In the middle of November 1915, General Yudenitch who was managing the Caucasian Campaign (the nearest to the spot), dispatched two columns into the Iranian Azerbaijan; one, under General Nikolai Baratov, with the order to push southwestward through Hamadan to Kermanshah, on the way to Bagdad. The second column advanced through Kum and Kashan to Ispahan. A detachment of the Russian Caucasus Army marched on Tehran. On November 14, The Austro-Hungarian and German Ministers left the capital, but Ahmad Shah Qajar did not agree to leave his people behind, and the Prince of Reuss undertook to hold strategical points with a force of 6,000 of the Persian gendarmerie, about 3,000 Turkish irregulars, and the disaffected Persian tribesmen, about 15,000 in all. By the end of the month, Tehran was taken by the Russians Caucuses Army and Armenian volunteers.