Paju Estate sprawls across a bucolic farmland with scattered woods northeast of Valga along the Latvian frontier. Having driven the Red Latvians back for nearly 60 kilometers since the recapture of Tartu two weeks earlier, the Tartumaa Partisan Battalion and their Finnish volunteer allies would strike them again here, where the Red invaders had made their headquarters. For their part, the Reds were trying to stiffen their force which had crumbled under the incessant attacks of the Estonians, losing quite a bit of equipment in the process. They needed to stop the Estonian advance to Valga which would cut the only rail line from Russia to Riga and imperil their whole operation in the west.

During the initial assault on the 31st the charismatic commander of the Tartumaa Partisan battalion, Julius Kuperjanov, was fatally shot. His deputy Lt Johannes Soodla continued the attack accompanied by Col Hans Kalm and his Finnish Volunteers and eventually swept the Latvians from their positions after nightfall in brutal hand-to-hand fighting. The bloody Estonian victory resulted in the bloodless liberation of Valga the following day. The victory cut the Soviets’ railway supply line and denied them the use of their armored trains in the west. Quickly the rest of southern Estonia was liberated and Estonian troops advanced into northern Latvia.

To honor Julius Kuperjanov, who died of wounds on 2 February, the Tartumaa Partisan Battalion was renamed Kuperjanov’s Partisan Battalion. The Estonian Defense Force today still includes the Kuperjanov Battalion. The battle is commemorated on the estate grounds by a granite monument on a three-step pyramid of earth.