ABSTRACT
In the south Anton Denikin was faced with a war on three fronts. Compared with the enterprise of Tsaritsyn Kolchak, as Churchill was to write, 'the military effort of Denikin was far more serious and sustained'. In May 1919 he was making progress on two of his fronts: the Donets basin, where Red troops had been distracted by the turmoil in the Ukraine; and the northern Don, where the rising behind the Red lines shook the morale of the Soviet forces. On the Manych front there was still deadlock, and a break-out in the direction of Tsaritsyn was Denikin's major priority. Summer ended in the south with the illusory triumph of Mamontov's raid and a temporary lull in the fighting. Mikhail Tukhachevsky's appearance in the White rear increased the demoralisation, and on 13 July the town of Zlatoust, the key to the southern branch of the Trans-Siberian, fell to the Reds.
