 Despite Allied support, the city's White Russian forces were in a seemingly hopeless position, and in April 1919 the French naval high command ordered the ships to evacuate.Rejecting this, the commander of the Second Squadron, Vice-Admiral ("vice-amiral") Jean-Françoise-Charles Amet, attempted to have his forces intervene in the fighting, only to have a mutiny erupt on several of his ships.War-weary sailors demanded to return home and the ensuing standoff culminated in a mass shooting of sailor demonstrators.