Kingdom of Lithuania (1918)
The Kingdom of Lithuania was a short-lived constitutional monarchy created towards the end of World War I when Lithuania was under occupation by the German Empire. The Council of Lithuania declared Lithuania's independence on February 16, 1918, but the Council was unable to form a government, police, or other state institutions due to the continued presence of German troops. The Germans presented various proposals to incorporate Lithuania into the German Empire, particularly Prussia. The Lithuanians resisted this idea and hoped to preserve their independence by creating a separate constitutional monarchy. On June 4, 1918, they voted to offer the Lithuanian throne to the German noble Wilhelm, 2nd Duke of Urach. Duke Wilhelm accepted the offer in July 1918 and took the name Mindaugas II. However, he never visited Lithuania. His election stirred up controversy, divided the Council, and did not achieve the desired results. As Germany was losing the war and was engulfed in the German Revolution, Lithuania suspended its decision to invite Duke William on November 2, 1918, thereby ending his short reign.
History of Lithuania
On January 1, 1919, the German occupying army withdrew from Vilnius and turned the city over to local Polish self-defense forces. The Lithuanian government evacuated Vilnius and moved west to Kaunas, which became the temporary capital of Lithuania. Vilnius was captured by the Soviet Red Army on January 5, 1919. As the Lithuanian army was in its infant stages, the Soviet forces moved largely unopposed and by mid-January 1919 controlled about ⅔ of the Lithuanian territory. Vilnius was now the capital of the Lithuanian Soviet Republic, and soon of the combined Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.