The term encompasses three cabinets led by Kārlis Ulmanis, the leader of the Agrarian Union, who was chosen to be Prime Minister.

During these months, the Ulmanis government had evacuated from the capital Riga to the western city of Liepāja, which was defended by troops of the nascent Latvian armed forces and the Baltic German Landeswehr.

Joint military operations of the growing Latvian armed forces of the Ulmanis government together with the Landeswehr and the German Freikorps, coupled with supportive attacks from the Estonian Army in Vidzeme, succeeded in pushing Soviet armies back into Latgale during the late spring of 1919.

In April 1919, however, the German forces attempted a coup d'état in an effort to install a pro-German puppet government led by pastor Andrievs Niedra.

After the liberation of Latgale in January, the Ulmanis government signed an armistice with Soviet Russia on February 21, 1920, and a peace treaty on August 11, 1920.