This book explores how war made the Lithuanian state and shaped society from the onset of the Great War in 1914 to the last waves of violence in 1923. As the very notion of an independent Lithuania was constructed during the war, violence became an essential part of the formation of Lithuanian state, nation, and identity. War was much more than simply the historical context in which the tectonic change from empire to nation state took place. It transformed people, policies, institutions, and modes of thought in ways that would continue to shape the nation for decades after the conflict subsided. By telling the story of the post-World War I conflict in Lithuania, the book focuses on the juncture between soldiers and civilians rather than the strategies and acts of politicians, generals, or diplomats. Its two main themes are the impact of military, social, and cultural mobilizations on the local population, and different types of violence that were so characteristic of the region throughout the period. The actors in this story are people displaced by war and mobilized for war: refugees, veterans, volunteers, peasant conscripts, prisoners of war, paramilitary fighters, and others who took to guns, not diplomacy, to assert their power. The book tells the story of how their lives were changed by war and how they shaped the society that emerged after war.