I WITNESSED and LIVED THROUGH

Antranik had promised Russian artillery officers that he would set the
public order, and order of law. But neither his promises nor the
promises of Dr. Zavriyev, who was sent by the Southern Caucasian
Government just to set the public order, did not prove anything but
vain words.
The chaos in the city decreased. Silence prevailed in the villages
where the inhabitants disappeared. When the Turkish forces started
to march over to Ilıca, the Armenians started to arrest the Muslims in
the town again. The arrests intensified a great deal during February
25-26.
The Armenians carried out massacres by dodging the Russian officers
in the evening of February 26, in Erzurum. They retreated with the
fear of approaching Turkish army.
The number of the massacred Muslims reached 3.000 that night. To
be more explicit, the massacres were not fortuitous events but
premeditated. They were all committed in accordance with a plan
devised that was first put into practice by arrests. There was no time,
they had such a small force; they could not even keep their position
from an enemy force of 1.500 men and 2 artillery guns. They lost too
many lives.
The prominent Armenians could have stopped the massacres. The
responsibility of those massacres lived through cannot be put on the
gangs solely. As far as I observed recently the Armenians from the
lower end of the social strata were strongly adhered to the
intellectuals of the community, and especially to the orders issued by
some of them.
I believe it will be sufficient enough to confess that we did not have
any power to fight decisively against the banditry and misbehavior
right from the early days. Although the command echelons of my
regiment were mostly composed of the Russian officers, the troops
were mostly composed of the Armenian soldiers.

Sekizinci Askerî Tarih Semineri Bildirileri [Proceedings of the 8th Military History
Seminar]. XIX. ve XX. Yüzyıllarda Türkiye ve Kafkaslar. Vol: I. Ankara: Gnkur. ATASE
Bşk.lığı Yayınları, 2003. pp. 459-473.