by Archbishop Bagrat to the American mission in Baku. The letter began with the accusation that the Azerbaijanis, being the disciples of the Turks and the Germans, could not be trusted. Having thus disposed of the Azerbaijani version of the events, Bagrat stated that the battle was waged by the Musavat and the Soviet, while the Armenians remained neutral. The Archbishop claimed that some Armenian soldiers took part in the fighting, but that those were only isolated individuals for whom the Armenian National Council could not be held responsible. He also claimed that the Armenians gave shelter to some 20,000 Muslims during the struggle. Armenians had been inflamed by the sight and pitiful stories of several hundred thousand refugees who had succeeded in reaching Transcaucasia, fleeing before the Ottoman Army. Consequently, when the Russian Army broke up, the Armenians preserved their discipline against all attempts of the Bolsheviks, and were the only force upon which the Allies could count in southwestern Asia during the last year of the war. The two million Armenians of Transcaucasia, increased by several hundred thousand refugees from the Ottoman Empire, persisted in their loyalty to Russia until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk delivered them to the Ottoman Empire. Then they moved to form their own state, which succeeded in maintaining itself during the period of anarchy and famine that Bolshevism brought upon the Russian Empire. At the Peace Conference, speaking before the Council of Ten, M. Aharonian, delegate of the Armenian Republic of the Caucasus, stated that the two and a half million Armenians in Transcaucasia wanted to cast in their fortunes with the Armenians of Ottoman Empire to form a Greater Armenia. According to Michael P. Croissant, the ARF set out to take revenge for the persecution and genocide suffered by Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans, while Tadeusz Swietochowski states that "Armenian historians do not offer an explanation for the political calculations behind this move, which was bound to entail terrible retribution, and they hint rather at an uncontrollable emotional outburst". Other positions According to Firuz Kazemzadeh, the Soviet provoked March events to eliminate its most formidable rival – the Musavat. However, when Soviet leaders reached out to ARF for assistance against the Azerbaijani nationalists, the conflict degenerated into a massacre with the Armenians killing the Muslims irrespective of their political affiliations or social and economic position. Following an investigation, the Scientific Service