Small bands of Western Armenian irregulars augmented the groups around Van, Erzinjan, and Erzurum. It was indeed ironic that in many districts there were not even enough Armenian soldiers to guard the inestimable stock of food, ammunition, communication-transportation material, and medical supplies left by the Russian Army. 41 The Corps was worthy of laudation for its efforts, yet it had assumed the impossible task of defending the Erzinjan-Van front, a distance of nearly 400 kilometres. Difficulties in communication, suspicion between the Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, lack of experience as a regular army, and inability to maintain lasting discipline dissipated the limited strength of Nazarbekian's forces. Meanwhile, several thousand trained Armenian soldiers stood stranded in Baku and additional thousands of able-bodied men remained in the Yerevan, Tiflis, Elisavetpol, and Baku guberniias, where Moslem-Armenian tensions had reached dangerous proportions. The Tatars of Transcaucasia were accused of sabotage, destroying the railway to the front lines, and attacking the villages whose male population had been drafted. In Tiflis, the Caucasus Army Command, at the insistence of the Armenian National Council, authorised the creation of special militias to guard the communication routes and protect the threatened villages. Armenian units were then formed in Shoulaver, Akhalkalak, and Akhaltsikh in the Tiflis guberniia; Nukhi and Shushi in Elisavetpol; Igdir and Nakhichevan in Yerevan. 42
During sessions of the Commissariat, Armenian members charged the Moslems with obstructing legislation for broader conscription. By the time the proposal was finally approved at the end of February, precious weeks had elapsed, and, even then, the Commissar for Communications, a Moslem, purportedly jammed the roads, arranging rail transport so that movement of troops and supplies would progress at the slowest possible rate. Actually, Armenians had little need to incriminate their Commissariat colleagues, for the National Council was in full control of Armenian life. It had collected thousands of rubles for the Corps and assigned hundreds of men to the several regiments. What it seemed to desire was ex post facto confirmation of the conscription and moral support in its drive to coerce the recalcitrant "Tiflis city boys" toward the front. 43
Armenians were not alone in their military preparations, for both Moslems and Georgians comprehended the value and necessity of national units. Because Moslems of Russia had been exempt from compulsory military service, they faced greater legal barriers in creating separate armed forces than did their Christian neighbours. Only in its final days, when restraining the Moslems was no longer possible, had the Provisional Government granted them permission to organise. But even before that, the Tatars of Transcaucasia were taking action. In November, the Moslem Council of Ganja (Elisavetpol) assumed the obligation of forming and administering Tatar units. Still, despite demands for equal treatment, the Moslems were denied the requisite material and weapons by the Caucasus Army. 44 Member of the Commissariat often locked in heated quarrels on the subject. In January, 1918, the Moslems broke the impasse and acquired sufficient arms by ambushing the homeward-bound 219th Russian Regiment. In this "Shamkhor Massacre" the Russian soldiers and their dependents suffered several hundred casualties while the Moslems of Elisavetpol garnered some fifteen thousand rifles, seventy machine guns, twenty cannons, and an ample supply of ammunition, food, and uniforms. 45 Soviet authors vilify the shady Moslem bands and especially castigate members of the Transcaucasian Commissariat for their share in the tragedy. 46 Conversely, anti-Soviet Moslem sources stress that the whole affair was a matter of self-defence and that the soldiers had been the aggressors. 47 In either event, the Commissariat was embarrassingly implicated. Apparently both Zhordania, Chairman of the Soviet Regional Centre, and Ramishvili, member of the Military Council, had favoured disarming the Russian troops and had even informed authorities in Ganja of the proximity of the pro-Sovnarkom regiment. Ramishvili, though later refuting the accusation, seems to have ordered an armoured train to participate in the confiscation of the regiment's weapons, but Military Commissar Donskoi upon learning of this immediately contravened the command. By that time, however, the "Shamkhor Massacre" had already begun. The prestige of the Commissariat was badly shaken, and the Christian populace of Transcaucasia was scandalised. The loudest protests and condemnations came from the Social Revolutionaries and Dashnaktsoutiun. The reasons are obvious.
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