On 31 January 1919 Estonian partisans and Finnish volunteers attacked Paju manor, a few kilometers from the railway town of Valga in southern Estonia, and drove out the Red Latvian Riflemen who held it. On 1 February Valga was taken. Paju is remembered in Estonia as one of the bloodiest and most heroic battles of its War of Independence, and above all for the death of the young partisan leader Julius Kuperjanov.
A young state fighting for its railways
Estonia had declared independence in February 1918, but when German troops withdrew at the end of the year the Red Army invaded and advanced deep into the country. In January 1919 the Estonian army and volunteer units counterattacked and pushed south. Tartu was retaken on 14 January, with the partisan battalion of Lieutenant Julius Kuperjanov among the first units to break in.1
Valga, a border town and an important railway junction, was the next target. The approach to the town was blocked at Paju manor, a few kilometers to the northeast, held by Red Latvian Riflemen.2
The attack on the manor
On 30 January Kuperjanov's partisans took the manor, but the Reds retook it during the night. On 31 January the partisans renewed the attack together with Finnish volunteers of Pohjan Pojat (the Sons of the North), a regiment commanded by Colonel Hans Kalm.3
Kuperjanov led the attack and was badly wounded; he died in Tartu on 2 February. The fighting lasted the whole day, and only at a heavy cost did the partisans and the Finnish volunteers finally take the manor. The Red forces withdrew from Valga, and on 1 February the Estonians and Finns marched into the town unopposed.4
How many fought and fell?
The numbers are uncertain. ERR, the Estonian public broadcaster, describes the attackers as outnumbered roughly four to one.5
Casualty figures are also uncertain. Olev Teder of the Kuperjanov Society, quoted by ERR, gives 51 Estonian and Finnish dead and 120 wounded. The Estonian postal service Omniva, in its stamp issue for the 90th anniversary, gives 42 dead and 113 wounded.6
Kuperjanov's legacy
ERR stresses that the liberation of Valga, an important rail junction, significantly influenced the outcome of the war, and the Ministry of Defence says the battle reopened the path to Valga and beyond, toward Riga and Pskov. Kuperjanov's unit was renamed in his honor, and today the Kuperjanov Infantry Battalion of the Estonian Defense Forces carries his name. A memorial at Paju was begun before the Second World War, its cornerstone laid by General Johan Laidoner in 1938, but the Soviet occupation stopped the work. President Lennart Meri unveiled it on 30 January 1994. In the same years Poland fought its own war against Soviet Russia, culminating in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920.7
