Casualties
The May 1918 dispatch of the New York Times stated that "2000 were killed and 3000 were wounded in struggle between Russians and Mussulmans". Later 1919 publication by the New York Times concluded that 12,000 people were killed during the March Days of 1918. The same publication wrote that according to Azerbaijani representatives, Bolsheviks crushed Muslims with assistance from Armenians who wanted to "wipe out old enemies and seize their lands". The post-1920 New York Times editions used the same figure of 12,000 victims, as did several historians.
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 ... 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.
The leader of Baku Soviet, Stepan Shahumyan, claimed that more than 3,000 killed in two days. However, in his October 1918 article for the Armenian Herald, publication of the Boston-based Armenian National Union of America, one of the prominent ARF leaders, Karekin Pastermadjian, asserted that over 10,000 Azerbaijanis and nearly 2,500 Armenians were killed during the March Days of 1918.
Read more about this topic: March Days