Meanwhile, Antonov–Ovseenko transferred the command of the troops stationed in Ukraine to his chief of staff Muravyov, and he himself led the fight against the Don Cossack troops. A significant part of the Cossacks did not support Kaledin and took neutrality. As a result of two months of bloody battles, Soviet troops and units of the Red Guard occupied Taganrog on February 10, 1918, took Rostov on February 23, and Novocherkassk on February 25. The small detachments of the Volunteer Army, consisting of officers, cadets and high school students, could no longer hold back the advance of the Red troops, and on February 10, General Kornilov informed Kaledin that the volunteers were leaving for the Kuban. Having lost the support of the front–line Cossacks and not seeing an opportunity to stop the Bolshevik detachments, on February 11, Kaledin resigned as a military chieftain and shot himself on the same day. The remnants of the White Cossack troops retreated to the Salsk steppes. The volunteer army (4–5 thousand people) began a retreat with battles to the Kuban (First Kuban Campaign), hoping to receive the support of the Kuban Cossacks, however, these calculations were not justified: the Kuban Cossacks, like the Don Cossacks, did not want to fight against the new government. Volunteers, who were in a hostile environment of the local peasant population and the revolutionary–minded units of the old army returning from the front, had to wage a heavy guerrilla war in the Kuban for survival.