In Jelgava on 6 October 1919, Pavel Bermondt-Avalov was not yet thundering cannon at Riga—he first put the paperwork of power in order. That day he demanded that the Latvian Provisional Government allow his troops to cross the territory it controlled, issued the battle order for an attack on Riga, and created a Special Administrative Council for civil affairs. On that same date the Latvian Army numbered 38,992 soldiers, but the main blow came only on the morning of 8 October—two days after this desk-bound mobilization.

This was the threshold of the Bermontiad—the phase of the Latvian War of Independence in which a combined German and Russian anti-Bolshevik force turned not against the Bolsheviks, but against the Latvian state. The defense of Riga and the later expulsion of Bermondt’s forces became one of the foundational stories of the Latvian army and civic self-confidence.