ABSTRACT
A new Soviet conscription netted up to 10,000 soldiers, including many who had served in the German army. Germany supported independence for the Russian parts of Poland but, as a counterweight to polish ambitions, also came to support autonomy for Lithuania, preferably under the rule of a Prussian prince. The non-Bolshevik Estonian parties and press began to argue for an Estonian declaration of independence as a way to pull the country out of the German-Russian conflict and thus possibly prevent German occupation. A three-person National Salvation Committee empowered by the underground organs of Maapiiev proclaimed Estonia independent on 24 February 1918. Estonians celebrate this date as their Independence Day. By the end of World War II, Estonia had lost about 30 percent of its pre-1939 population, the result of Soviet deportations, flight to the West, territorial cuts, German and Soviet executions, and warfare.
