Military History Companion:
Mesopotamian campaign
Mesopotamian campaign (WW I). On 6 November 1914, a force of Indian and British infantry landed at the head of the Persian Gulf ostensibly to protect imperial oil interests, now threatened by Turkey, who had joined the Central Powers on 28 October. Oil had been discovered in the area just prior to 1914, and the sandy wastes swiftly assumed strategic importance as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company began to develop the first oilfields. Moreover, as Briton Cooper Busch has shown, Britain was anxious to preserve her established position in the Gulf, to prevent Turkish agents from stirring up trouble amongst India's Muslims, and to encourage Arab resistance to Turkish rule.
The Mesopotamian campaign in WW I.
(Click to enlarge)
Until early 1916 the campaign was directed by the government of India, which left much of the decision-making to its own military authorities and to the C-in-C, Gen Sir John Nixon, who took over in March 1915. Both recognized that as long as they retained only a toehold in Mesopotamia the Turks were at liberty to move down the Tigris and Euphrates against them, and early successes encouraged them to believe that an advance inland would be easy. Political motives remained blurred. An inter-departmental committee in London produced a list of desiderata which included the development of ‘a possible field for Indian colonisation’, and some officials argued in favour of wide territorial annexation.
Despite the campaign's lack of clear strategic focus, its early signs were promising. Basra (which the Turks had already evacuated) was taken on 22 November, and El Qurnah, at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, fell on 9 December. Nixon was told to ‘retain complete control of the lower portion of Mesopotamia’—defined as the province of Basra, which he had not fully secured—and to submit plans for an advance on Baghdad. In May 1915 two British columns moved off, one following each river upstream. The 6th Indian Division under Maj Gen Charles Townshend moved up the Tigris towards Baghdad, while Maj Gen Gorringe took his 12th Indian Division to An Nasiriyah on the Euphrates, which fell on 25 July.
These easy successes encouraged Nixon to aim for Baghdad. His logistics were never robust, and it became increasingly difficult to supply the advancing troops: as his supply line grew longer, that of the Turks grew shorter. Nixon was convinced that he could take Baghdad, though Townshend disagreed. The latter's men were unused to the local climate and had begun to tire after the long advance. Despite pleas for reinforcement, 6th Division was ordered to continue along the Tigris, and took a series of river towns before reaching Kut Al Amara. The Turks evacuated their 10, 000-strong garrison, and Townshend occupied Kut, just 120 miles (193 km) from Baghdad, on 28 September 1915.
Opinion on the wisdom of an advance on Baghdad remained divided. Although in October 1915 a joint War Office-Admiralty memorandum warned against the diversion of troops to a campaign ‘which cannot appreciably influence the decision as between the armies of the Allies and those of the Central Powers’, the same month the cabinet concluded that success in Mesopotamia would offset failure in Gallipoli. ‘We are therefore in need of a striking success in the east, ’ it announced. ‘Unless you consider that the possibility of eventual withdrawal is against the advance … we are prepared to order it.’ Although Nixon knew that the Turks had been reinforced, he told Townshend to press on.
Townshend resumed his advance, and though he had to wait six weeks to resupply, by 22 November he was 24 miles (39 km) from Baghdad, where he attacked a strong Turkish defensive line at Ctesiphon, losing over 4, 000 men, one-third of his force. Townshend had pushed his luck too far. He was without reserves, and, faced with the arrival of fresh Turkish troops, was obliged to fall back on Kut Al Amara, where he was besieged. Meanwhile, Nixon had remained 300 miles (482 km) distant in Basra, and was unable to appreciate the gravity of the situation, while the Allied evacuation from Gallipoli allowed the Turks to further reinforce their forces in Mesopotamia. Three attempts at relief failed and on 26 April 1916, his force starving and riddled with disease, Townshend surrendered 2, 000 British and 6, 000 Indian soldiers. The failure of the relief attempts, which had cost a further 21, 000 casualties, allied to the surrender at Kut caused a storm of indignation in England.
In August 1916 Gen Sir Stanley Maude took over as C-in-C and resumed the offensive up the Tigris in December with two corps, an impressive force of 166, 000. By 25 February, he had retaken Kut, and pressed on to the prize, Baghdad, which his main force entered on 11 March 1917. Now Turkish forces began to be stretched in turn, as the British successes at Gaza made demanding calls on their manpower. To secure Baghdad, Maude formed three columns, and sent them further up the Tigris, Euphrates, and Diyala rivers, with the aim of destroying the Turkish field army. Each column won a series of engagements, but Maude died of cholera on 18 November and was succeeded by Lt Gen Sir William Marshall. In January 1918, a small British force under Maj Gen Dunsterville (Dunsterforce) moved north from Baghdad in a race with the Turks to seize the Russian oilfields at Baku, some 500 miles (805 km) distant, which had been vulnerable since Russia's withdrawal from the war, following the November Russian Revolution. Dunsterforce arrived only in August, and had to withdraw the following month after Turkish attacks.
Back in Mesopotamia, the river advances continued throughout 1918, but some of the British force was withdrawn to Palestine to replace troops sent to France to repel the Ludendorff offensive. Five thousand Turkish prisoners were taken in an engagement on the Euphrates at Khan Baghdad on 26 March, and Turkish troops gradually lost their enthusiasm for fighting. In late October 1918, faced with an impending Turkish armistice, a British force under Cobbe pushed up the Tigris to seize the oilfields at Mosul, fighting their last battle with the Turks near the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Asshur. The armistice with Turkey of 30 October brought about the surrender of Asshur (Ash Sharqat), but Cobbe moved on to occupy Mosul in early November. In 1918 Mesopotamia assumed its modern name of Iraq, under a British mandate, and imperial forces remained garrisoned there to subdue dissident tribesmen. The campaign, which had begun and ended with the seizure of oilfields, cost the British army 27, 000 men, 13, 000 of whom died of disease. It was indeed a sideshow, conducted without proper strategic control: the courage of the troops engaged, who fought in what were often appalling conditions, merited deeper thought on the part of their leaders.
Bibliography
- Barker, A. J., The Neglected War: Mesopotamia 1914-1918 (London 1967)
- Busch, Briton Cooper, Britain, India and the Arabs 1914-1921 (London 1971)
— Peter Caddick-Adams/Richard Holmes
