The White Armies fighting the Russian Civil War were within 200 miles of Moscow and within sight of Petrograd.

But this was not their final push. This was their last gasp.

The Red Army had been getting bigger and more numerous all year, and this moment marked

the end, not of the Reds, but of the Whites, who would collapse more rapidly than anyone envisioned.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music to the history of the 20th century. Episode 186, 1919, Russia, Part 4.

This is the 11th episode in our 1919 world tour and the fourth in our series on Russia.

Last week, we reached the high watermark of the white movement opposing Russia's communist government.

That high watermark came after Denekean's Armed Forces of South Russia advanced some 400 miles over the summer and fall of 1919 and captured the city of Orrell, barely 200 miles from Moscow. But De Nican's armies

were disorganized, overextended, and scattered. Inadequate supply had forced the white

units to requisition their needs from

local civilians, which is a polite way of saying, loot the countryside. Actually, the whites called it

self-supply. There's a euphemism for you. One senior white commander pressed Piotr Vrongel

to indulge in more self-supply on behalf of his troops by warning him, quote,

If you demand of your officers and soldiers that they be ascetics, they won't fight.

Vrangle wrote back,

In such a case, what would be the difference between us and the Bolsheviks?

The other commander replied that,

The Bolsheviks are winning.

Indeed they were.

Even as Denekean's force took Orel,

in the east, Colchok's army was in retreat. On July 1st, 1919, the red forces

...