by N S Nash
On 23 November, after Basra was occupied, a conference was held at the headquarters of IEF‘D’. At that meeting, Commander A. Hamilton, an officer of the Royal Indian Marine, recommended to the General Staff that they should, at once, ask for twelve river steamers of the Medjidieh class. Hamilton had worked on the Tigris for the previous two years and was familiar with the river as far as Baghdad. He was a subject matter expert and eminently qualified to give advice. Hamilton realised that the building of new craft would probably take about twelve months and he counselled that existing ships be diverted from India. The MC commented, ‘There is reason to believe that, had Commander Hamilton’s foresight, knowledge and advice been acted upon, subsequent difficulties would have been mitigated, if not altogether avoided.’32
As it happens, the Staff was not swayed by Hamilton’s expert advice and did not accord that advice any priority, although it conceded that six additional steamers ‘might be required.’
Any armed force depends upon the command and administrative organisation that directs and supports it. ‘Staff officers’, of all ranks and disciplines, people this support organisation. In this case, the Staff in Simla and in Barrett’s headquarters was imbued with a strongly entrenched, regulation-driven culture. There was scant room for an officer who dissented from the official line or who initiated any action not fully authorised by existing regulations designed for an army in India. The result was disinterested inertia for the Army serving in Mesopotamia. It was the thousands of soldiers, who depended upon the Staff to meet their needs, who went without. Sir Percy Cox, an Indian civil servant and advisor on civil affairs, was now established in Basra; but he made a poor judgment and did not enhance his reputation when he suggested that an announcement should be made that the occupation should be permanent.
This suggestion was peremptorily swept to one side by HM Government on the ground that it would be utterly contrary to the agreement come to between the Allies, if occupation of any conquered country were at once announced as to be permanent, without waiting for the final settlement to be made at the close of the war.33
The Turks who had been defeated in the early exchanges had withdrawn to Kurnah and were in a strong defensive position with wide water barriers on two sides. They could take comfort that any attacking force would have to cross either the Tigris or the Euphrates before they could assault the town.
Colonel P.H. Hehir CB MD FRCS IMS was the Principal Medical Officer up to April 1915. In the opening months of the campaign, his reports to Surgeon General Babtie in India displayed watchfulness and foresight and were in ‘refreshing contrast’ with the administration of his successor, Surgeon General Hathaway. Colonel Hehir came out of the MC with great credit and the Report waxed eloquent on his professional skills and judgment. He was obviously a resourceful and innovative doctor who ducked and dived to care for his patients. However, the desultory operations at the beginning of the campaign, coupled with Colonel Hehir’s capacity to improvise and make do and mend, concealed the serious underlying problems besetting the medical establishment in Mesopotamia.
8. Honorary Major General Sir Percy Cox GCMG GCIE KCSI KBE.
The deficiency covered every aspect of medical care: insufficient medical staff, insufficient medical equipment and insufficient medical accommodation, afloat and ashore. Despite Colonel Hehir’s diligence and ability, the MC said of him:34
It was he who set up the expedients for which he was later on obliged to criticise Surgeon General Hathaway. We think that Colonel Hehir was to blame for failing to requisition India for equipment, which though not indispensible at the time was certain to be indispensible in the future. It was a mistake to risk disaster before taking measures which ordinary foresight would have adopted long before.
This seems to be an ungenerous judgement on a capable and diligent officer. The Indian Medical Service did not cover itself in glory in Mesopotamia and the serious problems did not manifest themselves until well after Hehir had left his post to serve at the front, incidentally reporting to Hathaway. After the war, Hehir went on to pastures new and to greater glory.35
Chapter notes
12 Gould, D., ‘Hardinge and the Mesopotamia Commission’, The Historical Journal, December 1976, p.925.
13 Hardinge to F.A. Maxwell, 18 August 1914, Hardinge papers, Cambridge University Library 93/No. 66.
14 Crewe to Hardinge, 17 February and 3 March 1911, Hardinge papers, 117/Nos. 17 & 19.
15 Majority Report of the Army in India Committee, 1912, para. 639.
16 Ibid, paras 112–13 & 705.
17 MC Report, p.10.
18 The strength of the Indian Army at the time was 159,000 Indian troops and 76,000 British troops.
19 Sir William Stevenson Meyer GCIE KCSI ICS (1860–1922). In 1920 he was appointed as the first High Commissioner for India. He died in that post.
20 General Sir Edmund Barrow GCB KCMG (1852–1934).
21 When Lord Kitchener was appointed as Commander-in-Chief, India in November 1902, he ensured the passage of Beauchamp Duff to the highest level and Duff was identified, thereafter, as a ‘Kitchener man’. On 8 March 1914, Duff reached the senior position when he replaced General Sir O’Moore Creagh as Commander-in-Chief, India. The Viceroy championed his appointment and, by doing so, set a precedent. It was a departure from the normal practice as previously, a British Army officer always held the post. Beauchamp Duff was an officer of the Indian Army.
22 The Government of the Raj consisted wholly of British officials and was headed by the Viceroy and the appointed members of his council. After the Indian Councils Act was passed in 1861, this executive council acted as a cabinet and also as part of an imperial legislative council.
23 General Jack Seely to Crewe, 15 October 1913, Crewe papers 1/13(9).
24 Lord Crewe KG PC, 1st Marquess of Crewe (1858–1945). Austen Chamberlain replaced him as Secretary of State for India, in 1915.
25 She was a Cadmas class sloop that was launched in 1900.
26 Nunn, W., Tigris Gunboats, p.26.
27 The Indian Government sent other expeditionary forces to Egypt (A), East Africa (B and C) and Gallipoli (E).
28 Later, Lieutenant General Sir Walter Delamain KCB KCMG DSO (1862–1932).
29 MC Report, p.9.
30 Ibid, p.13.
31 Podcast, 18 Mesopotamia First World War Centenary, IWM.
32 MC Report, p.44.
33 Ibid, p.15.
34 Ibid, p.70.
35 Later, Major General Sir Patrick Hehir CB CMG KCIE MD DTM FRCPE FRCSE (1857–1937). His medals were sold at auction in September 2006 for £6,200.
Chapter 4
The Capture of Kurnah
‘The infantry must ever be valued as the very foundation and nerve of an army.’
(Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses, 1517)
Operations against Kurnah commenced on 3 December. A landing was made on the left bank (looking downstream) and on the British right (looking upstream). See the sketch map on page 26, which is worth several hundred words.
Having opted to land on the left bank it was the Tigris that presented the main obstacle to ‘a composite force of two Indian battalions [104th Wellesley’s Rifles and 110th Mahratta Light Infantry] and a double company of the Norfolks with some sappers and a couple of field guns’.36
The soldiers were supported by a small flotilla of five vessels. These ships provided gunfire support once having landed their passengers.
The Tigris at Kurnah, which was ‘a stretch of yellow racing water as wide as the Thames at London Bridge’, was nevertheless crossed, about 1½ miles north of the town on 8 December. By this time the force had been reinforced and was now 2,300 strong. Thereafter the outcome was not in doubt and the combination of naval gunfire and soldierly aggression was sufficient to win the day.
By 19 December Kurnah was in British hands. The Turks had suffered heavy casualties on the contested left bank, especially around Muzereh. When the town eventually fell, forty-five off
icers and 989 men were captured. British losses were twenty-nine killed and 302 wounded.
It had been an exemplary operation and all concerned had cause to be satisfied. The scale of the victory, and the relatively small price paid, not only raised morale but must also have raised expectations, most certainly in Simla.
From this point, the aims of His Majesty’s Government and the Indian Government started to diverge. Hitherto, responsibility for the direction of Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’ had been merely imprecise. Now clear differences started to emerge and the overriding responsibility of HMG for the employment of IEF‘D’ was tacitly questioned. The Secretary of State for India said that whilst he had been content with an advance to Kurnah, he nevertheless ‘deprecated any further advance for the present.’37 Crewe spoke for HMG in this matter but Hardinge and Duff had a different agenda that, at this stage, they had not shared.
9. Captain Nunn (right) and Army officers examine a Turkish gun. HMS Espiègle at anchor in the background. Turkish arms stacked after capture. (Nunn)
The unvarnished truth is that Hardinge had taken it upon himself to expand the Empire, add Mesopotamia to its assets and administer this addition from India. He had carried General Sir Beauchamp Duff along with his pipe dream. The ambition of both men was entirely beyond the remit of two senior officials whose non-negotiable function was to operate under the direction of HMG.
In mid-April 1915, Hardinge declared that Britain could turn lower Mesopotamia into a ‘second Egypt’. Annexation would mean safeguarding, once and for all, all of Britain’s traditional interests in the Gulf and would ensure control of the southernmost section of the Baghdad Railway – should it ever be completed. Britain’s allies, the sheikhs of Kuwait and Mohammerah, could be protected through permanent occupation, and other Arab chiefs coaxed away from Turkey.38
10. The strategically important confluence of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates at Kurnah. (World War I at Sea)
However, Hardinge did swither, for example on 9 June 1915, when he wrote to his friend Sir Valentine Chirol saying that with one town taken, ‘there is no reason why we should move a yard further upriver.’ This rethink did not last long, and on 17 June he restated his enthusiasm for expansion when he wrote to one of his old political colleagues, Lord Morley of Blackburn,39 and closed by saying, ‘I know that you hate expansion, and so do I, but I see no way out of it.’40 Those were insincere words intended to appease Morley.
Notwithstanding the expansionist ambitions of Hardinge and Duff that were far beyond their remit, they still only allocated the minimum of resources to achieve their aim. They set a task that was impossible for a single division with a fragile line of communication.
Busch observed dryly that, ‘Clearly, Hardinge was an early victim of success and Crewe had now to cool his ardour.’ Later, when giving evidence to the Mesopotamia Commission, Hardinge made clear that he entertained an aspiration to extend the Empire into Mesopotamia. These personal aspirations, unsupported by HMG, seem to be at the base of his eagerness for a ‘forward’ policy throughout the campaign.
This campaign gave rise to some unique incidents. One such occurred when, on 12 January, the gunboat HMS Gadfly was downstream of a boat bridge by which a column of transport camels was crossing the river. One beast slipped, fell into the river and the 4-knot current swept it downstream towards Gadfly. The unfortunate creature was washed under the ship and became wedged under the propeller. At this point a bluejacket made a report to the bridge, probably unique in the long history of the Royal Navy, that there was a ‘Camel foul of the screw, Sir’.
All hands of one of HM’s ships were called to the scene in order to save a ‘ship of the desert’ entangled in the screw. A bluejacket dived into the river, secured a line around the beast’s neck, but to no avail and it drowned.
Early in 1915, intelligence sources indicated that the Turks were planning to mount an attack on Basra and the pipeline. They would approach by way of the Karun River. This threat had to be confronted and further reinforcement was needed. The IG was asked to provide additional troops and Hardinge and Duff resisted. There was a flurry of terse telegrams and eventually, as the MC commented, ‘the Indian Government finally acquiesced.’41 Accordingly, on 7 February, a further brigade arrived from India, but this proved to be insufficient and the situation became ‘acute’.
The Viceroy had left India on 25 January to visit the theatre, while these terse negotiations were being conducted, and he arrived in great state on the 31st. ‘At Basra Hardinge was greeted with full military honours. He investigated the situation of the sick and wounded and found them cheery, and the hospitals well run, but the Mesopotamian force had not yet suffered the severe losses of later stages of the campaign.’42
It was entirely proper for Hardinge to be greeted in a manner befitting his station, with ample ceremony at every turn. It would be an unusual man who was unaffected by the degree of extreme deference that the Viceroy received. Did it generate a feeling of omnipotence? Did that in turn affect his judgement? There is no doubt that Hardinge had a well-developed sense of self-worth. He was a sophisticated gentleman who conducted himself accordingly but he also exhibited a degree of arrogance, probably typical of those of his eminence. His biographer described him as ‘cold’.
He received loyal Arab sheikhs and presented them with ‘robes of honour’. Bartlett briefed Hardinge and so the Viceroy was fully aware of the current issues. Whatever passed between the two men, it did nothing to curb the Viceroy’s ambitions; more importantly, nor did it stir a glimmer of interest in matters logistic.
The future of Baghdad was in his thoughts. He put it to Curzon (at the time Lord Privy Seal), ‘I do not want to go to Baghdad unless forced to do so, but when the time comes to make peace with Turkey, Baghdad, Basra and perhaps even Mosel must be lopped off, and while we remain in Basra some kind of protectorate over the rest of Mesopotamia must be established.’43 There is little doubt that the political vision of Hardinge was interesting, bold and visionary; the difficulty was that his vision owed nothing to the military reality of the day.
The MC Report, at page 103–104, said acidly that:
The control of the expedition … narrowed down to two high officials … both permanently stationed in localities which had little, if any, private or personal touch with forces campaigning in Mesopotamia. Although the Viceroy paid a short visit in 1915, yet in the main it is a fact that both he and the Commander-in-Chief, in their management of the expedition, entirely depended upon the official information from that country. The wellbeing and adequate maintenance of the expedition were therefore dependent upon the requisitions made on Simla by the General Officer Commanding and his subordinates in Mesopotamia.
This is an indictment initially of Barrett, but in far greater measure of the man who would replace him, and his regulation-bound staff. It is also a veiled rebuke to Duff for distancing himself from the activities of his soldiers.
It was still necessary, on 5 March, for HMG to order, peremptorily, the IG to send a further brigade. On what basis this order was given is unclear because the only formal source of intelligence for HMG from this theatre was through the IG. The probability is that Foreign Office assets elsewhere had sounded an alarm, although the possibility exists that HMG had an independent agent in place who, at this time, was able to judge when matters were ‘acute’.
As a sop to the wounded pride of the IG, HMG absolved it of responsibility for any mishaps that might occur in India as a result of the diminution of its domestic military assets.
Business between the two governments was conducted by telegram and there was now growing friction between all the principal players. Interestingly, the MC commented:
It should be noted that practically the whole of the important telegrams … relating to Imperial demands upon the Indian Government for military expeditions outside India and the replies of India to these demands are ‘private’ telegrams. A private telegram is the property of the person wh
o sent it, and it is not the practice to record it on file in any public department, although this may be done at the option of the sender. Such telegrams are kept by private secretaries and are, as a rule, taken away at the termination of office by the person who sends or receives them.44
On 1 April, the IG, without reference to London, decided to reorganise the force in Mesopotamia into an army corps. Lieutenant General Sir John Nixon was appointed to be the Corps Commander. Hardinge, who saw him as ‘a keen hard soldier’, admired Nixon.45 Less so Barrett, who, he complained, ‘played too much for safety.’46 A current description of Nixon was that ‘he revelled in responsibility’ whereas Barrett ‘would take responsibility.’47
In the meantime, command still rested with General Barrett and he was conscious of the strategic importance of Shaiba, a modest area about 10 miles to the west of Basra. Shaiba was just above the all-encompassing floods, and relatively defensible. Barrett decided to occupy Shaiba. The decision required Indian and British soldiers to ‘march’ from Basra. In reality they waded, about 18 miles, through the muddy floodwaters on 5 April 1915. It was an exhausting journey conducted in ferocious heat, with no vestige of shade and with its own unique hazards. The advance was not contested, other than by untold millions of aggressive flies.
Shaiba was occupied and fortified. It was by no means an ideal location. Not the least of its deficiencies was the difficulty of resupply and reinforcement. Barrett’s concerns about an attack on Basra from the east were fully justified. The Turks were in considerable strength and concentrating at Nasariyeh, further west, and across the seasonal but very shallow Hammar Lake.
It was at this point that General Barrett left Mesopotamia, ostensibly because he was ill. However, the fact that he was, in effect, being demoted to serve under Nixon might have been a factor. Sir Percy Cox suggested that Barrett ‘was probably better fitted to solve the Mesopotamian military problem than his dashing successor.’ Whatever the reason, Barrett was evacuated to India. As it happens, he survived the malady that struck him down and he recovered. This saved him from the blight that affected many of the other generals who served in the theatre.48