“And what are the reasons for this? They are many. First, the desperate condition of the new States which came into being immediately after the Brest-Litovsk peace. In Paris the Conference laid down frontiers, but never thought the first thing to do was to put an end to the economic crisis prevailing in those countries. And so an absurd thing happened—wealthy countries living in frightful misery, and issuing paper currency which was of no value on the world’s markets. Typical is the case of Azerbaïjan, which had millions of tons of petroleum at Baku, but did not know where or how to export them.” In July it was announced that the situation of the Moslems in Armenia had become critical, as for the last two months the Erivan Government and the “Tashnak” party had been carrying on a policy of violence and massacres against them. What remained of the Moslem populations had been compelled to leave their homes and property and flee to Persia. The Armenian Government had even appointed a Commission especially to draw up a list of the crops left by the Moslems and the Greeks in the district. At the end of June, in the district of Zanguibazar, about twenty Moslem villages had been destroyed by bombardments and their inhabitants put to death. By that time the Moslem population of Transcaucasia was being attacked both by the Armenians and the Bolshevists. M. Khan-Khoiski, ex-Prime Minister, and Dr. H. Aghaef, former Vice-President of the Parliament of Azerbaïjan, were assassinated at Tiflis, where they had sought refuge, the former on June 19 and the latter on July 19, by Armenians belonging to the “Tashnak” party, of which the leader of the Armenian Government and most Ministers are members. This murder of the leaders of Azerbaïjan, who carried on the war against the invaders of their country, served the Bolshevist cause, but aroused much resentment among the Moslems of Azerbaïjan and Georgia, who were exasperated by the Bolshevists’ frightful tyranny and now hated Bolshevism as much as they had formerly hated Tsardom. The delegation of Azerbaïjan handed to the Spa Conference a note in which they drew its attention to the condition of their country. On the other hand, the members of the former Cabinet made energetic efforts to rid their country of the Bolshevist invasion. For this purpose they sent delegates to Daghestan and Northern Caucasus to plan a common resistance, as Daghestan, the tribes of the mountains of Northern Caucasus, and Azerbaïjan were on friendly terms and shared the same views. By this time a small part of the Red armies still occupied the Baku area, whence the Bolshevists sent reinforcements to the detachments fighting in Persia.