Nevertheless they succeeded in maintaining their independence until the outbreak of the last World War and then brute force. treacherously used by the Soviet authorities. became the sole arbiter of their destiny. Early in 1940 Soviet forces attached the three Baltic countries. overran and occupied them. enslaved the peaceful inhabitants there and then all three countries were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Estonians. Latvians. and Lithuanians by the tens of thousands. mostly helpless and innocent victims of Soviet aggression. were summarily arrested. placed in freight cars and literally carted away to distant and desolate parts of Asiatic Russia. Such was the sad fate of these Baltic peoples in the hands of the Soviet government in 1940. Subsequent wartime events did not alter the lot of these unfortunate peoples.