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Mesopotamian Campaign
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The Mesopotamian campaign was a campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of the Great War fought between Allied Powers represented by the British Empire, mostly troops from the Indian Empire, and Central Powers, mostly of the Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman Empire had conquered the region in early 16th century. The empire had a loose control over the region. The Ottomans never tried to build an efficient system of administration given the fact that it took four months for a caravan to arrive at the capital.
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The Mesopotamian campaign was a campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of the Great War fought between Allied Powers represented by the British Empire, mostly troops from the Indian Empire, and Central Powers, mostly of the Ottoman Empire.
Background
The Ottoman Empire had conquered the region in early 16th century. The empire had a loose control over the region. The Ottomans never tried to build an efficient system of administration given the fact that it took four months for a caravan to arrive at the capital. With the turn of the 19th century came reforms, and thus the empire tried to solve this issue. Work began on a Berlin to Baghdad Railroad as early as 1888. Mostly complete by 1915 with only four gaps in the tracks, the travel dropped down to only 21 days from Istanbul to Baghdad.
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was in the region which had the exclusive rights to work petroleum deposits throughout the Persian Empire except in the provinces of Azerbaijan, Ghilan, Mazendaran, Asdrabad, and Khorasan. In 1914, before the war, the British government had contracted with the company for oil for the navy. Kuwait was another strategic factor for the British.
The Ottoman Empire did not expect any major action in this region.
The operational area of Mesopotamia was limited to the lands watered by the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. The main challenge was moving the supplies and troops through the swamps and deserts which surrounded the conflict area.
Shortly after the European war started, the British sent a military force to protect Abadan. In Abadan was one of the world's earliest oil refineries. British operation planning included land troops in the Shatt-al-Arab. A reinforced Indian 6th (Poona) Infantry Division from the British Indian Army was assigned, designated as Indian Expeditionary Force D (IEFD).
The Ottoman Sixth Army was located in the region. At the beginning of the European war, the Ottoman Empire had two units stationed in the region, XII Corps with 35th and 36th Divisions at Mosul and XIII Corps with the 37th and 38th Divisions at Baghdad.
On October 29th, after the Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau, Breslau bombarded the Black Sea port of Theodosia. On October 30 1914 the High Command in Istanbul changed the force distribution.
On November 2nd Grand Vizier Said Halim Pasha expressed regret to Allies for the operations of the navy. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Sazonov said it is too late and Russia considered this raid as an act of war. The Cabinet tried to explain that hostilities were begun without its sanction by German officers serving in the navy. Allies insisted on the reparation to Russia, the dismissal of German officers from the Goeben and Breslau, and the internment of the German ships until the end of the war. But before Ottoman government responded Great Britain and France declared war on Ottoman Empire on November 5th. CUP's official Declaration of War came on November 14.
When the Caucasus Campaign became reality with the Bergmann Offensive Enver Pasha sent the 37th Division of the XIII Corps to the Caucasus in support of Battle of Sarikamis. The entire XII Corps was deployed to Sinai and Palestine Campaign. The Sixth Army Headquarters was scaled down. Sixth Army Headquarters became the “Iraq Area Command” with only the 38th Division under its command. Lieutenant Colonel Süleyman Askeri Bey became the commander. He redeployed portions of the 38th Division at the mouth of Shatt-al-Arab. The rest of the defensive force was stationed in Basra. The Ottoman General Staff did not even possess a proper map of Mesopotamia. They tried to draw a map with the help of some people who used to work in Iraq before the war, although this attempt failed. Enver Pasha bought two German maps scaled 1/1,500,000.
Operations
1914
On November 6 1914, the British offensive began with the naval force bombarding the old fort at Fao, which was located at the point where Shatt-al-Arab meets the Persian Gulf. The Fao Landing of British Indian Expeditionary Force D (IEF D) comprised of the 6th (Poona) Division led by Lieutenant General Arthur Barrett, with Sir Percy Cox as Political Officer was opposed by 350 Ottoman troops and 4 cannons. By mid-November, the rest of the Poona Division was ashore. The Division moved towards the town of Basra.
On November 22, the British occupied the city of Basra against a force of 2900 Arab conscripts of the Iraq Area Command commanded by Suphi Pasha. Suphi Pasha and 1200 prisoners were captured by the British shortly after. The main Ottoman army, under the overall command of Khalil Pasha was located 275 miles north-west around Baghdad. They made only weak efforts to dislodge the British.
1915
Image:Meso-WW1-2.jpg|July, British offense
Image:Kut1915.jpg|September, British offense
Image:Ctesiphon1915.jpg|November, British offense
Image:Meso-WW1-3.jpg|November, British offense (detail)
Image:Meso-WW1-4.jpg|December, Siege of Kut
Enver Pasha realized the mistake of underestimating the importance of the Mesopotamian campaign. He ordered the 35th Division and Mehmet Fazil Pasha to return to their old location. The 38th Division and its commander was lost at the Battle of Sarikamis. 38th Division was thereafter soon reconstituted.
On January 2nd, Süleyman Askeri Bey assumed the Iraq Area Command. The Ottoman Army did not have any other resources to move to this region as the Gallipoli Campaign was in the horizon. Süleyman Askeri Bey sent letters to Arab sheiks in an attempt to organize them to fight against the British. He wanted to retake the Shatt-al-Arab region at any cost.
On April 12th, Süleyman Askeri attacked the British camp at Shaiba with 3800 troops early in the morning. These forces provided by Arab sheiks did not produce any results. He called the offensive off with the first counterattack of British cavalry. The operation ended with 1000 men dead and another 400 taken prisoner. The retreat ended 75 miles up the river at Hamisiye. Süleyman Askeri was wounded at Shaiba. The disappointed and depressed Süleyman Askeri shot himself at the hospital in Baghdad.
Due to the unexpected success British command reconsidered their plan and General Sir John Nixon was sent in April 1915 to take command. He ordered Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend to advance to Kut or even to Baghdad if possible. Townshend and his small army advanced up the Tigris river. They defeated several Ottoman forces sent to halt him. Enver Pasha worried about the possible fall of Baghdad. He sent an 76 year old German General Colmar von der Goltz to take command of the army in the field. Von der Goltz was a famous military historian who had written several classic books on military operations. He had also spent many years working as a military adviser in the Ottoman Empire.
On 22 November, Townshend and von der Goltz fought a battle at Ctesiphon, a town 25 miles south of Baghdad. The conflict lasted five days. The battle was inconclusive as both the Ottomans and the British ended up retreating from the battlefield. Townshend concluded that a full scale retreat was necessary. He withdrew his division in good order back to Kut-al-Amara. He halted and fortified the position. Townshend was followed by the 45th Division under Nurettin Pasha and detachment groups established from Arab tribes. The exhausted and depleted British force was urged back to the defenses of Kut-al-Amara. The retreat finalized on 3 December. During this period Townshend suffered 4,500 casualties. Nurettin Pasha lost 9,500 out of 35,000 men in total. The 45th Division lost 65 percent of its troops.
The rapid advance of the British up the river changed some of the Arab tribes perception of the conflict. There was already an initial Arab Revolt in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Realizing that the British had the upper-hand, Arabs in the region joined the British efforts. They raided the military hospitals and massacred the soldiers in Amara.
On December 7, the siege of Kut began. From the Ottoman perospective; Siege of Kut prevented Sixth Army to perform other operations. From the British perspective, defending Kut as opposed to retreating back to Basra was a mistake since Kut was isolated. It could be defended, but it could not be resupplied. Von der Goltz helped the Ottoman forces build defensive positions around Kut. The Sixth Army was reorganized into 2 corps, the XIII and the XVIII. Nurettin Pasa gave command to Von der Goltz. With the reorganization the Sixth Army laid siege to the British. New fortified positions established down river fended off any attempt to rescue Townshend. Townshend suggested an attempt to break out but this was initially rejected by Sir John Nixon, however he relented. Nixon under the command of General Aylmer established a relief force. General Aylmer made three major attempts to break the siege, but each effort was unsuccessful.
1916
On 20 January, Enver Pasha replaced Nurettin Pasha with Colonel Halil Kut. Nurettin Pasha did not want to work with a German General. He send a telegram to War ministry "The Iraq Army has already proven that it does not need the military knowledge of Goltz Pasa…" After the first failure, General Nixon was replaced by General Lake. Halil Kut used the siege to break the British. British forces received small quantities of supplies from the air. These drops did not meet the needs. Halil Kut force to choose between starving or surrendering.
Between January-March 1916, both Townshend and Aylmer launched several attacks in an attempt to break through the lines. In sequence, the attacks took place at the Battle of Sheikh Sa'ad, the Battle of the Wadi, the Battle of Hanna, and the Battle of Dujaila Redoubt. These series of British attempts to break through the encirclement did not succeeded and their costs were too heavy. Both sides suffered high casualties. In February, XIII Corps received 2nd Infantry Division as a reinforcement. Food and hopes were running out for Townshend in Kut-al-Amara. Disease were spreading rapidly and could not be cured.
On 19 April Field Marshal Von der Goltz died of cholera. On 24 April, an attempt by the paddle steamer “Julnar” to reach the town by river failed. Townshend surrendered on April 29 1916. 8,000 soldiers became captives of the Ottomans.
The British viewed the loss of Kut as a humiliating defeat. It had been many years since such a large body of British Army soldiers had surrendered to an enemy. Also this loss followed only four months after the British defeat at the Battle of Gallipoli. Nearly all the British commanders involved in the failure to rescue Townshend were removed from command. The Ottomans proved they were good at holding defensive positions against superior forces.
1917
The British refused to let this defeat stand and so the new commander, General Maude was given additional reinforcements and equipment. For the next six months he trained and organized his army. His offensive was launched on December 13, 1916. The British advanced up both sides of the Tigris river, forcing the Ottoman army out of a number of fortified positions along the way. General Maude's offensive was methodical, organized, and successful. The British recaptured Kut in February 1917, destroying most of the Mesopotamian-based Ottoman army in the process.
By early March, the British were at the outskirts of Baghdad, and the Baghdad garrison, under the direct command of the Governor of Baghdad province Khalil Pasha, tried to stop them. General Maude outmanoeuvered the Ottoman forces, destroyed an Ottoman regiment and captured the Ottoman defensive positions. Khalil Pasha retreated in disarray out of the city. On March 11 1917 the British entered Baghdad where they were greeted as liberators. The British Indian Army played a significant role in the liberation of Baghdad. Amidst the confusion of the retreat a large part of the Ottoman army (some 15,000 soldiers) were captured. A week after the city fell, General Maude issued the oft-quoted , which contained the famous line "our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators".
General Maude died of cholera on 18 November. He was replaced by General William Marshall who halted operations for the winter.
1918
The British resumed their offensive in late February 1918 capturing Hit and Khan al Baghdadi in March, and Kifri in April. For the rest of the 1918, the British had to move troops to the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in support of the Battle of Megiddo. General Marshall moved some of the forces east in support of General Lionel Dunsterville's operations in Persia during the summer of 1918. His very powerful army was "astonishingly inactive, not only in the hot season but through most of the cold" . The fight in Mesopotamia was not wanted anymore.
Armistice conditions between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire began negotiations with the turn of October. General Marshall, following instructions from the War Office that "every effort was to be made to score as heavily as possible on the Tigris before the whistle blew" went on the offensive for the last time. General Alexander Cobbe commanded a British force from Baghdad on 23 October 1918. Within two days it covered 120 kilometers, reaching the Little Zap River, where it expected to meet and engage the Turkish Sixth Army operating under Ismail Hakki Bey. He fought a battle at the Battle of Sharqat, routing the Ottoman army.
Armistice of Mudros, October
On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed and both parties accepted their current positions. General Marshall accepted the surrender of Khalil Pasha and the Ottoman 6th Army at the same day. But Cobbe did not hold his current position as the armistice required, and continued to advance on Mosul in the face of Turkish protests. British troops marched unopposed into Mosul on the 14 November 1918. The ownership of the Mosul Province and its rich oil fields became an international issue.
The war in Mesopotamia was over on 14 November 1918. It was 13 days after the Armistice and the same day as the occupation of Istanbul.
image:Halil Kut.png|Khalil Pasha
Image:KazimKarabekirPasha.jpg|Karabekir Bey
Image:Goltz-portrait.jpg|Von der Goltz
image:Mesopotamian campaign General Townshed.png|General Townshend
image:Mesopotamian campaign staff of 6th Army.png|6th Army Staff
Aftermath
The British Indian forces already on the ground, the British imported civil servants from India who had previous knowledge and experience on how the government of a colony is supposed to run. The expulsion of Ottomans from the region shake the centuries old power balance. Arabs who believed that the expulsion of the Ottomans would lead to greater independence and fought against the Ottoman forces along the Allies faced another dilemma. They were disappointed with the arguments regarding the establishment of British Mandate of Mesopotamia.
Three important anticolonial secret societies had been formed in the region during 1918 and 1919. At Najaf, Jamiyat an Nahda al Islamiya (The League of the Islamic Awakening) was organized. Al Jamiya al Wataniya al Islamiya (The Muslim National League) was formed with the object of organizing and mobilizing the population for major resistance. In February 1919, in Baghdad, a coalition of Shia merchants, Sunni teachers and civil servants, Sunni and Shia ulama, and Iraqi officers formed the Haras al Istiqlal (the Guardians of Independence). The Istiqlal had member groups in Karbala, Najaf, Kut, and Hillah. The British were in a precarious situation with the Issue of Mosul. They were adopting almost desperate measures to protect their interests. The Iraqi revolt against the British developed just after they declared their authority. It was put down by the RAF Iraq Command during the summer of 1920.
The Ottoman parliament mostly accepted the cede of the region, but they had a different view on the issue of Mosul. They declared the Misak-i Milli. Misak-i Milli stated that the Mosul Province was a part of their heartland, based on a common past, history, concept of morals and laws. Presumably, from a British perspective, if Mustafa Kemal Atatürk succeeded in securing the stability in his efforts to establish Republic of Turkey, he would have turned his attention to recovering Mosul and penetrate into Mesopotamia, where the native population would probably join him. The British Foreign Secretary attempted to disclaim any existence of oil in the Mosul area. On 23 January 1923, Lord Curzon argued that the existence of oil was no more than hypothetical. However, according to Armstrong, "England wanted oil. Mosul and Kurds were the key."
Casualties
The British and the British Indian Army forces lost 92,000 soldiers in the Mesopotamian campaign. Ottoman losses are unknown but the British captured a total of 45,000 prisoners of war. By the end of 1918 the British had deployed 410,000 men into the area though only 112,000 of them were combat troops. The vast majority of the British empire forces in this campaign were recruited from India.
Bibliography
- The Campaign in Mesopotamia by Brigadier-General F. J. Moberly (4 vols, 1923-27, HMSO, official history)
- A. J. Barker (1967) The Neglected War. Faber and Faber.
- - from The Long, Long Trail website, downloaded January, 2006.
- Strachan, Hew (2003). The First World War, pp 123-125. Viking (Published by the Penguin Group)
- Fromkin, David (1989). A Peace to End All Peace. Avon Books.
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- Esposito, Vincent (ed.) (1959). The West Point Atlas of American Wars - Vol. 2; map 53. Frederick Praeger Press.
- Briton Cooper Busch (1971) Britain, India, and the Arabs 1914-1921. University of California Press.
- Wilcox, Ron (2006) Battles on the Tigris. Pen and Sword Military
- Cato, Conrad. The Navy in Mesopotamia, 1914-1917. London: Constable & Co., 1917.
- The Secrets of a Kuttite: An Authentic Story of Kut, Adventures in Captivity and Stamboul Intrigue by Captain E. O. Mousley R.F.A. (1922; John Lane, The Bodley Head, London & New York)
External links
Battles of the campaign
See also
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