against Wrangel's forces in the middle of August, when the Polish forces defeated the Soviets on the outskirts of Warsaw. After the Battle of Vistula, with nearly 70,000 Red soldiers taken prisoner, the ensuing peace with Poland signalled the eventual end of Wrangel's regime, with the full force of the Red army now freed to focus on the Crimea. But the end was still a couple months away, and on August 27, Koehler left by train from Sebastopol to Melitopol, where he called on General Kutepov at his First Army headquarters. "Even General Kutepov himself with all his indomitable energy plainly showed from overwork... He explained that although strictly military considerations might demand a withdrawal from the present extensive front on account of the heavy cost in casualties in holding so long a line against superior numbers, he felt that political conditions and loyalty to the inhabitants of the occupied territory who had aided Russian forces (and many of those younger men were now in the army), demanded that the Tauride be held at almost any cost." Perhaps Koehler did not see, or chose to overlook another side of Kutepov, his "sworn brother", who along with Pisarev, commonly executed people without trial and for minimal cause. Earlier that year, as military governor of Sebastopol, his number of executions and cruelty sparked complaints among the peasants and civic leaders. One particularly egregious instance, was the hanging of a young Tartar poet, accused of nothing but vague, Bolshevist sympathies. Complaints were sent to Wrangel, and rather than investigate the claims, Wrangel summoned the mayor of Sebastopol before him. Recalling in his memoirs years later what he told the politician, Wrangel wrote, "I know all about your disagreement with General Kutepov, who is merely carrying out my orders. I am not going to discuss with you who is right, or which of us two has given orders. I am responsible to the Army and to the people, and I follow the dictates of my science. I am quite sure that were you in my place you would act differently; but as it happens destiny has given me and not you direction of the Russian Cause, and I will stop at nothing in the accomplishment of my duty, and I will not hesitate to cut down anyone who tries to stop me. You protest because General Kutepov has hanged a score or so of