About midnight on 16–17 July 1918, Commander Yurovsky entered the second-floor room of Dr. Botkin, who was awake and writing a letter. Botkin was told to awaken the Imperial family and their three remaining servants, so that the whole party could be evacuated from Yekaterinburg. The reason given was that the anti-Bolshevik White Army forces of Tsarist and moderate democratic socialists in the ensuing Russian Civil War of 1918–1921, were nearing the city and that there had been firing in the streets.