which desperately invited a 1000-strong British expeditionary force led by General Lionel Dunsterville to the city. This proved a futile effort and, in the face of an overwhelming Ottoman-Azerbaijani offensive, the Dunsterforce fled and the Caucasus Army of Islam entered the Azerbaijani capital on 15 September 1918. The March Days brought underlying tensions between Armenians and Azerbaijanis to the fore. Less than six months after the March massacres, when the Ottoman-Azerbaijani force entered Baku, the city fell into chaos and nearly 10,000 Armenians were massacred. A special commission formed by the Armenian National Council (ANC) reported a total of 8,988 ethnic Armenians massacred, among whom 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. Although these figures were gathered by the Armenian National Council, and have been questioned by some, given the general run of events, they were unlikely to be greatly exaggerated. While trying to escape Baku amidst the Ottoman-Azerbaijani offensive, the Bolshevik Baku Commissars were taken by ship across the Caspian to Krasnovodsk, where they were imprisoned by the Social Revolutionary Transcaspian Government, with the alleged support of the British. A few days later, on 20 September 1918, between the stations of Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma on the Trans-Caspian railway, 26 of the Commissars were executed by firing squad. Analysis and interpretations According to Michael Smith, Muslims faced a crushing defeat at the hands of Baku Soviet followed by an "unrestrained brutality of Dashnak forces". While in the aftermath of the tragic events, Musavat used them to foster a national memory of pain, its leader M. E. Rasulzade provided an analysis which seems to reflect the essence of witness accounts. In Rasulzade's view, Bolsheviks and their supporters sought to diminish Musavat's influence among Azerbaijani masses for a long time, and Muslim elites felt frustrated and powerless in face of this pressure. March Days were a violent culmination in this assault of Russian Bolshevism against the unprepared Azerbaijani people. Azerbaijani position The leader of Musavat Mammed Amin Rasulzade stated with regard to the March Days: In Soviet Azerbaijan, historical accounts of March Days were made to support the actions of Baku Soviet and to condemn Musavat as the culprit of the tragedy. Soviet historiography also tried to suppress the memory of 1918 massacres and