100 stories from the hiking route

1919 – Saera Battle takes place at Ähijärve Village

Information

Topic

Wars and occupations

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 57.712389

Longitude: 26.5059361

L-EST 97

x: 6399491.1
y: 649345.2

Location

Ähijärve-Aegviidu Hiking route

The red army’s onslaught during the Estonian War of Independence had begun in March 1919. The head of the armoured train division Anton Irv received the command to force the enemies into retreating over the Mustjõgi River and to free Mõniste. The Saera Battle on 20 March 1919 had an important part in the completion of this task.
One of the companies of the 15th Latvian platoon had stopped at the Saera forest manager’s house at Ähijärve Village during the onslaught of the enemy. The Estonian Defence League had set sentries on the most important roads in order to notify the army of the enemy’s movements. The news of the red army’ stop was delivered to Antsla, where the third wide-gauge armoured train stood at the time.
The armoured train’s 55-man landing troop drove out of Antsla on sleighs; 15 men from the Defence League joined them in Saera. They went into battle as soon as they reached Saera. The enemy was attacked by the Second Lieutenant Oldekop’s platoon from one side and by the troops of Lieutenant Peeter Asmus from the other side. The constant machine gun fire from the house the reds were in made the situation for our troops critical. The situation was solved by Lieutenant Asmus who threw a hand grenade in through the window when storming the building. The machine gun fire stopped.
There were about 80 men from the communist side in Saera, 29 of whom died and 16 of whom were imprisoned. We lost 2 men and 5 were wounded. The machine gun became the spoils of war. The platoon commander taken to interrogation in Valka provided important information about the placement and composition of the red army.

Sources: 
Koemets, U. 2015. Saera lahingust Vabadussõjas. Oma Maa no. 187