to follow their order and camped for the night on the hillside of Krstac near Njeguši. At the same time, a group of more than 600 Whites proceeded towards Cetinje from the failed siege of Rijeka Crnojevića. The group was made up of Kuči, Piperi and Bjelopavlići tribesmen. They formed a column near Belveder, where they were ambushed by the Greens. The group entered Cetinje near the hospital late in the evening. On 6 January 1919, around 250 Serbian troops and 850 volunteers from nearby Montenegrin tribes fought a formation of approximately 1,500 to 2,000 rebel Greens in Cetinje. That day, the Greens initiated a siege on Cetinje, killing some members of the Great National Assembly and killing some Whites. After that, the Greens experienced severe factionalism, in addition to facing the militarily stronger Whites. International influence and reactions Italian role As a result of the Podgorica Assembly, King Nicholas was exiled to the Kingdom of Italy, from which the uprising enjoyed substantial support. King Nicholas's Ministers asked for the Italian Expedition Corps in Albania to enter Montenegro, "in order for it to be liberated solely by Italian troops". A committee organized by Italian ethnographer Antonio Baldacci supported the Greens until at least 1921. In late November 1918 during the Podgorica Assembly, Italian troops attempted to take control of the coastal areas of Montenegro under the guise of Entente troop movement, but got prevented from doing so. International response In the spring of 1919, the United States sent Charles W. Furlong as an envoy from the Peace Commission to Montenegro. Furlong reported to The New York Times in an interview published on June 15, 1919, that the electors in the Podgorica Assembly acted as carpetbaggers did in the United States. An initiative called the Inter-Allied Commission of Investigation monitored the Podgorica Assembly and the Whites after the uprising. It included Louis Franchet d'Espèrey, as well as lieutenants from the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy. They recorded that there were as few as 500 unionist troops in Montenegro, and that they were not exclusively Serbian but from other constituents of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The commission also concluded from interviewing Greens held as prisoners that the uprising had been "caused by agents of King Nicholas I and supported by some emissaries from Italy." Aftermath Later in the twentieth century, the Christmas Uprising was subject to ideological