descriptions of Dashnak forces taking to looting, burning and killing in the Muslim sections of the city. According to Peter Hopkirk, "Armenians, seeing that at last they had their ancient foes on the run, were now out for vengeance". In Balakhany and Ramany districts of Baku, the majority of Muslim workers stayed at their places and avoided the battles, while the peasants were not moved to join the anti-Soviet rebels. The Persian workers remained passive during all of the fighting, refusing to take sides. Left-wing Muslim leaders, including those of SRs and Hümmet Party, such as Narimanov, Azizbekov, Bunyat Sardarov and Kazi-Magomed Aghasiyev, supported the Soviet forces During the battles, Bolsheviks decided to use artillery against the Azerbaijani residential quarters in the city. On the afternoon on 1 April, a Muslim delegation arrived at the Hotel Astoria. The Committee of Revolutionary Defense presented them with an ultimatum and demanded that representatives of all Muslim parties sign the document before the shelling stopped. Early in the evening, the agreements were signed and the bombardment stopped. The fighting did not subside, however, until the night of 2 April 1918, when thousands of Muslims started leaving the city in a mass exodus. By the fifth day, although much of the city was still ablaze, all resistance had ceased, leaving the streets strewn with dead and wounded, nearly all of them Muslims. So the armed conflict between the Musavat and the joint Soviet-ARF forces ended on 3 April 1918 with the victory of the latter. Casualties The May 1918 dispatch of The New York Times stated that "2,000 were killed and 3,000 were wounded in struggle between Russians and Mussulmans". Later 1919 publication by The New York Times reported – presumably citing Azerbaijani officials – 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 1920 New York Times Current History edition 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: The leader of Baku Soviet, Stepan Shahumyan, claimed that more than 3,000 killed in two days from both sides. However, in his October 1918 article for the Armenian Herald, publication of the Boston-based Armenian National