Meanwhile, the second army resisting the Bolshevists was operating in the south. Here a force known as the Volunteer Army was or ganized soon after the Bolshevists became su preme in Moscow. At first a small body of persons who had come together in protest against the doings at Moscow and Petrograd, it was at length Joined by the Don Cossa, a large and devoted body of good fighting men. About the beginning of the summer of 1918 this force was under the command of Denikin, a capable leader and administrator. Fighting through the summer, autumn and early winter be cleared the northern shores of the Black Sea of Bohhevists and drove them out of the southern art af the Ulcraine whkth had fallen into st hands when the German troops were withdrawn after the signature of armistice, 11 Nov. 191& At this time Denikin was recognized as supreme authority by the Volunteer Army and by the Don Cossacks; but he announced that he was under the supreme command of Kolchak. In this position of sub ordination he was relieved of the necessity of devil; a political policy, a thing which would certa' have embarrassed hisn sorely, since he ha under him peasants, Socialists and bureaucrats. In public he professed to believe in universal suffrage, but he opposed the di vision of Russia and was not clear in his pro nouncements on the distribution of lands. Ldce Kolchalc he was a good military mau but with outiteood political sense.
third anti-Bolshevist force was the Provisional Government in northern Russia, based on the coast at Archangel and Mur mansk. It was organized at the suggestion of the Allies out of persons who oa.posed Bol shevism early in August 1918 Tc.haikovsld was its chosen head, a leader of the Social Rev olutionists. His policy was to put down the Bolshevists and then to setde things in a Con stituent Assembly. He was promised and re ceived a body of troops cotnposed mostly of British and American soldiers, wish enopigh from other Allied Powers to make it possible to refer to it as an interallied army. The ar rival of these troops in the summer of 1918 gave the Allies the hope that they could pene trate to Petrograd, rally the Russian con servatives and re-establish the Eastern Front. The Bolshevists offered such effective resist ance that Tchaikovski did not get far from his bases of supplies. By the spring of 1919 it was evident that little was to be expected from the expedition. In the United States and in Great }Int= the labor element demanded the with drawal of the troops, and by the end of Octo ber 1919 all the Allied forces had been with drawn except some technical units whose serv ices were deemed essential to the country. At the end of the year the purely Russian govern ment of the north continued to exercise author ity in a narrow region, but it seems to have been because the Bolshevists were giving their attention to more important operations in other sections.
In the early autumn of 1919 the forces op posed to the Bolshevists of Europe were hold ing a line of strategic positions that ran with a great sweep from Archangel to the Volga. Loosely connected with the northern Russian front was the line of the Finns to the Gulf of Finland. South of the gulf the Baltic States, Esthonia Latvia and Lithuania, carried the line southwar4 to the Poles, who carried it to the south until it nearly reached the left flank of Dettikin's army, which after an interval ran east ward to the Volga. Denikin's front itself was 700 miles long, held by posts. In October this long line became active at two points and for a titne such rapid gains were made that the Allied press jubilantly predicted the imminent col lapse of Bolshevhm. The first was on the Baltic front, where there was an army of Rus sians, Letts, Esthoniaus and Lithuanians under General Yudenitch, operating between Dvinsk and Gatchina On 13 October Yudenitch began a quick advance on Gatchina and took it, bnng ing his forces within 25 miles of Petrograd on its south side. At the same time Deniken
-was more than ordinarily active in the region _ south ot Moscow, taldng Orel about 400 miles from that city. Both actions seem to have taken the Bolshevists unawares, with the result that they offered little resistance. The anti-Bolshevists took this to mean that their enemy was demoralized, and they formed rosy hopes of his speedy collapse. Predictions ran that Yudenitch would take Petrograd and Denilcin would talce Moscow in a short time.
fsct Yudenitch arrived at Tsarskoe-Selo and Tavlovak, 17 and 15 miles respectively from Petrograd. But after a weelc of fighting he lound the resistance stiffer. Trotsky had arrived in Petrograd and put new courage in the defenders, A few days later the irolshevists brought up heavy reinforcements, outflanked Yudenitch and forced him back into the boundaries of Esthonia. Yudenitch's army was greatly diminished by desertions to the Bolshevists.
At the same time the tide turned in the south. Denikin's advance toward Moscow was suddenly interrupted and he was forced back, his 'soldiers left him for the Bolshevists in large numbers, and the Bolshevists began a tounter-movement, which by 10 Jan. 1920 had carried them to the .Sea of Azof at Rostof-on the-Dcat thus cutting Denikin's forces into two parts. At the same time they threw a column around his eastern flank, and it was reported that they had taken Krasnovodsk, on the east ern shore of the Ca'spian, opposite Baku, and the point from which a railroad runs to the Persian border at a distance of 300 miles. It 'was further reported that I3okhara, within 20 miles of the Afghan frontier, was also 'in their hands. In the trans-Caspian re gion' they seem to have encountered little op position; but they won a position of great dan ger' to the British in India, where there was al ready great unrest. Nor was this the limit of their successes. In Siberia Bolshevist pres sure was applied against Kolchak, already weakened by the dissatisfaction his incompe tency in administration was producing. When the Bolshevists trossed the Ural Mountains his troops deserted by the thousand. He swore stoutly that he would never give up Omsk, where he had a vast Store of supplies and rail road material. But almost immediately he was forced to flee or be surrounded by the active Bolshevist cavalry. Turning eastward he car ried what supplies he could but had to aban don large quantities. He lost 39,000 of his men as prisoners, 5,000 loaded railroad cars arid 75 locomotives. His objective was Tomsk, 600 miles east of Omsk, but he was not able to stand there and continued to Krasnoyarsk, 375 miles farther east. On 9 January it was re ported that he had been forced out of this po sition and was in retreat on Irkutslc, on the west shore of Lake Baikal and 1,562 miles east of Omsk, where his retreat began. Meanwhile his civil' government had undergone a revolu tion, for which his ruthless violations of per sonal liberty were responsible. Kerensky, in Paris, declared that his administration was '