By May 28, the Armenians of Yerevan guberniia were certain that Alexandropol would be retrieved. Some even had visions of advancing as far as Kars. On that day Silikian again addressed the populace and troops, praising them for their unsurpassed courage and urging them "on to Alexandropol!" 32 That goal was near realisation when Silikian received a startling order from Corps Commander Nazarbekian. Hostilities were to cease, for news had just arrived that a truce had been concluded in Batum, and Khatisian, Kachaznouni, and Papadjanian were negotiating for peace. 33 it would have been difficult to find an Armenian who would have not welcomed the tidings a week earlier, but now the circumstances had changed and the voices of disapproval and anger echoed throughout the land. The military leaders and Yerevan's Dictator Aram received scores of appeals to ignore the order and to continue the advance to Alexandropol. Many urged Silikian to declare himself commander in chief and to save the nation by force of arms, the only language the enemy understood. Now that the Turks were running, how was it possible to cease fire and permit the invaders to maintain possession of the native soil? General Silikian, however, refused to yield to such counsel and instructed his troops to halt. 34 Though widely and caustically chastised for agreeing to a truce, the Corps Command and the National Council had been compelled to take account of the fact that the stores of ammunition were either empty or nearly exhausted and that sizable Turkish reinforcements were not distant. 35 If peace were not concluded and the tide of victory turned in favour of the Ottomans, the consequences would be disastrous. The 1st and 2nd divisions of the Armenian Corps complied with the order, but Andranik, who had formed a new Western Armenian brigade, refused to submit. He condemned that National Council and Dashnaktsoutiun for the treachery. Vowing to leave the territory of the so-called republic, which would and could be nothing more than an Ottoman vassal state, he withdrew from the Gharakilisa-Dilijan area and moved along Lake Sevan, over Novo Bayazid, into Nakhichevan. His three-thousand-man force was accompanied by several thousand Western Armenian refugees who felt that the greatest possible security was to be found by following the general. Andranik hoped to reach North Persia in time to assist the Christian Assyrians and Armenians, who were stubbornly resisting Halil Pasha's Ottoman Sixth Army near Khoi and Lake Urmia, and to unite with British forces operating in the region. When the revenge-thirsty mass reached Khoi, however, the Christian defenders had just been defeated; some had been massacred and the others had fled. 36 The routes south were blocked by regular Turkish divisions. Backtracking, Andranik then pushed over Nakhichevan into Zangezour, the southernmost uezd of the Elisavetpol guberniia. Remaining there for the duration of World War, Andranik's forces crushed one Tatar village after another. Thousands of homeless Moslems escaped across the Araxes River into Persia or eastward to the steppe lands of the Baku guberniia. 37 Many Armenians approved of Andranik's policies and shared his hatred for the humiliating and crushing treaty that was signed in Batum on June 4, 1918. it was that document which extinguished the flicker of hope that the great Plateau from Euphrates to Karabakh would once more be Armenian. Nevertheless, under the chaotic circumstances of mid-1918, peace – even a nefarious peace – was indispensable for survival.
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