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The Shamakhi genocide occupies a special place among the criminal acts committed by the Armenian nationalists in 1918, who wanted to create a “Greater Armenia” state in Azerbaijan, in terms of its scale, number of victims and the amount of material and moral damage. In Shamakhi district, the Armenian Dashnaks led by S. Lalayan and T. Amirov brutally killed the Muslim population. Armenian and Molokan soldiers break into Muslim homes, take valuables and money from frightened people, and then kill their entire families.Also, by the order of S. Lalayan, Armenian soldiers burned alive the residents of the city who took refuge in 12 neighborhood mosques of the city, as well as the Juma Mosque, which dates back to the VIII century. The violence and looting continued for four days, until Azerbaijani troops came to the aid of Shamakhi Muslims from Ganja and entered the city. During the two-time genocide of Azerbaijanis in Shamakhi, between 8,000 and 10,000 people out of the city’s 21,127 Muslims were killed, and the rest were displaced to various cities and districts of Azerbaijan. In addition to residential areas and mosques, all public buildings, markets, hundreds of shops, warehouses, mills and other civilian objects in the city were burned and completely destroyed. The genocide in Shamakhi lasted until mid-July 1918, when it was liberated by Turkish-Azerbaijani troops.During that period, 106 villages of Shamakhi district were burned and destroyed, and residents of 110 villages suffered from attacks by Armenian-Molokan gangs.The total number of those killed during the attacks and in captivity was 10,341, including 4,359 women and children. Thousands of wandered refugees in the mountains, forests and plains for months, have died of cold, hunger and disease. The total amount of material damage inflicted on the residents of Muslim villages of Shamakhi district amounted to 607,167,420 rubles. The main difference between the genocide in Shemakhi and the genocides in other regions of Azerbaijan is the active participation of the Molokan-Russian population in these events along with the Armenians. The documents of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission on the Shamakhi genocide totaled 22 volumes of investigative material and 63 photographs. These documents allow us to know the scale of the full picture of the 1918 Shamakhi tragedy.  

At the end of 1917 – early 1918,in Baku had opened struggle by the Dashnak-Bolshevik forces against the national forces. On December 1917,the arrival of the Military Revolutionary Committee headed by S. Shaumyan, appointed by the Chairman of the Russian People’s Commissars Soviet from Tbilisi to Baku exacerbated the political situation. Red Army which was at the disposal of the Baku Council, was comprised of 20,000 armed forces, mostly Armenians. In March 1918 the political situation in Baku was very tense. Musavat, the strongest political party in the South Caucasus, was striving for Azerbaijan’s territorial autonomy.The Bolshevik forces, headed by Shaumyan, in cooperation with the Armenian National Council and the Dashnaktsutyun party, began a real war against Musavat. Disarmament of 48 officers and soldiers of the 48th Muslim division on the Evelina ship from Lankaran to Baku on March 27, 1918 was an excuse for the bloody clashes in Baku.On March 30, 1918, non-organized protest rallies began in different parts of the city.The city’s central and all Muslim neighborhoods have been subjected to armed attacks by Bolshevik-Armenian units, bombardment from airplanes, and continuous firing from the ships from the Caspian Fleet.On March, all sections of Azerbaijani population in Baku became victims of Armenian violence and looting.All efforts made by the Azerbaijani national elites and political forces to prevent further escalation of tension in the city have ultimately been ineffective. 

           According to the documents of the Extraordinary Investigation Comission, during the March massacre in 1918, in Baku and surrounding villages (Mohammadi, Ahmadli, Balakhani, Binagadi, Bibi-Heybat, Hokimli, Zabrat, Sabunchu, Ramana, Khirdalan, etc.) 12000 Muslims were the victims of the atrocities of the Armenian armed groups. In the tragic March of 1918, the amount of material damage inflicted on the city’s Muslim population was estimated at 400,000,000 rubles. The burned and destroyed buildings included the “Ismailia” (the building of Muslim Charity Association), the “Kaspi” newspaper, the Dagestan, Alexandria and Islamiya hotels. These Muslim hotels and caravanserai were burned with the people inside.