The Great Siberian Ice March was the 1,242-mile winter retreat of Alexander Kolchak's White Russian Siberian Army from Omsk to Chita from 14 November 1919 to March 1920 during the Russian Civil War. The Red Army's Eastern Front counteroffensive in the summer of 1919 led to the White Army re-establishing a line along the Tobol and Ishimk rivers to temporarily halt the Red Army, which was faced by Anton Denikin's White Russian advance on Moscow from the south. By autumn, however, Denikin was defeated, and the Red Army was able to direct reinforcements back to the Eastern Front. In mid-October, the Reds broke through on the Tobol River, capturing Omsk on 14 November 1919.
The Whites' heavy defeats forced Admiral Kolchak to order a retreat towards the Russian Far East, and General Vladimir Kappel led this army along the Trans-Siberian Railway, transporting the wounded with the Whites' available trains. Genrich Eiche's Soviet 5th Army closely pursued the Whites, and the Whites were harried by insurgencies which had broken out in numerous cities, partisan attacks, and the fierce Siberian frost. The Reds took Tomsk on 20 December 1919 and Krasnoyarsk on 7 January 1920, and Kappel's army halted on the shore of Lake Baikal near Irkutsk in January 1920. 30,000 White Russian soldiers, their families, and their possessions (along with the Tsar's gold) escaped to China across the frozen Lake Baikal in sub-zero temperatures, but many in the army and their families froze to death during the journey. Kappel died on pneumonia on 26 January 1920, and the survivors of the march found shelter in Chita with the aid of the Imperial Japanese Army. The CPSU Central Committee ordered a halt to the Red offensive rather than risk open conflict with Japan at a time when the Polish-Soviet War demanded the Bolsheviks' attention in the west.