the horses, who were too tired to fend off flies. Ultimately, the Polish armies were forced to withdraw to their initial positions. The Russian forces also remained in western Ukraine and become involved in heavy fighting for the area of the city of Lviv, which had been under 1st Cavalry Army's siege from 12 August. The Kiev Expedition ended with a loss of all the territories gained by the Poles and their Ukrainian allies in the course of the campaign, and also of Volhynia and parts of Eastern Galicia. However, the retreating Polish forces avoided destruction by the Soviet armies. Aftermath In the aftermath of the defeat in Ukraine, the Polish government of Leopold Skulski resigned on 9 June, and a political crisis gripped the government for most of June. Bolshevik and later Soviet propaganda used the Kiev Offensive to portray the Polish government as imperialist aggressors. The Kiev Expedition's defeat dealt a severe blow to Piłsudski's plans for the Intermarium federation, which had never materialized. From that perspective, the operation may be viewed as a defeat for Piłsudski, as well as for Petliura. On 4 July, the second, better prepared and stronger northern offensive was launched in Belarus by Russian armies led by Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Its aim was to capture Warsaw as quickly as possible. The Soviet forces reached the vicinity of the Polish capital in the first half of August. In Polish politics, Piłsudski had never recovered from his Kiev Expedition debacle. In 1926, he perpetrated a bloody coup. The historian Andrzej Chwalba summarized some of the losses of the Polish state caused "mainly by the Kiev Expedition": – The international standing of the Second Polish Republic was stronger before the offensive than a year later. Poland had barely overcome a threat to its existence. – In July 1920, the Western Allies designated three-fourths of the territory of the former Duchy of Teschen as part of Czechoslovakia. This led to the Polish armed annexation of "Zaolzie" in 1938 and to the general perception of Poland as an aggressive power and ally of Nazi Germany. – The 1920 East Prussian plebiscite took place in July 1920, an unfortunate time for the Polish plebiscite campaign. The magnitude of the plebiscite loss negatively affected Poland's future border with Germany. Further war in the east hurt also Polish propaganda efforts in Upper Silesia, which was acknowledged by Wojciech Korfanty and other Polish