began on September 21, Wrangel knew he had to make his push across the Dnieper, realizing that Marshal Semyon Budyonny's First Cavalry would arrive from the Polish front to join with Red commander Mikhail Frunze's Sixth and Thirteenth Armies and Second Cavalry, headquartered at Kharkov, dramatically increasing the numerical advantage of the Reds. As observed by Koehler, the White army's operation came "within an ace of success" but it was not to be. After the capture of 3,000 Reds on October 11, Babiev's cavalry outflanked the thorn of Kahovka while Wrangel's First Army under Kutepov north of Melitopol cut elements of the Soviet Sixth and Thirteenth armies to ribbons. Then key events conspired to doom the operation. On October 13, Wrangel ordered a frontal assault by General Vitkovsky on Kahovka. Inaccurate aerial reconnaissance reported sparse defenses; however, the city was heavily defended and Vitovsky's tanks were destroyed. As Babiev's Cossacks were about to surround the city, he was killed by an artillery shell, thoroughly confounding and demoralizing his Cossacks, who began to retreat. This, in turn, caused the inept Second Army commander, Dratsenko, to order a general retreat back to the left bank of the Dnieper. When the Whites regrouped on the left bank, they found that the Markov and Kornilov divisions, General Babiev and his cavalry, Barbovich's corps, and the Sixth and Seventh Infantry divisions had been crushed and abandoned on the right bank. On top of these failures, news reached Wrangel that the Poles and Soviets had signed a peace treaty the previous day, October 12. Wrangel's forces began a steady retreat and any designs on spreading into the Ukraine were finished. Koehler returned to Sebastopol on October 17, as once again, thousands of beaten and despondent Whites retreated toward the narrow Perekop Isthmus and Sivash straights that separated Crimea from the northern Tauride. On the day of the Red's first offensive, October 28, they had 99,500 infantry and 33,700 cavalry to the White's 23,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry- nearly a 4 to 1 advantage. They also outnumbered the Whites 2 to 1 in guns and machine guns. In a matter of days, the Reds reached the Tauride. Wrangel ordered all available men to defend Perekop and ordered Kutepov to return and attack from the West. Kutepov's forces did as ordered, but when a Red force broke through on the Ushun sector, Kutepov withdrew into Crimea rather than