[3] Together with the Finnish counterrevolutionary forces of Mannerheim, the Estonians and the Northern Corps were able to stop the advance of the Bolsheviks and to launch a counteroffensive in which they took Pskov and Yamburg in May 1919.

The White administration of the newly conquered territories was disastrous, as Rodzianko's subordinates unleashed a wave of terror against suspected Bolsheviks and against the Jewish population in general.

They captured the Pulkovo Heights, the left flank of the Army entered Ligovo and advanced units engaged the enemy in skirmishes as far as the Ijorski factories.

Its personnel was ordered to stay in cold carriages in Ivangorod (then Eastern part of Narva) on a narrow landstrip between the river and the newly-agreed Russian-Estonian border.

An eyewitness of these events, writer Alexandr Kuprin, reported of numerous deaths from the cold and starvation in one single night, mostly women and children.

Some time thereafter trains were allowed to pass to Estonia proper, where 15,000 soldiers and officers of the Northwestern Army were disarmed, and 5,000 of them were interned in camps, partly on the open air.

General Yudenich accused of an attempt to escape with the Army's funds was arrested by men of Bułak-Bałachowicz with the tacit consent of the Estonian authorities, before being released after the intervention of the commander of the English squadron anchored at Tallinn.

However, as the Estonian newspaper Sotsial-demokraat reported on 30 November 1919, the living conditions of about 4000 refugees then residing in Wesenberg county had been improved and the food was provided to them at the expense of American charity organizations.