Skoropadsky went through the motions of ruling for about seven months and during this time Ukraine remained relatively peaceable. Kiev and the other cities were filled with Russian refugees from the Bolsheviks. These people appreciated the restoration of order and the freedom from massacre and pillage, but they had no use for the Ukrainian state and liked to believe that Skoropadsky was only waiting for the downfall of the Bolsheviks to bring Ukraine back again into Russia. Attempts were made to restore the former rights of the landowners and the old order as it had existed prior to 1917. As a result, dissatisfaction grew among the masses and more and more order had to be maintained by the Germans. This became less effective after the murder of Field Marshal Eichhorn on July 30, for his successor was far less able to handle both the Ukrainians and the representatives of the German Foreign Office. At the same time Germany continued to work with the Bolsheviks, much to the annoyance of the Russians in Ukraine, the Ukrainians and Skoropadsky himself. The Hetman secured incontrovertible proof that the Bolshevik delegates at Kiev, Rakovsky and Dmitry Manuilsky, who were ostensibly drawing up peace terms between Ukraine and Moscow, were spending huge sums of money in Bolshevik propaganda, but he could not secure permission to curb their activities. Similarly when the German ambassador in Moscow, Count Mirbach, was murdered, Germany took no steps to punish the Bolsheviks and continued to lay emphasis on the need of maintaining good relations with them. During the same months the Germans were busy in helping the Don Cossacks and the Georgians in their struggles against the Bolsheviks and there was developed a long chain of anti-Bolshevik states and organizations along the entire shore of the Black Sea. This year also saw the emergence of General Denikin at the head of a White Russian Army, with the backing of England, France and the United States in an attempt to restore a united Russia. The confused situation was brought to an abrupt end by the defeat of Germany on the Western Front. The Kaiser abdicated on November 9 and already Austria-Hungary had broken up into a number of independent states. Turkey left the war on October 30 and this at once opened the Dardanelles, so that military supplies could be sent into the area north of the Black Sea. Under such conditions, the only course open to the German armies was to retreat. Even this was not easy in the complicated circumstances of the day, for a large part of the German troops had come under Bolshevik influences and were not particularly interested in fighting or in doing anything except getting home, if they could. Under such circumstances Skoropadsky saw that his days were numbered. On December 14, he laid down his power, slipped out of Kiev and made his way to Berlin.