Everyone seemed unaware of the fact that Eastern Europe was in a turmoil with many forces competing for the mastery. The statesmen and still more the masses of the population of the Allied countries knew little or nothing about these forces. They saw only problems where they desired to find peace, and public sentiment turned against attempts to find a difficult but relatively permanent solution to the entire problem. The world was sick of this continuing struggle but it could find no way of ending it. It was against this background that Petlyura and the forces of Ukraine carried on the struggle during the entire summer of 1919. Yet despite all of the hardships of the population and the lack of supplies, Petlyura was able to recover the control of Kiev on August 31. Again he was unable to hold it, because the Russian army of Denikin moving up from the south compelled him to evacuate a few days later. On the other hand, hostile as the Poles were to the Ukrainian national committee, they were little better pleased at the advance of the White Russian armies, even though definite hostilities did not break out between the Poles and the Russian armies. During these months there were four forces competing in the same general area. There were the steadily improving Polish forces supported by the Allies, especially the French, and constantly gaining in numbers and equipment. There were the White Russian armies with the backing of all the Allies striving to restore a unified non-Communist Russia. There were the Red armies pressing down from the north, fighting to spread Communism and to conquer territory. There were finally the Ukrainians organized under Petlyura and isolated leaders struggling to maintain their political independence. All four were hostile to one another but it was easy to see that the position of the Ukrainians fighting on their own territory, with no organized base of supplies outside of the disputed area, was really the most desperate, for they had no way of recruiting and unifying their forces or of securing adequate supplies. Then there broke out an epidemic of typhus. Under this and the growing pressure of the hostile armies, the Ukrainian forces began to disintegrate. The government of the Western Ukraine was the first that was forced into exile, for the Polish hold on Lviv was growing stronger with every week and the arrival of new and trained Polish troops allowed them to take over the entire province. The leaders retired into Romania and then moved to Vienna, where they continued to function as a government in exile.