his area became known as Kara Osta (War Port) and served military needs throughout the twentieth century. Early in the twentieth century the port of Liep?ja became a central point of embarkation for immigrants traveling to the United States. By 1906 the direct service to the United States was used by 40,000 migrants per year. Simultaneously, the first Russian training detachment of submarine navigation was founded. In 1912 one of the first water aerodromes in Russia was opened in Liep?ja. By 1913, 1738 ships entered Libava with 1,548,119 tones of cargo passing through the port. The population had increased from 10,000 to over 100,000 within about 60 years.
World War I
During World War I, German dirigibles bombed Liep?ja in January, 1915. Liep?ja was occupied by the German army on 7 May 1915; in memory of this event, a monument was constructed on K?rm?jas prospect in 1916 (destroyed in 1919). On 23 October 1915, the German cruiser SMS Prinz Adalbert was sunk by the British submarine HMS E8, 37 kilometers west of Liep?ja. In 1915, Liep?ja's local government issued its own money �Libava rubles.
During the war, the words of The J�ger March were written in Liep?ja by Heikki Nurmio.
1918�1940
After the war, when the independent state of Latvia was founded, Liep?ja became the de facto capital of Latvia for six months when the interim government of Latvia, headed by K?rlis Ulmanis, fled from Riga on a ship "Saratov". In 1918 Libava was renamed Liep?ja. In 1935 KOD (Latvian: Kara ostas darbn?cas) started to manufacture the light aircraft LKOD-1 and LKOD-2.
World War II
The ports and human capital of Liep?ja and Ventspils were targets of Joseph Stalin and part of the reason for the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. In 1940 upon annexation by the Soviet Union, private property was nationalized and many thousands of former owners were arrested and deported to Siberia; and thousands also fled to North
