Ukrainian Civil War
Following the armistice ending World War I, Ukrainian socialists formed the Directorate of Ukraine (the "Directory"), whose forces were spearheaded by the Sich Riflemen and "Greycoats". Although German and Austrian troops had not yet withdrawn from Ukraine, they had no further interest in fighting. Most of Skoropadskyi's own forces changed sides and joined the Directory.
On November 16, 1918, starting in Bila Tserkva, fighting broke out in the Hetmanate. Skoropadskyi had to turn to the thousands of Russian White Guard officers who had escaped to Ukraine with the intention of join Denikin's Volunteer Army in the region of the Don River further east. They were assembled into a "Special Corps" but proved unable to resist the Directory's forces led by Symon Petlyura. Skoropadskyi abdicated his position as Hetman on December 14, as the Ukrainian People's Army took Kiev. He was expelled and the Hetmanate was replaced by the provisional government of the Directorate.
Read more about this topic: Ukrainian State
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil and/or war:
“... there was the first Balkan war and the second Balkan war and then there was the first world war. It is extraordinary how having done a thing once you have to do it again, there is the pleasure of coincidence and there is the pleasure of repetition, and so there is the second world war, and in between there was the Abyssinian war and the Spanish civil war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Let the erring sisters depart in peace; the idea of getting up a civil war to compel the weaker States to remain in the Union appears to us horrible to the last degree.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)