by N S Nash
25. Nureddin Pasha.
Numerically the two sides were evenly matched, but the attackers were always the most at risk and never more so than in the flat, almost featureless desert around Kut. The Turkish forces that lay in wait for Townshend were the remnants of the 35th and 38th divisions that had been soundly beaten at Shaiba, Nasariyeh, Kurnah and Amara. Morale was low and lowered further by the same logistic weaknesses that faced the British. Medical support was minimal and resupply was just as dependent upon the Tigris. Nureddin’s riverine assets consisted only of those craft that had been upriver of Amara when it was taken. His soldiers were, in the main, conscripts with only minimal training.
Nureddin’s grandiose brief from Enver Pasha98 was to defeat Townshend and retake Basra. As we say today, ‘this was a big ask’. Taking one hurdle at a time, the Turkish commander had sensibly concentrated his force at Es Sinn. This is one of the few significant points on the Tigris north of Amara and distinguished by the easily defended and commanding ridges on the right bank.
Nureddin anchored both his formations on the river and incorporated the Suwaikiya, Suwada and Ataba marshes into his defence on the left bank (looking downstream). These marshes were lined with mines and in any depression punji99 stakes had been sown. Wire entanglements were extensive. Although Nureddin’s men dug in and created a formidable series of redoubts and trench systems on the left bank nevertheless, he had left two gaps that were revealed by aerial reconnaissance (see map on page 63).
Nureddin installed a boat bridge about 6 miles behind his lines to enable him to move forces from one bank to another. It would take any redeployed soldier, using the bridge, too long to join the fray, and from all accounts he had a second boat bridge linking his two front lines either side of the river. This is not shown on the map, although a ferry is marked.
Townshend, ever the faithful disciple of Napoleon, was always going to look for something other than a frontal assault. To this end he put together a complicated plan that was dependent upon all the component parts working in concert and in time, each with the other. He was pleased to describe this as a ‘turning attack’ and in simplistic terms it meant attacking the Turks from deep on their left flank whilst holding their right flank in position and unable to move.
An idiosyncrasy of Townshend’s was that he never referred to his formations as, say, ‘17th Brigade’; he much preferred to designate them as ‘columns’, ‘forces’ or ‘bodies’ (as in ‘Main Body’). Facing Nureddin at Es Sinn he promulgated his plan, and in this he split his division into three columns, thoughtfully entitled ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. In command style this was very Napoleonic.
Brigadier General W.S. Delamain CB DSO would command Column ‘A’ – a mixed force composed of an enhanced battalion and three batteries of Maxim machine guns together with a company of sappers. It was his job to overrun and take the three redoubts between the Ataba and Suwada marshes. The Ataba Marsh is not named on the map above. It is that area below Suwaikieh and above Suwada.
26. The Battle of Kut. (C.V.F. Townshend)
Brigadier General C.I. Fry commanded Column ‘B’, or the ‘minimum force’, using Townshend’s nomenclature. He had his own 18th Brigade and his function was to ‘demonstrate’ on the left bank between the river and the Suwada Marsh in an effort to convince the Turks that this would be the axis for the main attack.
Column ‘C’ was the command of Brigadier General F.A. Hoghton and he had his own 17th Brigade, supplemented by two battalions from Delamain’s 16th Brigade and four machine guns. In addition he was furnished with two armoured cars and a cavalry component. His aim was to pass through the 300-yard gap between the Turkish north redoubt and the Ataba Marsh and, from there, spread mayhem in the Turkish rear.
27. Brigadier General Fry and staff officers of HQ 18 Brigade.
On the face of it, the plan was attractive, but unless Column ‘A’ could engage the redoubts from the front there was going to be a reduced chance of Hoghton being able to approach them from the rear. Once the troops were committed Townshend had no part to play.
The 6th (Poona) Division assembled at Sheikh Sa’ad, about 8 miles short of the busily digging Turks. The advance to this point had been up the right-hand bank; some of the troops travelled on the river but the bulk of the troops had marched in the blistering sun. The right-hand bank (British left) was Hobson’s choice because it was easier for ships to moor on that side of the river.
There was a pause for ten days to await the arrival of the divisional artillery. A river crossing was going to be the first phase of Townshend’s plan. In the interim, further aerial surveys were made by the very few intrepid airmen in the theatre. It was clear that on this right-hand bank the Turks had developed a defensive 2½-mile system along the line of an old, raised and abandoned canal. In the desert a 10-foot bank counts as ‘high ground’ and gives greatly improved line of sight. On the map this position is shown as ‘Es Sinn ridges’.
The British plans for the battle to come were inhibited by an extreme shortage of land transport. Townshend was 300 mules short of his requirement and the consequence was that all the available transport was, of necessity, allocated to the ‘main force’ on the left bank. Those 800 camels sent home by Barrett, in October 1914, were being sorely missed.
Townshend had no water carts and, furthermore, there were no arrangements in place to resupply drinking water.100 This was an unbelievable and reprehensible oversight that would have dire consequences for the men committed to long approach marches and violent action in temperatures of over 100°F. The only form of ambulance was the awful, inadequate, bone-shaking, mule-hauled army transport cart (ATC).
The MC later endorsed the Vincent-Bingley view on the subject of water, which said:
Water supply arrangements at the actual front were also far from satisfactory. The recent outbreak of cholera is attributed by sanitary experts to the failure to supply the troops with a sufficient amount of purified drinking water.
On 25 September, a telegram was received from General Sir Beauchamp Duff, the Commander-in-Chief, India. The telegram said, ‘No going beyond Kut–al-Amara.’ Townshend mused in his diary, ‘When was Sir Beauchamp Duff induced to change his mind; and who persuaded him to do so?’ Then, a man who can change his position so radically is just as likely to change it back.
For the soldiers who had been waiting in fearful anticipation, 27 September came as a relief as operations against Kut commenced. Column ‘C’, under Hoghton, put the ball in play by starting a forced march on the night of 27/28 September to outflank the Turkish line. ‘Darkness is the friend of the skilled infantryman,’ or so said Liddell Hart,101 but then he was not present on this particular night.
As dawn broke, the Turks saw a large body advancing on the right bank; it reached the Chahela Mounds and created a great cloud of dust. Tents were pitched to give the impression that this body was there to stay and this was the axis of the impending attack. Nureddin was now convinced that the British thrust would be up the right-hand bank and the dust cloud and tents served to reinforce his view. He thinned out his troops on the opposite bank and moved them across the river by means of a boat bridge (not shown on the map). On the left bank, Fry’s force was ‘demonstrating’ as planned. It reached Nukhailat village and dug in with its left wing on the river.
28. Brigadier General W.S. Delamain DSO. Photographed by Swain as Lieutenant General Sir Walter Delamain KCB KCMG DSO in about 1923.
The air component suffered and four aeroplanes were damaged, but the sole survivor provided invaluable, up-to-date intelligence throughout the battle.
The fog of war descended; Delamain was waiting to launch his attack but could not do so until Hoghton appeared over to his right, from the direction of the Ataba Marsh. Hoghton’s night march had eluded the enemy but the compass readings that had been provided were found to be in error. The effect was that Column ‘C’, instead of marching south of Ataba Marsh, marched around it. This added several miles to the
journey for the heavily burdened soldiers, but more importantly, it took valuable time and exhausted the stock of telephone cable carried to ensure communication between the commanders.102
The sun was climbing into an azure sky before Delamain could see Hoghton in the far distance at about 0830 hrs. Delamain decided that delay was dangerous, so he initiated the attack. Hoghton, somewhat belatedly, joined in. Eventually, and after heavy casualties on both sides, the three positions were all taken. Kipling’s verse applied:
When first under fire and you’re wishful to duck
Don’t look or take heed of the man that is struck
Be thankful you’re living and trust to your luck
and march to your front like a soldier.103
The sun was now scorching. Hoghton’s men were utterly exhausted and so weak from thirst that many collapsed on the enemy position. A number of mules stampeded into the nearby marsh, seeking water, and were inextricably bogged down. They had to be shot in situ, the transport situation was exacerbated and the ‘stem’ was even weaker.104
Fry’s Column ‘B’ was facing stiff opposition and he needed help. He appealed to Delamain and, just before the sun set, his soldiers made an assault on the left flank of the Turkish position. The advance was over 1,000 yards of flat desert and it called for great courage and fitness to arrive at the enemy position and then take it at bayonet point. Napoleon once said, ‘The bayonet has always been the weapon of the brave and the chief tool of victory.’ It proved to be so on this day.
The cartoon overleaf, extolling the power of the bayonet and the aggression it generates, was published in Mr Punch’s History of the Great War in 1919.
As night fell, and the temperature with it, the wounded lay out in the open. The Turks still blocked the way to the river and water. The unwounded strove to bring in the wounded as Marsh Arabs were about, robbing, killing and mutilating any soldier they found in the dark. They were indiscriminate and murdered Turks with similar lack of compassion. The medical service, always fragile, had all but broken down and could not cope with the scale of the casualties, some of whom died of exhaustion in the biting cold that night.
Later, the Vincent-Bingley Report (which was incorporated into the MC Report) would note:
No satisfactory reason has been assigned for the failure to provide the ordinary form of land ambulance transport for these operations … but throughout the campaign the usual form of ambulance transport has been the army transport cart that is, a small springless cart made of wood and iron, drawn by mules or ponies, and ordinarily employed for the carriage of supplies. When the evidence of the suffering caused by this means of conveyance, particularly in cases of fracture and severe injury, is considered, it is difficult to avoid criticising the action of those responsible for this deficiency in severe language.105
29. Cartoon from Mr Punch’s History of the Great War.
The person responsible was Lieutenant General Sir John Nixon, the Corps Commander. He had decided that he would attend the battle, assuring Townshend that he was just a spectator but that he ‘would be available to deal with matters of policy.’ If there was any glory to be won at Kut, Nixon wanted to be on hand to reap his share. His reference to ‘policy’ is fatuous, because ‘ambulance policy’, which should have been at the top of his priority list, clearly was not. Townshend had no option but to accept Nixon’s presence, which served no practical purpose, and he could well have done without it.
Nixon was close enough to see for himself the suffering of his soldiers in the aftermath of this battle and to observe the breakdown of the logistic chain, such as it was. In any army over the last 500 years, the four prime requisites have been water, bread, bullets and bandages. In this case, at least two of these requisites were not available. Water replenishment was such a basic need that Townshend must be held responsible for its dreadful omission from his great plan. There is no evidence that Nixon drew any conclusions from that either.
Townshend called up his river flotilla and told it to try to force a passage to Kut under cover of darkness. The leading ship was Comet, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Cookson. Under heavy small-arms fire, Comet steamed upriver until it was halted by an underwater obstruction that turned out to be a thick chain strung across the river. Cookson, axe in hand, leapt into a ship’s dingy and, under fire, paddled to the mahaila that anchored one end of the chain. He boarded the mahaila but then he fell, riddled with bullets. He was later awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Most of his crew were dead or wounded and Comet drifted back downstream.
The Turks had started to withdraw from the right bank (looking downstream) the previous afternoon but mirages had obscured their movement from Townshend. Now using darkness as his cloak, Nureddin stole away and skilfully took away half of his guns with him.106 It was a very professional operation.
30. Lieutenant Commander E.C. Cookson VC DSO RN. (Photo Central Press)
As the sun rose on 29 September 1915, it revealed a bleak scene. The battlefield was silent save for the cries of the unrecovered wounded of both sides. The field belonged to Townshend; it was yet another victory. Access was now available to the river, and parched Indian and British soldiers were able to slake their raging thirst in the murky waters of the Tigris – the water tasted like champagne.
Townshend despatched his cavalry brigade in pursuit of the Turks but its performance was mediocre. When it caught up with the Turkish rearguard, the commander, Brigadier General Roberts, held back, ostensibly waiting for reinforcements. However, one of the reasons for the Brigade’s dilatatory performance was that the cavalry were Indian and they were not carrying with them their cooking pots. It was unconscionable that they would use Arab vessels in lieu. The Indian caste system in operation would show its face again a few weeks later.
Townshend took to the river, upon which the water level had fallen. The difficulties then encountered with shoal water and tight bends delayed his triumphal entry into Kut for two days. River traffic downstream was filled with the wounded. Townshend had estimated 6 per cent casualties; in fact, 6th Division suffered 12 per cent, or 1,229, of which only ninety-four were killed.107 This is a very small proportion of about 1:13. The Turkish losses were reported to be 1,700 killed and wounded and 1,289 taken prisoner.
Surgeon General Hathaway’s arrangements to care for these wounded men were wholly inadequate and some died of no more than neglect as they lay in their own excrement and blood during the interminable, agonising journey in open barges to Basra and what passed for a ‘hospital’ in this benighted land.
Chapter notes
78 Braddon, R., The Siege, p.49. Braddon’s book is an important source document because when he wrote it, in 1967, many of the participants were still alive and available for interview.
79 The Gallipoli peninsula was invaded on 26 April 1915 and eventually abandoned on 9 January 1916 after very heavy losses. The small populations of Australia and New Zealand lost proportionately more than Britain and India.
80 Sir William Meyer GCIE KCSI ICS (1860–1922). Served as Finance member of the Indian Government from 1914–18. He was appointed High Commissioner of India in September 1920 but died suddenly, in London, in October 1922.
81 Major General George Kemball CB DSO (later, Sir George KCMG CB DSO 1859–1941).
82 Letter from Townshend to Chief of Staff IEF‘D’, 6 June 1915.
83 Later, Lieutenant General Sir George Gorringe KCB KCMG DSO (1868–1945). He was described by Braddon (p.51) as ‘a big man, highly coloured, deeply tanned, officious and utterly without tact. He allowed nothing – not Turks, Nureddin (the Turkish Commander), counter-attacks, casualties, swamps, Marsh Arabs or deeply entrenched redoubts – to stop him.’
84 MC Report, p.18.
85 Ibid, p.18.
86 Nunn, W., Tigris Gunboats, p.195.
87 Major Harry Weaver diary.
88 Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Chronicles, Vol. XXIV 1914–1915 (published privately).
8
9 Sherson, E., Townshend of Chitrál and Kut, p.266.
90 Townshend C.V.F. My Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.77.
91 General Sir James Wolfe-Murray KCB (1853–1919). He had been a mentor of Townshend in India. He was appointed as Chief of the Imperial General Staff on 30 October 1914 but, in that post, he was described as ‘ineffectual’. He contributed nothing to public affairs and was overshadowed by Kitchener in the War Council. He carried some of the responsibility of the rapidly failing Dardanelles campaign and was dismissed from his post on 26 September 1915.
92 Kut-al-Amara (Townshend’s spelling); better known as Kut.
93 Townshend, C.V.F., My Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.84.
94 Dixon, N.E., On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, 1976.
95 Townshend, C.V.F. My Campaign in Mesopotamia. p86.
96 MC Report, p.57.
97 Churchill, W.S., The River War, 1899.
98 Enver Pasha (1881–1922) had two roles in the Turkish Government. He was War Minister and the Ottoman Commander-in-Chief. He was much influenced by the military training he had with the German Army although his performance as military commander was mixed. After the war, his credibility now severely damaged, he fled to Germany. Thereafter, he involved himself in Russian politics and was killed in 1922 fighting for the Basmachi Muslim movement against the Bolsheviks.
99 A Punji stick or stake is a booby trap. It is a simple, sharpened spike, usually made of wood and placed vertically in the ground. Punji sticks are usually deployed in substantial numbers. The Viet Cong in Vietnam used them effectively and frequently.