the Russian Caucasus Army which had withdrawn from the Ottoman front line, about 4,000 men of the Armenian militia organized under the ARF Dashnaktsutiun, and an undefined number of soldiers of the Caucasian Native Cavalry Division disbanded in January 1918. Events of 30 March – 2 April 1918 When the staff of the disbanded Caucasian Native Cavalry Division arrived in Baku on 9 March 1918, the Soviet immediately arrested its commander, General Talyshinski. The move sparked protests from the Azerbaijani population, with occasional calls to offer armed resistance to the Soviet. According to the historian Firuz Kazemzadeh, Shahumyan could have prevented bloodshed, had he been less impulsive and stubborn. Only a few days earlier, Shahumyan had received a telegram from Lenin, in which he was advised "to learn diplomacy", but this advice was ignored. The March 1918 confrontation was triggered by an incident with the steamship Evelina. On 27 March 1918, fifty former Caucasian Native Cavalry Division servicemen arrived in Baku on this ship to attend the funeral of their colleague Mamed Tagiyev, son of a famous Azerbaijani oil magnate and philanthropist, Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev. M. Tagiyev had been killed in a skirmish by Russian-Armenian forces in Lankaran. Some sources state that when the soldiers got back on board the Evelina to sail out of Baku on 30 March 1918, the Soviet received information that the Muslim crew of the ship was armed and waiting for a signal to revolt against the Soviet. While the report lacked foundation, the Soviet acted on it, disarming the crew which tried to resist. Other sources claim that Azerbaijanis were alarmed by the growing military strength of the Armenians in Baku, and called for the help of the Caucasian Native Cavalry Division units in Lenkoran. Their arrival caused great concern among both Bolsheviks and Armenians, and when officials were sent down to the dockside to try to discover what their intentions were, they were driven back by gunfire, a number of them being killed. Eventually these newcomers were disarmed by a stronger Bolshevik force, but when more units of the Caucasian Native Cavalry Division arrived on 1 April, in MacDonell's words, "the Baku cauldron boiled over". No one really knows who fired the first shot, but very soon Baku became a battlefield, with trenches and barricades being hastily prepared throughout the city. By 6 p.m. on 30 March 1918, Baku was filled with fighting.