9 Apriclass="underline" The Bessarabian national assembly (Sfatul Ţării) votes for union with Romania. 10 Apriclass="underline" Cossacks elect General P. N. Krasnov as ataman of the All-Great Don Host. 10–13 Apriclass="underline" Emerging from the Kuban steppe, the Volunteer Army lays siege to Ekaterinodar before being forced to retire. General Kornilov is killed in action (13 April), and the Whites retire. 11–12 Apriclass="underline" The Cheka raids anarchist centers in Moscow, killing more than 100 people. 13 Apriclass="underline" General A. I. Denikin is named as the new commander in chief of the Volunteer Army. The Transcaucasian Assembly (Sejm) declares war on Turkey. 14–15 Apriclass="underline" Turkish forces enter Batumi (Batum), in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (which had not been recognized by the Transcaucasian Assembly). 17 Apriclass="underline" Red forces capture Novocherkassk. 22 Apriclass="underline" Under pressure from the Turks, the Transcaucasian Assembly, uniting Azeri Musavetists and (more reluctantly) Armenian Dashnaks and Georgian Mensheviks, declares an independent Transcaucasian Federal Republic under Akaki Chkhenkeli. A VTsIK decree is issued on universal military service (Vsevobuch). VTsIK promulgates “The Oath of the Red Armyman.” 24 Apriclass="underline" The Supreme Military Inspectorate of the Red Army is created. 25 Apriclass="underline" The Baku Soviet proclaims a Bolshevik–Left-SR Council of People’s Commissars (the Baku Commune) under Stepan Shahumian. 25–27 Apriclass="underline" Turkish forces occupy Kars. 27 Apriclass="underline" The Supreme Allied War Council recommends that Czechoslovak units that are west of Omsk be diverted to Arkhangel′sk for evacuation. 28–29 Apriclass="underline" The first Czechoslovak trains reach Vladivostok. With German support, General P. P. Skoropadskii overthrows the Central Rada and is proclaimed hetman of the Ukrainian State by the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Congress. 1 May: German forces enter Rostov-on-Don. The Food Army (Prodarmiia) of the Soviet Republic is created. 2 May: The Vladivostok Soviet proclaims its supreme authority in the port. 6 May: Don Cossack forces recapture Novocherkassk. 8 May:The All-Russian Main Staff (Vseroglavshtab) is created to oversee Soviet mobilization efforts. 14 May: Czechoslovak forces clash with released Hungarian prisoners of war east of the Urals (the “Cheliabinsk incident”). 14–15 May: The last Red Finnish units surrender to Mannerheim’s forces. 20 May: In response to a demand from the Soviet government, military leaders of the Czechoslovak Legion refuse to surrender their arms. 23 May: The British government resolves to land further forces at Murmansk and Arkhangel′sk. Sovnarkom orders the Cheka to increase surveillance of SR and Menshevik leaders. 24–26 May: The revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion begins. Trotsky orders local Soviets to shoot on the spot any armed Czechoslovak troops found on the Trans-Siberian Railway. 25 May–2 August: The Red Army’s “Ural–Volga Defensive Operation” on the Eastern Front against the Czechoslovak Legion and Komuch’s People’s Army occurs. 26 May: Turkish forces enter Alexandropol. 26–28 May: The Transcaucasian Federation dissolves into Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani republics. An SR conference in Moscow endorses the program of the Union for the Regeneration of Russia, calling for Allied intervention in Russia to restore the Eastern Front. 28 May: The German–Georgian treaty signed at Poti grants Germany access to Georgian raw materials and the right to station troops in Georgia, effectively establishing a German protectorate over Georgia. 29 May: A universal military draft is declared in Soviet Russia. 29–30 May: Czechoslovak forces capture Penza and Syzran′. 1 June: The anti-Bolshevik West Siberian Commissariat is proclaimed at Novonikolaevsk. It sanctions the formation of the Siberian Army. 4 June: Georgia and Armenia sign peace agreements with Turkey (the Treaty of Batumi), ceding Batumi, Kars, Alexandropol, and other regions to Turkey. J. V. Stalin is sent to Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad/Volgograd) to organize its defense against Don Cossack attacks and to secure the supply of food and oil from South Russia to the north. 8 June: Czechoslovak troops capture Samara, where Komuch proclaims its authority and begins the formation of the People’s Army. 10 June: The German Caucasus Mission arrives in Tiflis. 11 June: Sovnarkom issues a decree establishing Committees of the Village Poor. The Taryba offers the crown of Lithuania to the Duke of Urach (Wilhelm von Würtenberg). 12 June: The first rounds of conscription into the Red Army begin. An armistice agreement between the Russian Soviet Republic and the Ukrainian State is signed at Kiev. 13 June: Sovnarkom announces the creation of the Revvoensovet of the Republic to oversee the struggle against the Czechoslovak Legion and the “landlord and bourgeois counter-revolution which lies behind it.” The Eastern Front is organized from the rudimentary 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Red Armies, under Colonel I. I. Vācietis. 14 June: VTsIK votes to exclude all Mensheviks and Right-SRs from its ranks (“for counter-revolutionary activities”) and advises all local soviets to follow suit. 16 June: Capital punishment is restored in Soviet Russia. 18 June: On the orders of the Soviet government, at Tsemesskii Bay, near Novorossiisk, the battleship Svobodnaia Rossiia and nine destroyers of the Black Sea Fleet are scuttled (in an operation overseen by F. F. Raskol′nikov) to prevent their capture by German forces. 20 June: In Petrograd, V. Volodarskii, People’s Commissar for the Press, is assassinated by G. I. Semenov, a member of an SR terrorist organization. 21 June: Captain A. M. Shchastnyi, commander of naval forces in the Baltic Sea and chief architect of the Ice March of the Baltic Fleet, is executed in Moscow, following a dispute with Trotsky. 23 June: Czechoslovak forces capture Ufa. The Second Kuban March of the Volunteer Army begins. 25 June: The Volunteer Army captures Torgovaia, severing railway communication between Soviet forces in the North Caucasus and central Russia. 28 June: Sovnarkom issues a decree nationalizing large-scale industry, signaling the beginning of War Communism. 29 June: The Czechoslovak Legion takes control of Vladivostok. Late June: Menshevik G. F. Bicherakhov instigates an uprising of the Terek Cossacks (commanded by his brother, L. F. Bicherakhov) against Soviet power (the Bicherakhov Uprising). 1 July: The Provisional Siberian Government is formed at Omsk and subsequently (4 July) declares Siberian independence. 1–3 July: The capture of Orenburg by Ural Cossack forces of Ataman Dutov isolates Red forces in Central Asia from Soviet Russia. 4–10 July: The meeting of the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Moscow ratifies the first constitution of the RSFSR. 5 July: 322 Left-SR delegates leave the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in protest at Sovnarkom policies (particularly the peace with Germany and the food dictatorship), signaling the beginning of the Left-SR Uprising. 6 July: With the aim of provoking a renewal of Soviet–German hostilities, two Left-SR Chekists (Ia. G. Bliumkin and N. A. Andreev) assassinate the German ambassador in Moscow, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach. 6–7 July: Left-SR delegates to the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets are arrested in Moscow and held inside the building of the Bolshoi Ballet, as the Latvian Riflemen, commanded by Vācietis, mop up the remnants of Left-SR resistance in the city.