Poland. The Polish Constituent Assembly appointed Iozef Pilsudski, a former Austro-Hungarian officer who fought on the Russian front, as head of the Republic. A month later, Pilsudski launched an army toward Kiev, Ukraine, composed of Poles and Ukrainian rebels commanded by Simon Vasilyovich Petliura, leader of the proclaimed Ukrainian People’s Republic (White). The Red Army, still engaged on too many fronts in 1919, limited itself to defending the vital regions of European Russia and Moscow. But the following year, the Soviets struck back. The Poles and their Ukrainian allies were pushed back to the gates of Lviv and Warsaw, while on the Lower Vistula, Soviet cavalry corps, led by Ghaia Dmitriyevic Ghai Khan, pressed toward Torun. Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, command of the anti-Bolshevik southern armies was assumed by General Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, who had replaced Denikin after the defeat at Orel in 1919 and was now reduced to defending little more than Crimea. Having reorganized his remaining troops (spring 1920), he launched a final, desperate offensive, which led him to defeat the Reds, pursuing them to the Dnepr (river: October 1920).
