Devastated oil-fields. Baku
of a trifling incident. The body of a murdered Armenian, named Babaieff, was being carried in funeral procession past the Tartar quarter of the city. The sight of this procession aroused the Tartars; and the incident which had led to the death of this man—a purely personal vendetta affair—was taken as an excuse for an attempt to massacre all the Armenians in the city. The Armenians defended themselves for a time, but owing to the fact that the Tartars were in superior numbers and much better armed, the casualties among the Armenians were very heavy. During this attack of the Tartars upon the Armenians, the authorities refused absolutely to bestir themselves or make the slightest effort to end the fight. Prince Nakashidze practically turned a deaf ear upon the delegation of Armenians who appealed to him for help, declaring he had no troops at his command, although there were two thousand men stationed near by, which could easily have been employed to quell the disturbance in its early stages.
According to the stories gathered at the time and which have never been contradicted, it appears that the governor himself took pains to openly encourage the Tartars and to stimulate them to greater activity in the fight. The massacre went on for four days, until both sides were ready to quit through sheer exhaustion. In the meantime some three hundred and fifty men and women had been killed and very many wounded. Although it was recognized everywhere that the government was directly responsible for this massacre, the amount of race hatred which was occasioned by this attack has not to this day subsided, and probably will not disappear for years to come. Periodic outbreaks occurred from that time on, and at the time that our party passed through Baku and around the easterly spur of the Caucasus, and turned our faces toward the Nucha district and on to Tiflis, we passed through regions devastated and bare, now placed under military guard; heavy Cossack patrols guarding the piles of debris—for actually more attention was given to guarding the wreckage than had previously been given to guarding the lives of the people.
There was nothing to detain us in Baku. A condition of utter lawlessness prevailed so far as the people were concerned, and even more outrageous lawlessness on the part of the military. It is always so under martial law. A diary of daily events in the Caucasus for the five weeks I was there would fill a large book. I can only speak of significant events, and incidents, which throw light on the whole confused situation. Among ourselves—the officers of my party—there was ceaseless merriment and good fellowship. We lived comfortably, we dined well, we wined much, we were as happy and care-free as though we were on a holiday. About us were the most horrible conditions: dire poverty, distress, a veritable carnival of all the elements of wickedness and suffering of which this world knows.
For the hopeless people of Baku I envied the nomads of the Daghestan hills who tended their cattle and sheep along the steep hillsides, knowing nothing of, and caring nothing for, anything in the world save their own daily bread. At least they were not a part of the perpetual brawl of the town; at least they were not yet belabored by Russian police or military oppressors. Sometimes we saw long camel trains creeping across the sands of Nucha from Persia (lying just below the southern horizon). The dreamy leisureliness of the plodding camels, the calm indifference of the merchants, afforded an illusion of relief from the hostile atmosphere through which
Tiflis. Showing result of artillery fire on town
Note the wall pierced by a solid shell