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or armed groups in baku consisted of 6 000 men from the remnants of the russian caucasus army which had withdrawn from the ottoman front line about 4 000 men of the armenian militia organized under the arf dashnaktsutiun 35 and an undefined number of soldiers of the caucasian native cavalry division disbanded in january 1918 36 events of 30 march 2 april 1918 edit bazarnaya street modern day azerbaijan avenue during the march days in 1918 when the staff of the disbanded caucasian native cavalry division arrived in baku on 9 march 1918 the soviet immediately arrested its commander general talyshinski the move sparked protests from the azerbaijani population with occasional calls to offer armed resistance to the soviet according to the historian firuz kazemzadeh shahumyan could have prevented bloodshed had he been less impulsive and stubborn only a few days earlier shahumyan had received a telegram from lenin in which he was advised to learn diplomacy but this advice was ignored notes 2 the march 1918 confrontation was triggered by an incident with the steamship evelina on 27 march 1918 fifty former caucasian native cavalry division servicemen arrived in baku on this ship to attend the funeral of their colleague mamed tagiyev son of a famous azerbaijani oil magnate and philanthropist haji zeynalabdin taghiyev m tagiyev had been killed in a skirmish by russian armenian forces in lankaran 6 37 when the soldiers got back on board the evelina to sail out of baku on 30 march 1918 the soviet received information that the muslim crew of the ship was armed and waiting for a signal to revolt against the soviet while the report lacked foundation the soviet acted on it disarming the crew which tried to resist 38 39 3 other sources claim that notes 3 azerbaijanis were alarmed by the growing military strength of the armenians in baku and called for the help of the caucasian native cavalry division units in lenkoran their arrival caused great concern among both bolsheviks and armenians and when officials were sent down to the dockside to try to discover what their intentions were they were driven back by gunfire a number of them being killed eventually these newcomers were disarmed by a stronger bolshevik force but when more units of the caucasian native cavalry division arrived on 1 april in macdonell s words the baku cauldron boiled over no one really knows who fired the first shot but very soon baku became a battlefield with trenches and barricades being hastily prepared throughout the city 1 ismailiyya building by 6 p m on 30 march 1918 baku was filled with fighting 40 the soviet side led by shahumyan realized that full civil war was starting and its own forces were insufficient against azerbaijani masses led by musavat allies were found among the mensheviks srs and the kadets right wing liberals which promised to support the bolsheviks as the champions of the russian cause 41 in response to these musavat s achiq söz newspaper noted that while bolsheviks and mensheviks were fighting all year both were uniting against musavat even with the kadets and the dashnaks the paper attributed such alliance to national factors and concluded that the soviet s attempt to provoke one nationality against another instead of fighting a class war was a tragic capitulation of democracy 42 on the morning of 31 march azerbaijanis opposed to the bolshevik disarming of the caucasian native cavalry division held protests in baku demanding to arm the muslims the azerbaijani bolshevik organization hümmet attempted to mediate the dispute proposing that the arms taken from the caucasian native cavalry division be transferred to the custody of the hümmet shahumyan agreed to this proposal but on the afternoon of 31 march when muslim representatives appeared before the baku soviet leadership to take the arms shots were already being heard in the city and the soviet commissar prokofy dzhaparidze refused to provide the arms he informed the hümmet leadership that musavat had launched a political war 3 19 the talks broke off abruptly when the soviet s soldiers were fired upon the bolsheviks accused the muslims of responsibility for the incident stopped negotiations and opened hostilities later shahumyan admitted that the bolsheviks deliberately used a pretext to attack their political opponents we needed to give a rebuff and we exploited the opportunity of the first attempt at an armed assault on our cavalry unit and began an attack on the whole front due to the efforts of both the local soviet and the military revolutionary committee of the caucasus army which moved here from tbilisi and sarikamish we already had armed forces about 6 000 strong dashnaktsutiun also had 3 000 4 000 strong national forces which were at our disposal the participation of the latter lent the civil war to some extent the character of an ethnic massacre however it was impossible to avoid it we were going for it deliberately the muslim poor suffered severely however they are now rallying around the bolsheviks and the soviet 35 armenians initially remained neutral as the muslim rebellion against the soviet began the musavat party proposed an alliance with the dashnaks but was given a rebuff the armenian leadership withdrew its forces to the armenian areas of baku and limited its action to self defense on the evening of 31 march machine gun and rifle fire in baku intensified into a full fledged battle 19 on the morning of 1 april 1918 the committee of revolutionary defense of baku s soviet issued a leaflet which said in view of the fact that the counterrevolutionary musavat party declared war on the soviet of workers soldiers and sailors deputies in the city of baku and thus threatened the existence of the government of the revolutionary democracy baku is declared to be in a state of siege 19 forced to seek support from either muslim musavat or armenian dashnaktsutyun shahumyan himself an armenian chose the latter following initial skirmishes in the streets the dashnaks proceeded to initiate a massacre wildly killing musavat military elements and muslim civilians alike without mercy or discrimination in both baku and the surrounding countryside 43 there were descriptions of dashnak forces taking to looting burning and killing in the muslim sections of the city 44 according to peter hopkirk armenians seeing that at last they had their ancient foes on the run were now out for vengeance 1 in balakhany and ramany districts of baku the majority of muslim workers stayed at their places and avoided the battles while the peasants were not moved to join the anti soviet rebels the persian workers remained passive during all of the fighting refusing to take sides 19 left wing muslim leaders including those of srs and hümmet party such as narimanov azizbekov bunyat sardarov and kazi magomed aghasiyev supported the soviet forces 45 during the battles bolsheviks decided to use artillery against the azerbaijani residential quarters in the city 3 on the afternoon on 1 april a muslim delegation arrived at the hotel astoria the committee of revolutionary defense presented them with an ultimatum notes 4 and demanded that representatives of all muslim parties sign the document before the shelling stopped early in the evening the agreements were signed and the bombardment stopped 19 the fighting did not subside however until the night of 2 april 1918 when thousands of muslims started leaving the city in a mass exodus by the fifth day although much of the city was still ablaze all resistance had ceased leaving the streets strewn with dead and wounded nearly all of them muslims 1 ruins of the editorial office of the kaspi newspaper on nikolayevskaya street present day istiglaliyyat street gubernskaya street present day nizami street bazarnaya street present day azerbaijan avenue pochtovaya street present day taghizadeh street casualties edit removing the dead from the streets the may 1918 dispatch of the new york times stated that 2 000 were killed and 3 000 were wounded in the struggle between russians and mussulmans 46 a later 1919 publication by the new york times reported presumably citing azerbaijani officials that 12 000 people were killed during the events 47 the same publication wrote that according to azerbaijani representatives the bolsheviks crushed muslims with assistance from armenians who wanted to wipe out old enemies and seize their lands 47 the 1920 new york times current history edition used the same figure of 12 000 victims 5 the azerbaijani delegation to the 1919 paris peace conference provided the following interpretation of the march days in that bloodthirsty episode which had such fatal effects upon the muslims the principal part was played by the armenians who were then in baku clustering as elsewhere around their nationalist party arf the truth is that the armenians under the guise of bolshevism rushed on the muslims and massacred during a few frightful days more than 12 000 people many of whom were old men women and children 48 the leader of baku soviet stepan shahumyan claimed that more than 3 000 killed in two days from both sides 17 3 49 50 51 however in his october 1918 article for the armenian herald a publication of the boston based armenian national union of america prominent arf leader karekin pastermadjian asserted that over 10 000 azerbaijanis and nearly 2 500 armenians were killed notes 5 according to firuz kazemzadeh the brutalities continued for weeks no quarter was given by either side neither age nor sex was respected enormous crowds roamed the streets burning houses killing every pass by who was identified as an enemy many innocent persons suffering death at the hands of both the armenians and the azerbaijanis the struggle which had begun as a political contest between musavat and the soviet assumed the character of a gigantic race riot 52 contemporary azerbaijani sources refer to the march days as a genocide 53 54 although the majority of historic sources and accounts interpret the march events in the context of civil war unrest 55 56 57 58 59 aftermath edit further information armenian azerbaijani war 1918 1920 and battle of baku the aftermath in the tatar i e azerbaijani quarter in the immediate aftermath of the march days many of the muslim survivors fled to elisabethpol ganja in central azerbaijan while the temporary executive committee of the muslim national councils and the musavat ceased their activities in the territory of the baku governorate the left wing azerbaijani political groups such as the srs and the hümmet benefited from the developments and became effective leaders of the azerbaijani community in baku the muslim socialist bureau appealed to the committee of revolutionary defense to redress some of the grievances of some of the muslims 19 on 13 april 1918 within few days of the massacres the bolsheviks under the leadership of stepan shahumyan proclaimed the baku commune this new body endeavored to nationalize baku s oil fields drawing the ire of the british 33 and formed the red army of baku an undisciplined and poorly managed force composed largely of ethnic armenian recruits 60 the 26 baku commissars were not all commissars and were not all bolsheviks there were many ethnicities among them greek latvian jewish russian georgian armenian and two of them were ethnic azerbaijani revolutionaries meshadi azizbekov and mir hasan vazirov 61 nevertheless in the azerbaijani psyche the baku commune symbolized the bolshevik armenian collusion born out of the march days bloodbath 62 verification needed the march days of 1918 had a profound effect on the formulation of azerbaijani political objectives as well while previously azerbaijani leaders had sought only autonomy within the russian domain after the bolshevik perpetrated massacres in baku they no longer believed in the russian revolution and turned to the ottomans for support in achieving total independence 63 therefore when the azerbaijan democratic republic was proclaimed on 28 may 1918 its government immediately dispatched a delegation to istanbul to discuss the possibility of ottoman military support for the young republic the ottoman triumvir enver pasha agreed to the azerbaijani requests and charged his brother nuru pasha with forming an ottoman military unit known as the caucasus army of islam to retake baku when in july 1918 the ottoman azerbaijani force defeated the red army of baku in several key battles in central azerbaijan bolshevik power in baku started crumbling under pressure from the russian socialist revolutionaries dashnaks and british agents in the city on 1 august 1918 the baku commune was replaced by the centrocaspian dictatorship which desperately invited a 1000 strong british expeditionary force led by general lionel dunsterville to the city this proved a futile effort and in the face of an overwhelming ottoman azerbaijani offensive the dunsterforce fled and the caucasus army of islam entered the azerbaijani capital on 15 september 1918 citation needed the march days brought underlying tensions between armenians and azerbaijanis to the fore less than six months after the march massacres when the ottoman azerbaijani force entered baku the city fell into chaos and nearly 10 000 armenians were massacred 64 a special commission formed by the armenian national council anc reported a total of 8 988 ethnic armenians massacred among whom were 5 248 armenian inhabitants of baku 1 500 armenian refugees from other parts of the caucasus who were in baku and 2 240 armenians whose corpses were found in the streets but whose identities were never established 65 although these figures were gathered by the armenian national council and have been questioned by some 65 given the general run of events they were unlikely to be greatly exaggerated 66 while trying to escape baku amidst the ottoman azerbaijani offensive the bolshevik baku commissars were taken by ship across the caspian to krasnovodsk where they were imprisoned by the social revolutionary transcaspian government with the alleged support of the british a few days later on 20 september 1918 between the stations of pereval and akhcha kuyma on the trans caspian railway 26 of the commissars were executed by firing squad 64 analysis and interpretations edit according to michael smith muslims faced a crushing defeat at the hands of baku soviet followed by an unrestrained brutality of dashnak forces 6 while in the aftermath of the tragic events musavat used them to foster a national memory of pain its leader m e rasulzade provided an analysis which seems to reflect the essence of witness accounts in rasulzade s view bolsheviks and their supporters sought to diminish musavat s influence among azerbaijani masses for a long time and muslim elites felt frustrated and powerless in face of this pressure march days were a violent culmination in this assault of russian bolshevism against the unprepared azerbaijani people 6 azerbaijani position edit th...
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