Legion, as a result of which parts of General Kappel's Army were deprived of the opportunity to use the railway. They were also harassed by partisan troops under command of Alexander Kravchenko and Peter Efimovich Schetinkin. The pursuing Red 5th Army took Tomsk on 20 December 1919 and Krasnoyarsk on 7 January 1920. The march across Lake Baikal Kappel's 2nd Army came to a halt on the shore of Lake Baikal near Irkutsk in January 1920. With the Red Army in hot pursuit after Kappel was forced to find a route around the Communist uprising in Krasnoyarsk, the White 2nd Army (the Kappelevtsy), had to escape eastwards to Chita across the frozen Lake Baikal in sub-zero temperatures. About 30,000 White Army soldiers, their families and all their possessions as well as the Tsar's gold, made their way across the lake to Transbaikalia. The bloodiest campaign battles occurred at the villages of Yakovlevka, Birulka, and Gruznovskaya, as well as the city of Barguzin. As the Arctic winds blew unobstructed across the lake, many in the army and their families froze to death. Their bodies remained frozen on the lake in a kind of tableau throughout the winter of 1919–20. With the advent of spring, the frozen corpses and all their possessions disappeared in 5,000 feet of water. Kappel himself suffered frostbite and pneumonia in temperatures of -40 °C (-40 °F), and died on 26 January. End of the March The survivors of the March found a safe haven in Chita, the capital of Eastern Okraina, a territory under control of Kolchak's successor Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov, who was supported by a significant Japanese military presence. The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party issued an order not to advance beyond Irkutsk to avoid a military conflict with Japan, at a moment when the main threat for the young Soviet State was in Europe (Poland). Notes Russian Civil War History of Siberia 1920 in Russia White movement January 1920 events February 1920 events