Events of March 1918 (Part 1)

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Killing people on the basis of ethnicity cannot be justified by anything, but it is even more frightening when people die during ethnic cleansing just because they are ethnically close to those who are considered to be the culprits of the killer’s troubles.The events of 1918 on the entire territory of Azerbaijan are described as ethnic cleansing by historians, who say that the riots were part of ambitious plans of nationalists, who were seeking to maximize the reduction in the number of Muslim population in all regions of Azerbaijan. However, it is not entirely clear why the Armenian massacres of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire became the basis for the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis in 1918.

The Azerbaijanis who were living in the Russian Empire (and other Turkic peoples - Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turkmens, Gagauz, Karachai) had a very indirect relationship to the Turks living in the Ottoman Empire.

In the struggle for the throne of the "oil kingdom" of Baku, the Baku Bolshevik leader Stepan Shaumyan (Lalayants) found support from the radical Dashnaks and Armenian combat units stationed in Baku, which were evacuated from the front and fought on the side of the Entente for the towns and villages of Turkey, who were dreaming of revenge.

The involvement of the struggle for power of the national democratic party Musavat turned the battle into massacres of Azerbaijani civilians, who had nothing against the Armenians, living peacefully with them for many years on the same land. In March 1918 Azerbaijanis were eliminated merely because they ethnically belonged to the family of Turkic peoples, although they had their own history, different from the history of the Ottoman Turks.

It was then that the ideology of the hostile policy of Armenians against Azerbaijanis started, which is based on the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Today, Armenia is seeking recognition of the events in 1915 as genocide.

Thus, in freedom-loving France, where cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and Christ are considered the sacred right of the individual, and the right of freedom of expression,there was an attempt in late 2011 to pass a law punishing denial of the Armenian genocide with a fine of 45,000 euros and imprisonment for one year.

It is not clear how condemnation of the evil committed in 1915 on the territory of the Ottoman Empire can explain the claim on present-day Azerbaijani territory, since the events of a century ago can explain the actions of Armenia’s recent history - the Khojaly tragedy, and the occupation of Karabakh.

Nevertheless it happens, and is probably inspired by those who think about their own political and economic capital, forgetting about the interests of their own people and their nearest neighbors. For most of these people Armenia is their historic homeland, but the Armenian Diaspora is not much concerned about the fact that this kind of policy leads to hostile relations with two (Turkey, Azerbaijan) of the four neighbors of Armenia.

Nevertheless, today Armenia finds itself in an economic impasse, and people are forced to leave the country. Recently, the first president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, called the attempts to continue the search for enemies as an anti-Armenian policy, urging to abandon the idea of ​​creating a 'Greater Armenia'.

Indeed, the policy of mutually beneficial cooperation with its neighbors, will sooner or later make the Caucasus a prosperous land.

As an act of condemnation of the policy of hostility, as an example of the consequences of revenge, as well as the disclosure of objective facts, Vestnik Kavkaza is publishing materials about the March events of 1918, prepared by the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry to investigate instances of violence, riots and looting in Transcaucasia from the period of the First World War.

Vestnik Kavkaza provides the historical documents without any changes, but urges readers not to take the frequently used word "Armenians" as a general quality. We are talking only about the people of Armenian origin who were participants in those events, and the majority of this nationality were themselves hostages of the situation.

 Report to the Chairman of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission, by a member of the same committee, A.E.Kluge, on cases of violence inflicted on the Muslim population of Baku. 

 

In January 1918 a headquarters formed of the Muslim corps arrived in Baku,  headed by General Talyshinsky. Under the pretext that among the Russian officers who arrived at the headquarters were individuals who had ostensibly served earlier in the gendarmerie, the entire staff of the Muslim body was arrested by the Bolsheviks, most of which consisted of Armenian soldiers. The Armenian party Dashnaktsutyun, recognizing the Soviet government, joined the Bolshevik Party and, as subsequent events showed, fought the Muslims. After the staff arrest of the Muslims, the Armenians tried to provoke an armed uprising by the Muslims against the Bolsheviks, and therefore against the Armenians. After this did not happen, the Armenian soldiers began to commit violence against Muslims, and robbed and killed defenseless old men, women and children. It so happened that the Muslims could not even get to Baku railway station; those who wished to travel by rail were forced to go out of town by chaise to get to one of the nearest railway stations, though not to be killed and robbed at Baku railway station by Armenian soldiers. 

 

Muslims were well aware that they were being provoked by the Armenians to stage an armed uprising, but they did not want a fratricidal war and its aftermath, and tried to bear all the difficulties. According to prominent public figures of Baku, Christians were attending meetings and rallies of  Muslims in mosques, all the Muslim speakers called for Muslim people to remain calm and patiently endure the harassment and violence. The speakers explained to the people that the Armenians were trying to force the Muslims to take a public action, and then, in turn, to attack them. By the behavior of Muslims it was evident that they thought with horror of the possibility of a conflict with the Armenians and tried hard to prevent this situation. Muslim representatives  repeatedly tried to enter into an alliance with the Armenians in order to work together against the Bolsheviks, but the Armenians always gave evasive answers (Vol. I, page 154). 

 

At the same time, it was evident that almost all Armenians had moved from the Muslim part of the city to the Armenian part; only Russian, Georgian and other Christians remained in the Muslim part. Armenians repeatedly advised them to leave the Muslim side. There were cases when the Armenians warned Muslims that there could be riots in Baku in March, so families were advised to leave (Vol. I, page 1, Vol. II, page 3). 

 

On March 17th 1918 a small detachment of the Muslim division went to Lankaran, accompanying to Baku the ashes of their friend, Mammad Tagiyev, who died because of careless handling of weapons. Shortly before departing,  armed Bolsheviks arrived at the ship,   demanding the disarmament of the Muslim division, but the division refused to surrender its weapons, and opened fire from rifles and machine guns. The next day, on Sunday, March 18th, in the lower Armenian part of the city, armed Armenian soldiers appeared along all the streets and began to dig trenches and build mounds of earth and stones. Seeing this, the Muslims, in their turn, began to dig trenches on some streets, but still hoping that there would not be a conflict, and all would be settled through negotiation. The same day, in the building of the Muslim Charitable Society 'Ismail', there was a meeting of Muslims, and this meeting was attended by the former Baku mayor Hayk Ter-Mikaelyants, who on behalf of the Armenian National Council and on behalf of the party Dashnaktsutyun stated that, in case of a rally of Muslims against Bolsheviks, the Armenians would join the Muslims and help them to drive the Bolsheviks from Baku  (Vol. l. Page 44, Vol. II Page 3, 49).

 

The next day, in the early morning of Monday March 19th, an offensive against Muslims began in the Muslim  part of the city at the time, while the Muslims were still asleep, lulled by the false assurances of the Armenians’s friendly attitude towards them; this attack was led exclusively by Armenian soldiers. At the same time, naval ships fired shells at the Muslim part of the city due to provocation by Armenians, who persuaded the Russian sailors that Muslims were killing the Russian population. When, later, the men were persuaded that Muslims had not touched the Russians, they stopped firing their guns.

 

The attack was led by well-armed, trained Armenian soldiers, under the guise of a large number of guns on the outskirts of the city, first in the areas Mammadli, Pohl Dare, exclusively populated by Muslims; in these areas of the city Armenians broke into Muslim homes, killing the inhabitants of these houses, cut them down with their swords and daggers and stabbed them with bayonets, throwing children into fires, burning houses and impaling three or four-day-old children on bayonets.  Almost all the infants were killed, abandoned by parents who had fled, and the parents themselves caught up with and killed in the streets. In these parts of the city there was almost no house in which the Armenians did not kill all the Muslims, and very few managed to save their lives. While exterminating Muslims, the Armenians simultaneously destroyed their property, and took all the most valuable items with them. Later, in one place alone, underground, 57 corpses of Muslims were found with no ears, no noses, and their bellies cut open, and vaginas cut. Witnesses say that those women whom the Armenians did not have time to kill, linked with each other with their braids and heads uncovered, without shoes, and were led away into captivity, while being beaten with rifle butts (Vol. I pages 51, 61, 165, Vol. II, page 3). 

 

It is difficult to ascertain the number of Muslims who were killed in these parts of the city, as there were many houses in which Armenians killed everyone, and at that time there were no tenants from whom one could learn the names of the dead. In other Muslim parts of the city Armenian soldiers quickly launched an attack under cover of machine guns and, displacing Muslims from any neighborhood, went into the houses and killed Muslims, after which they committed robberies. In this case, the Armenians did not distinguish between either the sex or the age of those whom they killed. Thus, for example, breaking into the house of Haji Amir Aliyev, they killed his 80-year-old father, his wife, who was 60 years old, and another wife of 70 years, killed three young children and nailed alive the daughter of Aliyev, a woman 25 years old, to the wall  (Vol. II page 3). The advancing Armenian soldiers were led mainly by representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia. One of these teams got into a house on Nikolaev Street and shot 8 women and children. Another detachment, climbing into the house of Bala Ahmed Mukhtarov on Persian Street, brought nine prominent Muslim intellectuals out into the street and shot them on Cathedral Square. When in the same place a doctor, Tagiyev, took out a document and presented the Armenian soldiers with confirmation that he was Tagiyev, who recognized the power of the Bolsheviks, the soldiers shot him as well, saying that they were Dashnaks and they did not recognize any of the Bolsheviks. 

 

Among others who were detained in the house of Bala Ahmed Mukhtarov and then shot there was the master of the house, Colonel Tabasaransky, Captain Sultan Bey Amirjanov, Dr. Kerim bey Sultanov, Javad Bey Ashurbekov and others; the corpses of Sultanov and Ashurbekov were thrown into the burning building of the Hotel Dagestan (Vol. l page 45, Vol. II page 4). 

 

To be continued