OPERATIONS AGAINST BAGDAD AND AROUND THE TIGRIS

The British campaign in Mesopotamia during the first year of the war had been generally successful. After the capture of Basra in November, 1914, the Delta country was cleared of the enemy and the safety of the oil fields assured. A period of quiet followed, broken only when the Turks took the offensive, which failed, in April, 1915. Late in May the British won a decisive victory over the Turkish troops at Kurna. In July, 1915, the ill-fated expedition against the enemy forces guarding Bagdad was planned. Later, after the failure in the Dardanelles, it was necessary to attempt something spectacular that would restore British prestige in the Orient, and this could be accomplished by the capture of Bagdad.

The British position in regard to Persia had become difficult. It was known that the German Ambassador at Teheran, Prince Henry XXXI of Reuss, was scheming with Persian tribes and Persian statesmen and politicians, and also trying to win over the armed police and their Swedish officers. Russia and Great Britain had established this police system to protect the highways from brigands, and Swedish officers had been chosen to command them because they might be counted on not to favor Russian or British interests.

The mountain tribes on the Turko-Persian border were in a state of unrest and seemed to be only waiting an opportunity to show their hostility toward the foes of Germany and Turkey. The Swedish-led gendarmerie were also more than suspected by the British of having been won over by German agents. The Russian army in the Caucasus meanwhile was accomplishing little or nothing, while the Turkish forces in part were extending toward the Persian highlands, with the purpose, it was suspected, of joining with the Swedish-led rebels and mountain tribes. The Turks and intriguers in Persia evidently thought the time ripe for a quick conquest of Persia, as the main Russian armies in Poland were not in a position to interfere. It seemed to the Turks and their German advisers that the hour was propitious to send forward an army that would drive the British-Indian Expeditionary Force out of Mesopotamia.

Sir John Nixon had no adequate forces at his command for the proposed task of capturing Bagdad, having only at his disposal one division of Indian and British troops, and a brigade or so in reserve with which to attack the Turkish army that was daily increasing in numbers.

The most implacable foe that the British troops had to contend against was the climate. It was found impossible to march more than eight miles a day and after sundown. The heat in the tents at times varied between 128 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit. With burning sand underfeet, and scorching rays of the sun from above, blood dried up in the body, the brain became inflamed, followed by delirium, coma, death. It was impossible for the white soldiers to perspire unless they were near marshes where they might quench their intolerable thirst in the brackish waters. Owing to the lack of fresh vegetables and improper food, the rations of bully beef and hard-tack, and the assaults of blood-sucking insects, many deaths occurred. Even the Northwest Indian troops, accustomed to the desert and life in a hot climate, suffered intensely in Mesopotamia. It is necessary to consider the climatic conditions the British forces had to contend with in this country to understand why their progress was necessarily slow, and why so many men fell by the way.

The attempt to capture Bagdad was much criticized when projected, and since, as being foolhardy, and likely to fail, and in any case not worth the great loss of men it must entail. But the British-Indian Expeditionary Force was in a position where it must take a gambler's chance and stand to win or lose. To capture the city of the Caliphs would in the first place greatly impress the Mohammedan population and restore British prestige, which had sadly suffered through the Dardanelles failure. And it was necessary that the British troops should act promptly and without counting the possible cost, for every hour's delay permitted the Turks and their allies to grow in strength.

To the British, Bagdad was of importance. It was needed as a base at the head of navigation. It would enable them to prevent Turkish troops from traveling over Persian highways, and, most important of all, it would afford the British opportunities to check Mohammedan organization and subdue attempted risings.

General Townshend, who commanded the division that was sent forward to attempt the capture of Bagdad, had all the odds against him. His small force, consisting of two-thirds Indian and one-third British troops, was hopelessly inadequate for the projected campaign. It was known that the Turks were well equipped with guns of superior power, and that they were directed by German officers, assisted by German engineers; that the very able German officer Marshal von der Goltz was in charge of operations. When it is considered that the Turkish force was three times as strong in numbers as General Townshend's, the British general's advance on Bagdad seemed foredoomed to failure. His only hope lay in delivering a swift defeat to the Turks before their reenforcements could arrive from the Caucasian front, a movement which began about the middle of September, 1915.

Before an advance could be made on Bagdad it was necessary for the British to defeat a large Turkish force at Nasiriyeh and at Kut-el-Amara, where the British captured fourteen guns and about 1,000 prisoners, losing in killed and wounded 500 officers and men. The Turkish trenches were destroyed and within a small area about 900 Turkish dead were counted.

The British troops, having fought in an atmosphere of 130 degrees, were thoroughly exhausted when they encamped in Nasiriyeh. Like most Arab towns, the place was in such a filthy condition that it required weeks to clean it up and make it habitable for Europeans. Meanwhile the British troops lived in tents and enjoyed a much needed rest. It was stated that fully 95 per cent of the men were in such a state of exhaustion as to be quite unfit for active service. If the Turkish commander in chief had known of this, the reenforcements he had dispatched from his base at Kut-el-Amara might easily have compelled the British force to retire. Fortunately for the British, the Turkish reenforcements encountered on the way the routed Turkish army of the Euphrates and evidently heard such tales of the fighting powers of the British and Indian soldiers that they joined the fugitives in their retreat.

At the close of August, 1915, Nasiriyeh had been made habitable by the British engineers and a large part of the force departed for Amara on steamers and barges, most of the soldiers wearing only a waist-clout and still suffering from the intense heat, as they crouched under the grass-mat shelters that had been provided. The garrison left in the town to keep the Arabs in order suffered from swarms of flies, heat, fever, and dysentery, and would have welcomed a Turkish attack if only that it might afford some variety to their monotonous life.

During this time General Townshend, from his base at Amara on the Tigris, was moving his heterogeneous collection of vessels up the river and had begun friendly negotiations with the powerful tribes of the Beni Lam Arabs, who held most of the land between the Tigris and the northern mountains, and much territory on the southern side of the river. Here stretched out a desert waste between Amara and Kut-el-Amara, occupied by powerful confederations of fighting Bedouins, the Abu Mohammed tribes, known by their black tents, who moved about the British base on the river; the Makusis tribes, who fought as light cavalry on the side of the Turks, and the Abu Dir Diraye Arabs, who were ready to fight on any side that promised the most booty. For religious reasons their priests urged the Arabs to fight against the infidels, but the Britons had enjoyed considerable prestige in Mesopotamia; thousands of Arabs calling themselves English subjects and claiming the help of the British Consul in Bagdad when they were in difficulties. A fighting league with the great federation of Beni Lam was greatly to be desired by the British, for it would enable them to use freely a considerable stretch of the Tigris, and secure safety from attack from both banks. The Beni Lam by siding with the English, whose recent victories had not failed to impress them, hoped to gain new grazing territory from their rivals who fought with the Turks, so an alliance was formed and ratified by the Sheiks of the confederation, and Sir John Nixon, Commander in Chief; Sir Percy Cox, British Resident in the Persian Gulf, and General Townshend commanding the troops at Amara.

The British were under no illusions regarding the Arab character, having learned from some bitter experiences just how much the wily nomads were to be trusted. As long as the British were victorious they might count on the Arabs' allegiance, but in case of defeat he was more than likely to turn about and fight with the enemy. The alliance between the British and the Beni Lam Arabs was of problematic value, but it was worth while under the circumstances. It was better to secure their friendship even temporarily, for the Arabs had been a constant source of trouble from the time the British Expeditionary Force entered Mesopotamia. Fighting to them was a pastime rather than a serious business, and whenever the struggle became deadly they would very likely disappear. A veritable nuisance to the British force were the Arabs who hung around the skirts of the expeditionary force and amused themselves by reckless sniping.

Conflicts with mounted bands offered no difficulties, for having no artillery they would disappear among the dunes to be located later by British aeroplanes, and could then be hunted down by columns of infantry. When aeroplanes were not available, it was impossible to follow their movements. Having perfect mounts they could afford to laugh at a cavalry charge.

"They would simply melt away into thin air," wrote an officer at the front, who had led a charge against these sons of the desert. "They are a quaint mixture," he adds: "some of them being distinctly gallant fellows, but the greater part are curs and jackals and will never take you on unless they are at least three, or four, to your one. Incidentally, they have the pleasant habit of turning on the Turks (for whom they are nominally fighting) and looting and harassing them as soon as they (the Turks) take the knock from us, and as a consequence the Turk does not much care about having a real scrap with us."

Sometimes the Arabs led the British into desert wastes where they could get water from hidden springs known only to themselves, and where the British soldier, who literally traveled on his water bottle, suffered tortures from thirst under a heat that dried up the blood in his veins. In some of these attempts to round up Bedouin marauders the British lost a number of men because the water supply gave out. These conditions will explain why in so many dispatches sent by General Townshend from the front, it was stated that he had to fall back on the Tigris because his troops lacked water. In such parts of the country where it was possible to employ armed motor cars and even the best Arabian steed could be run down, the Bedouins found their old tactics of little account and were inspired with a wholesome fear of the British soldier. Portable wireless apparatus used by airmen and troops, and scouting aeroplanes, made difficulties for the elusive Bedouins whose methods of desert warfare had not changed in centuries. So it happened that in proportion as British fighting methods and British resources became known and feared by the Arab in Mesopotamia he grew more and more wary of running into danger, unless the odds were altogether in his favor. What the German and Turkish officers endured from their Arab allies will probably never be known, but on more than one occasion when the British won a victory and the Turks were in retreat, the Arabs were active in despoiling the fugitives and then made off with their loot, and with the new rifles and equipment they had been supplied with by the Turks or Germans.

Being accomplished robbers, the Arabs were constantly making raids on British stores under cover of the night and were generally successful. On one occasion a party of eight got by the pickets and crawled into the regimental slaughterhouse. But they had not counted on modern science. There were mines planted outside the door and every Arab who was a robber was killed.[Back to Contents]