Lithuanian residents of the Memel Territory rebel against the League of Nations' decision to leave the area as a mandated region under French control.

Lithuanians are a Baltic ethnic group. They are native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,378,118 people. Another two million make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil and Canada. Their native language is Lithuanian, one of only two surviving members of the Baltic language family along with Latvian. According to the census conducted in 2021, 84.6% of the population of Lithuania identified themselves as Lithuanians. Most Lithuanians belong to the Catholic Church, while the Lietuvininkai who lived in the northern part of East Prussia prior to World War II, were mostly Lutherans.

The Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles in 1920 and refers to the northernmost part of the German province of East Prussia, when, as Memelland, it was put under the administration of the Entente's Council of Ambassadors. The Memel Territory, together with other areas severed from Germany, was to remain under the control of the League of Nations until a future date, when the people of those regions would be allowed to vote on whether or not the land would return to Germany. Today, the former Memel Territory is controlled by Lithuania as part of Klaipėda and Tauragė counties.

The Klaipėda Revolt took place in January 1923 in the Klaipėda Region. The region, located north of the Neman River, was detached from East Prussia, German Empire by the Treaty of Versailles and became a mandate of the League of Nations. It was placed under provisional French administration until a more permanent solution could be worked out. Lithuania wanted to unite with the region due to its large Lithuanian-speaking population of Prussian Lithuanians and major port of Klaipėda (Memel) – the only viable access to the Baltic Sea for Lithuania. As the Conference of Ambassadors favoured leaving the region as a free city, similar to the Free City of Danzig, the Lithuanians organized and staged a revolt.