On January 11, 1918, the special decree On Armenia was signed by Lenin and Stalin which armed and repatriated over 100,000 Armenians from the former Tsar's Army to be sent to the Caucasus for operations against Ottoman interests.

[3] On January 20, 1918, Talaat Pasha entered an official protest against the Bolsheviks arming Armenian army legions and replied, "the Russian leopard had not changed its spots.

During late spring 1918, Bolsheviks in Moscow sent oil from Baku over the Caspian Sea and up the lower Volga to Austrian-German forces in Ukraine in return for German financial support and German help to stop the Ottoman 3rd Army's advances through Armenian territory and into the Caucasus.

[3] Later, the Bolsheviks through the May 28th Treaty of Poti recognized Georgia's independence under German control and allowed Germany to have 25% of the oil from Baku.

[3][8] The purpose of the Caucasus Army of Islam was to mobilize Muslim supporters in Transcaspian and Caucasian regions.

[1] Nuri Pasha came to Yelizavetpol (present day: Ganja) on May 25, 1918 and began to organize the Army of Islam.

The British authority were concerned about an advance of either the Germans or the Ottoman forces to the Baku oil fields and began to send reinforcements to the "Dunsterforce" in June 1918.

Dunsterville coordinated future combined operations with the Cossack forces commended by Colonel Lazar Bicherakhov, and sent about 300 British soldiers to Baku and they arrived there on August 5.

The division continued to advance northwards and arrived at the gate of Petrovsk (present day: Makhachkala) on October 28 and occupied the city on November 8.

[3] Second, the subsequent withdrawal of Austrian and German support from Southern Russia and the Caucasus along with the Turkish War of Independence placed the British and French at odds with their foreign policy toward both the Turks and the Russians.

This allowed the Bolsheviks to gain capital from the Baku oilfields which would be used in the destruction of the British and French supported anti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Civil War.

Instead, Germany shifted its foreign policy support to Islamic forces in obtaining guarantees of oil supplies from Southern Russia and Persia via Batumi, Tiflis, and Baku, thus splitting its foreign policy goals from those of Turkey and removing German support for Zionism.