fortifications. Ussher would say "the Armenians who had practically decided to give the Vali [Jevdet] the four thousand men he had demanded, now dared not do so for they felt certain he intended to put the four thousand to death." Djevdet did not receive any Armenian soldiers from the city of Van after either requests. Persian Azerbaijan had a large Christian population, mostly Armenian and Assyrian. Many of them fled with the retreating Russian army in a winter trek to the Russian border town of Julfa. Those that remained endured a period of looting and massacre; many villages were plundered and destroyed. After an unsuccessful campaign led by Djevdet Bey to capture Khoi, north-west of Tabriz, Djevdet ordered the killing of about 800 people—mostly old men, women and children—in the Salmas district (to the north-east of Lake Urmia) in early March. On 25 February 1915, the 3rd Army and the all Gendarmerie commands, including the Van Gendarmerie, received Directive 8682, titled "Increased Security Precautions". This directive noted increased dissident Armenian activity in Bitlis, Aleppo, Dortyol and Kayseri, and identified Russian and French influence and activities in these areas. The Operations Division directed that the Third and the Fourth Armies increase their surveillance and security measures. To contrast the directive, Felix Guse, commander in chief of the 3rd Army, wrote that there was no proof that the Armenians had planned or had any intentions of mounting a general uprising. On 23 March 1915, the 1st Expeditionary Force arrived in the vicinity of the city of Van and later stayed to the south of Van during the conflicts. Early stages Prior to these events, killings of Armenian males in the Van region were reported by neutral observers. Djevdet's extremism towards Armenians was more open: "a man of dangerously unpredictable moods, friendly one moment, ferociously hostile the next, capable of treacherous brutality", he had been nicknamed "Nalband Bey" (Lord Blacksmith) after atrocities committed at Başkale in which he had nailed horseshoes onto his victims' feet. Upon returning to Van, Djevdet "instigated a reign of terror in the outlying villages of the province on the pretext of searching for arms." In the process, the Ottoman gendarmeries killed many Armenians. The Armenian leaders of Van in the meanwhile implored the people to endure in silence. "Better," they said, "that some villages be burned and destroyed unavenged than give the slightest pretext to the Moslems for