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Chapter 3,
Section 17
War with Christians and moving story of Salmas
After 3 days of war and massacre Christias consolidated their position in urmu. All communication lines including Telephone and Telegraph between Urmu and outside world was severed by Christians. Nobody was aware of the scale of Christian's barbarity until some refugee arrived Tebriz a few day later and informed the authorities.
We do not have no information on Tehran's reaction to all of this. What we know is that Prime Minister has summoned Governor General of Azerbaijan for consultation. The meeting between the two lasted a few hours but no one gave detail of what was discussed .
On the other hand poverty stricken Tebriz was struggling with it's problems such as hunger, disease and... Despite all difficulties inhabitants of Tebriz were not indifferent towards their fellow countrymen and two dailies of Tejeddud ( Progress) and Telieyi Saadet ( Dawn of Prosperity) with their graphic reports of the war and disclosure of Brutality of Armenians in Urmu shocked people. At first people appealed to the Governor General and Memmed Hessen Mirza but their inaction stunned them. Some refugees from Urmu could not bear this indifference and marched towards the Governor General's residence in groups but this did not work either. The fear that Sherefkhana might fall to Christians was a motive for democrats to take the matters in their own hand and order the defence of the city. Fall of Sherefkhana
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could give the control of entire lake to Chrisians. Hundreds of volunteers fought their way through up to Chohreqan and took positions there.
This brave act of democrats put Governor General in difficult position therefore he sent some Armed para-troopers from Merend city to Salmas. Government troops took positions in and around Dilmaqan.
All this happened at the time when Marshimon went to Khosrovabad and was assasinate by Simitqu as we covered the story earlier on. As we mentioned Petos and his well armed and strong troops marched towards Chehriq and then towards Dilmeqan and Democrats and para-troopers had to abandon their position and withdraw back to Khoy. Defeat of Democrat's armed volunteers brought despair to cities an villages. Democrats credibility was hanging in the balance therefore Heriri, Sertibzada, noberi -all well known Democrats- under the command of Samkhan and 400 Qaradagli cavaliers attacked Almasara and took position around the village. On the other hand other democrats and government forces regrouped and reinforced by more volunteers from Khoy and marched towards the frontline.
We will discover later that after all these they could not help people of Salmas from being slaughtered by Armenians. Thus far we have not given any statistics about the strength of Christians in the region.
-About 12,000 Christian families emigrated from Ottoman Empire along with Marshimon.
-20,000 families were living in and around Urmu, Salmas and Sulduz.
-Between 5 to 6 thousand Armenian émigré from Yerevan, Nexcivan and Van
-An Army of 20000 strong with 800 Russian officer who didnot return to Russia and 72 french officers.
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