Today, September 15, 2026, marks the 108th anniversary of the liberation of Baku from foreign occupation. On this day in 1918, after 3:00 PM, the city of Baku completely came under the control of the Caucasian Islamic Army. That day can also be called the moment when the physical existence of the young Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and the survival of national statehood, were decided. To understand this historical moment, it is first necessary to look at the difficult reality that preceded it.
The situation before Baku - March written in blood
Until March 1918, power in Baku was in the hands of the Baku Soviet. This terrorist group, led by Stepan Shaumyan, remembered for committing genocides, was an unusual coalition consisting of Bolsheviks, left-right Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and the savages of the Dashnaktsutyun party. Although operating in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijanis were not represented in this p at all. According to historian Yakov Ratgauzer, the Bolsheviks considered the local Turkic-Muslim population an "immature mass from a revolutionary point of view." Furthermore, approximately 70 percent of the Soviet's armed forces were under the command of Armenian officer Amazasp and other Dashnak commanders.
Behind this entity lay two different, yet temporarily overlapping interests. The Bolsheviks wanted to seize Baku oil. At that time, Baku was a strategic city providing a significant portion of the world's oil production, and the survival of Soviet Russia depended heavily on control over this oil. The Dashnaks, however, pursued a different, more radical goal. They wanted to lay the foundation of their imagined "Greater Armenia" state by "cleansing" the territories of Northern Azerbaijan of its Turkic-Muslim population.
These two interests led to a bloody outcome between March 30 and April 3, 1918. In the events known as the March Genocide, Dashnak-Bolshevik armed groups carried out massacres against Azerbaijanis in Baku and throughout the entire governorate (Shamakhi, Guba, Karabakh, Zangazur, Nakhchivan). According to official estimates, 30,000 Turkic-Muslim people were killed in Baku alone, and over a hundred thousand in total. Shaumyan's own letter to Joseph Stalin in Moscow, urgently requesting 10 million rubles for the organization of the Caucasian Red Army, shows how centralized and planned this operation was.
After this massacre, on April 25, 1918, the Baku Commune was declared under Shaumyan's leadership. This Bolshevik administration, which lasted for another three months, was nothing more than another form of foreign rule on Azerbaijani lands.
The arrival of Nuru Pasha
In such a scenario, the fate of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, which had just declared its independence (on May 28, 1918), was at an extremely sensitive point. It was in this context that the leaders of the young republic appealed to Ottoman Turkey for help.
Ottoman Commander-in-Chief Enver Pasha recalled his brother Nuru Pasha from the Iraqi front and entrusted him with the command of the newly formed Caucasian Islamic Army (the initial offer had been made to General Kazım Karabekir Pasha, but he declined due to his duties on the Erzurum front). On March 25, 1918, Nuru Pasha left Mosul and headed to Azerbaijan, bringing with him 149 Turkish officers and 488 soldiers.
The mission of the Caucasian Islamic Army was clear: to liberate Azerbaijan and the Muslim peoples of the North Caucasus from subjugation. Throughout the summer of 1918, this army, shoulder to shoulder with the Azerbaijani National Army, began to liberate the entire territory of the country step by step. After the Battle of Goychay, the resistance of the Bolshevik-Dashnak forces gradually weakened.
Nuru Pasha's method was characterized by decisiveness. In a letter sent to Armenian armed groups, he demanded the surrender of weapons as soon as possible, otherwise stating in harsh terms that military operations would commence. This decisiveness yielded results, and the parties, realizing the futility of resistance, were forced to surrender.
September 15, the final assault
On August 25, 1918, the Caucasian Islamic Army launched its second decisive assault on Baku. This operation involved Mürsel Pasha's 5th Caucasian Division, Süleyman İzzət Bey's 15th Infantry Division, and the southern group units of Cemil Cahid Bey. After several days of fierce fighting, the villages of Novkhani, Goradil, Pirshagi, Kurdakhani, and Fatmayi came under the army's control, and forces advanced to within 16 kilometers of Baku.
Interestingly, at this stage, a third force, a British battalion, was already present in Baku (at the invitation of the Centrocaspian Dictatorship), and even on September 14, one day before liberation, British forces were fighting the Caucasian Islamic Army. However, as a result of negotiations between the parties, the Centrocaspian leadership decided to hand over the city to the control of the Caucasian Islamic Army. Forces that could escape left Baku by ship, while the rest surrendered.
Thus, on September 15, 1918, after 3:00 PM, the city of Baku was completely liberated. Nuru Pasha conveyed the news of this victory to Minister of War Enver Pasha, who, in his reply telegram, characterized this historic moment as follows: "Turkish and Islamic history will not forget your service."
A few days later, on September 17, the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was moved from Ganja, the temporary capital, to Baku. With this, Baku once again, for the first time in history, gained the status of the capital of an independent Azerbaijani state.
It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of this event. As historians note, if Baku had not been liberated, Bolshevik troops would have captured Ganja in the summer of that year, overthrown the central government, and as a result, the "Azerbaijani question" would have been over. That is, the young republic would have been stifled at birth. With the capture of Baku, in fact, the fate of Azerbaijani statehood as a whole was decided.
Millionaire philanthropists like Taghiyev organized solemn banquets in honor of the Turkish army (in the current State Philharmonic building), thereby expressing the gratitude of the people.
For the sake of historical justice, it should be noted that the Turkish army's stay in Baku did not last long. As a result of increasing pressure from the Entente powers on Ottoman Turkey, Turkish troops had to leave the city shortly thereafter. However, this does not diminish the historical significance of the event. Because it was precisely thanks to this intervention that the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic gained the necessary time to organize itself, form its own army, and experience 23 months of independent statehood.
Today, 108 years later, September 15 lives on as the first blood-written proof of Azerbaijani-Turkish brotherhood, the formula of "one nation, two states." Nuru Pasha, Khalil Pasha, Mürsel Pasha, Süleyman İzzət Bey, and the thousands of soldiers who fought alongside them are the reason Baku exists today.
