These were the circumstances under which the mobilization of 1914 took place in the Caucasus. The Armenian reservists, about 160,000 in number, gladly responded to the call, for the simple reason that they were to fight the arch enemy of their historic race. Besides the regular soldiers, nearly 20,000 volunteers expressed their readiness to take up arms against the Turks. The Georgians, on the other hand, answered the call very reluctantly, and the Armenian-Georgian relations were greatly strained from the very beginning. The attitude of the Armenians toward the despotic Russian government was incomprehensible to the Georgians, who thought that, because the Armenians sided with Russia,--the oppressor of all the Caucasian races,--they must be unfriendly to the Georgians. Many Georgian young men crossed the border from Batoum, went to Trebizond, and prepared bands of volunteers under the leadership of Prince Abashizé in order to aid the Turks. As to the Tartars, not being subject to call, they assumed the role of spectators on the one hand, and on the other used every means to arm themselves, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the Turks. The great land-owners of the provinces of Erivan, Elizavetpol, and Baku began to accumulate enormous stores, and prepare a huge reserve of sugar and wheat. The price of one rifle, which was 100 rubles ($50), rose to 1500 rubles ($750). Through Persia, the Germans took to the Caucasus great sums of money in order to push forward the task of arming the Tartars from the very first days of the war. Great numbers of young Tartars went to Persia and joined the Turkish armies. And all this was carried on in broad daylight under the very eyes of the short-sighted Russian bureaucracy.