men born in the former Russian Empire who served in the AIF.  Of these, 241 were born in the then Baltic provinces of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania  - see http://russiananzacs.net/statistics/.  These figures do not include Slavs or Jews from those provinces; Govor has aggregated them separately.

Previous posts on this blog have looked at 40 Lithuanian-born men who served in the 1st AIF.  The following seeks to summarise the findings so far (keeping in mind that not all personal particulars supplied at enlistment - on the attestation papers - were necessarily accurate and ideally should be corroborated through other sources).

Origins

The first feature that soon becomes obvious when looking at Govor's statistics is that there were many fewer Lithuanian-born men in the AIF than Latvian- or Estonian-born; http://russiananzacs.net/ lists 100 ethnic Estonians, 130 ethnic Latvians and 14 ethnic Lithuanians. This suggests differences in migration flows which could be worth exploring.

The attestation papers held by the National Archives of Australia suggest that the Lithuanian-born men in the AIF were broadly representative of the various regions of the country; they were not exclusively from any one part of Lithuania.  About half of these men gave a specific town or village as their place of birth.  The others gave either Kaunas or Vilnius in almost equal measure; in the absence of other information this could be taken to mean either the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius or the surrounding provinces (gubernia) administered through them. They were also broadly representative of the various ethnicities living in that region: ethnic Lithuanians, Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks), Slavs (Poles, Russians, Belorussians), and Germans.

Their dates of birth ranged from 1870 to the late 1890s, with the most common years being 1892 and 1894 (4 each) and 1886, 1889, and 1891 (3 each).  By the time they came to enlist, they were mostly in their 20s, although a few saw active service overseas in their 40s.

They were mostly single men, although 6 were married.

Their dates of arrival in Australia also spanned a few decades: while Reuben Rosenfield reached Australia in 1888, Adolph Cantor in 1902, Stanislaus Urniarz in 1904 and Leo Gordon in 1908, all the others arrived in the second decade of the twentieth century (5 in 1914, 4 each in 1910, 1911, and 1912, 3 in 1913, 3 in 1915, 1 in 1916 and 1 in 1917, suggesting a fairly constant rate of arrivals in the first half of that decade).

The most common occupations shown on their attestation papers were seaman (12), labourer (6), salesman (4) and tailor or clothing cutter (3).


Enlistment

None of the 40 men appear to have enlisted together, and their enlistment dates span a period of 3 years.  The earliest enlistment was that of Charles Oscar Zander (August 1914) and the latest was that of Antonio Samson (November 1917).  In all, 6 men enlisted in 1914, followed by 12 in 1915, then 19 in 1916, and 3 in 1917.

Over a third of the men enlisted in the state of  New South Wales (15), followed by Victoria (10); South Australia (5), Western Australia (5), and Queensland (4).

Their discharge dates also spanned several years, from 1915 to 1920.


Service

Over half of these men served in the various AIF infantry battalions; the others saw service in pioneer or engineering battalions, machine gun companies, light horse regiments, and the medical corps. Most served as privates, only a few had the opportunity to serve as corporals.  Dr Rosenfield, engaged as a specialist surgeon on contract, was the only one on this list who was appointed as an officer.

34 men were sent overseas:

• most served on the Western Front;
• 6 saw action at Gallipoli;
• 4 served in Egypt/Sinai.

Twelve men were wounded in action (not counting those who were subsequently killed):

• Harry Cooper;
• Paul Elias Isaac Finn;
• Leo Gordon;
• William Frank Jaks;
• Anthony Januski;
• Joseph Josephson;
• Arthur Levy;
• Adolph Ignatieff Mishkinis;
• Sigismund Romaszkiewicz;
• Gerard Martyn Skugar;
• Kazys Waliukevic;
• Nathan Watchman; and
• Heyman Wolfson.

Six men were killed in action or died from wounds received in action:

• John Brenka;
• John Lovriaen;
• Franc Matzonas;
• David Minor;
• Anthony Puris; and
• Charles Oscar Zander

Lithuanian Anzacs on the Western Front #2

This post continues with those servicemen who appear to have been of ethnic Lithuanian background.  Clicking on their names will take you to their service record held by the NAA;  much of the additional information is courtesy of Elena Govor's Russian Anzacs project, http://russiananzacs.net/

Adolph Ignatieff MISHKINIS/Adolfas MIŠKINIS. Born in 1889 in Zarasai he left home aged 13, became a seaman, and lived and worked in the USA and Canada.  He arrived in Australia in September 1915 and enlisted almost immediately, in November 1915 in Melbourne, serving as a private and lance corporal in the 5th and 46th Battalions in France, Belgium and England.  Severely wounded in action in 1916 and 1917, he was returned to Australia in 1918 and medically discharged later that year.  Adolfas was naturalised as a British subject in 1919, married May Curtayne in the early 1920s and raised a family.  His two sons went on to serve for Australia in the Second World War.  Adolfas settled in Ballarat where he died in 1957.

Source: NAA

Anthony (Antanas) PURIS.  Born in 1888 in the village of Padustis (not far from Zarasai), he was working as a miner at Newcastle NSW when he enlisted in July 1915.  Anthony served as a private in the 19th and 4th Battalions in France, was wounded in 1916 and killed in action in May 1917.  He was survived by two brothers in Padustis village (Padusčio kaimas); his service is commemorated at Villers Brettoneux in France and the Australian National War Memorial.



Stanislaus URNIARZ/Stasys URNIEŽIUS.  The following is abridged from my post of 2 April 2015 on Lithuanian Anzacs in Egypt and Palestine:
Born in Vilnius in 1874, Stasys arrived in Australia with his wife Elzbiet/Elizabeth aboard the Ophir in April 1904.  He worked as a tailor in Sydney and was naturalised in 1906.  At he outbreak of World War One, even though he was already 40 years of age, he enlisted and embarked for Egypt in November 1914, serving with the Australian Army Medical Corps at No 2 Australian General Hospital in Cairo until March 1916 when the hospital was transferred to France. He remained in France and England until the middle of 1919, returning to Sydney together with his wife in July 1919.  They left Australia together in late 1920 for England and then Lithuania.  The photo opposite, courtesy of the Australian War Memorial's collection, shows that Pte Urniarz (back row, 8th from the left) was a staff member of the hospital's operating theatre and X-ray department while in France. 

Stanley (Stasys) ŽYGAS.   Born in 1886 in the small town of Surviliškis, he left Lithuania in 1907 and made his way around the world as a sailor visiting Germany, Argentina, England and finally reaching Port Adelaide in 1911.  He became a naturalised subject in 1915, worked in South Australia and Tasmania as a sailor, then an agricultural labourer, handy man, and finally as a fitter and turner before enlisting in Adelaide in September 1917. Stanley served with the 32nd and 50th Battalions on the Western Front, married Kathleen Green in England and they returned to Australia in December 1919.  He became self-employed, operating a mechanical workshop 'Zygas and Son' in Adelaide and died in 1975.  The link here will take you to a WW1 era photo of Stanley at the Russian Anzacs site.

Sources:  NAA and Russian Anzacs.  Additional material courtesy of Ancestry.com; AWM; and Metrastis No 1.