September Days

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September Days [1] [2] [3] [4] refers to a period during the Russian Civil War during September 1918 when ethnic Armenians were massacred by Enver Pasha's Army of Islam supported by local Azeri forces when they captured Baku, Azerbaijan [5][6]. An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 ethnic Armenians were killed in the violence.[7] [6] The massacre was in retaliation for the earlier March Days, in which Dashnak and Bolshevik forces massacred Azerbaijani inhabitants of the city in March 1918. [6]

A terrible panic in Baku ensued when the Turks began to enter the city following the Battle of Baku.[8] Armenians crowded the harbor in a frantic effort to escape the fate that they knew always accompanied a Turkish victory[8] . Regular Ottoman troops were not allowed to enter the city for two days, so that the local irregulars – bashibozuks – would conduct looting and pillaging[8]. The violence with which they turned on the Armenians knew no bounds[8]. According to Ronald Grigor Suny, estimates of the dead range from 9,000 to 30,000 Armenians [9]. According to a special commission formed by the Armenian National Council (ANC), a total of 8,988 ethnic Armenians were massacred, among which 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[10] - however, this was the casualty count of bodies found in the first three days of massacres. In the longer run, as many as 50,000[11]of Baku's 80,000 person Armenian community were killed and deported. It was the last major massacre of World War I.[12]

Contents

[edit] Austrian testimony

Austrian ambassador to Germany, Hohenlohe, to Austrian foreign minister burian:

“ According to reports, 'Turkey wants to annex the Caucasus entirely and exterminate the Armenians with all means available and bloodbaths are the order of the day.' ”

Vice Marshal Pomiankowski, the Austrian military attaché and plenipotentiary in Turkey, stated to the chief of the Austrian general staff, "In such a case we would be forced not only to protect the Armenians in the Caucasus against massacre but also against hunger..." [13]


[edit] Local testimony

The man in charge of posts and telegraphs in Baku, one of those who negotiated the surrender of the city and vainly tried to prevent the worst excesses, noted:

“ 'Robberies, murders and rapes were at their height [at 4.00 p.m. on 15 September]. In the whole town massacres of the Armenian population and robberies of all non-Muslim peoples were going on. They broke the doors and windows, entered the living quarters, dragged out men, women and children and killed them in the street. From all the houses the yells of the people who were being attacked were heard. … In some spots there were mountains of dead bodies, and many had terrible wounds from dum-dum bullets. The most appalling picture was at the entrance to the Treasury Lane from Surukhanskoi Street. The whole street was covered with dead bodies of children not older than nine or ten years. About eighty bodies carried wounds inflicted by swords or bayonets, and many had their throats cut; it was obvious that the wretched ones had been slaughtered like lambs. From Telephone Street we heard cries of women and children and we heard single shots. Rushing to their rescue I was obliged to drive the car over the bodies of dead children. The crushing of bones and strange noises of torn bodies followed. The horror of the wheels covered with the intestines of dead bodies could not be endured by the colonel and the asker (adjutant). They closed their eyes with their hands and lowered their heads. They were afraid to look at the terrible slaughter. Half mad from what he saw, the driver sought to leave the street, but was immediately confronted by another bloody hecatomb.' [14] ”


[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Correspondingly, on 1 September, 14,000 Turks launched a determined offensiveagainst the sparsely manned Dunsterforce lines in Baku, and sent another equallystrong force south against Hamadan. On the morning of 14 September, the day Baku fell to the Turks, and when the massacre of Armenians commenced, Dunstervillearrived back in Enzeli, leaving behind 180 of his soldiers, dead or missing." Timothy C. Winegard, "Dunsterforce: A Case study of Coalition Warfare in the Middle East, 1918-1919", "Canadian Army Journal", Vol. 8. 3 Fall 2005 p. 104 http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/caj/documents/vol_08/iss_3/CAJ_vol8.3_13_e.pdf
  2. ^ Kayaloff, Jacques (1976). The Fall of Baku, p. 12
  3. ^ "Allied with the advancing Turkish army, in September 1918 the Azerbaijani nationalists secured their capital, Baku, and engaged in a massacre of the Armenians." http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-44299 Britannica Encyclopedia, Independent Azerbaijan
  4. ^ Brother of War Minister Enver, Nuri was responsible for the perpetration of a series of massacres in Russian Armenia and Azerbaijan, especially the 1918 September Armenian massacre in Baku. The Executions of Some of the Arch-perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide by the Ittihadists and Kemalists, 1915-1926, by Prof. Vahakn N. Dadrian, http://www.zoryaninstitute.org/Table_Of_Contents/genocide_docs_executions.htm
  5. ^ Human Rights Watch. "Playing the 'Communal Card': Communal Violence and Human Rights"
  6. ^ a b c Croissant. Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict, p. 15.
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch. "Playing the 'Communal Card': Communal Violence and Human Rights"
  8. ^ a b c d Walker, Christopher (1980). ARMENIA: The Survuval of a Nation. New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 260. ISBN 0709902107. 
  9. ^ In The Baku Commune 1917-1918 (page 337) Suny states that ‘Estimates of the number killed range from nine to thirty thousand.’
  10. ^ Firuz Kazemzadeh. The Struggle for Transcaucasia: 1917-1921, The New York Philosophical Library, 1951, pp. 143-144
  11. ^ Coppieters, Bruno (1998). Commonwealth and Independence in Post-Soviet Eurasia. Routlege, p.82. ISBN 0714644803. 
  12. ^ Andreopoulos, George(1997) Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 0812216164 p. 236
  13. ^ The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus By Vahakn N. Dadrian - Page 352
  14. ^ Kayaloff, Jacques (1976). The Fall of Baku, p. 12.