September Days - Events of September Days

Events of September Days

A terrible panic in Baku ensued once the Turks entered the city. The Armenians crowded the harbor in a frantic effort to escape the fate that they knew always accompanied a Muslim victory. Regular Ottoman troops were not allowed to enter the city for two days, so that the local irregulars – bashibozuks – would conduct looting and pillaging, a practice in accordance with Muslim tradition for cities that resisted. Despite this order, regular Ottoman troops participated alongside the irregulars and the Azeris of Baku in the plundering, who then turned their fury against the city's Armenian population. Calls by the German officers attached to the Ottoman command staff to treat the local population with leniency were ignored by the Ottoman commanders. 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 . 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.

On September 16, the Ottoman divisions formally entered the city in a victory parade reviewed by Ottoman High Command. Baku would subsequently be proclaimed as the capital of the newly established Azerbaijani Republic.

Estimates of the dead range from 10,000 to 30,000 Armenians. 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. According to Hrant Avetisian up to 50,000 of Baku's 70-80,000 person Armenian community were killed and deported.