by N S Nash
That is not quite as easy as it sounds. Although Townshend had fifty mahailas besides other river craft available for the crossing, he would have to abandon his sick and wounded, and his artillery. Any river crossing would be contested and success was not assured.
Nixon put a stop to this outline plan immediately, saying, ‘I do not in any way agree with your appreciation. … The course you now propose for Townshend in your telegram would be disastrous from every point of view – to Townshend’s force, to the whole of the forces in Mesopotamia and to the Empire, and I cannot sanction it.’216 He went on at some length and provided his estimation of enemy forces at 5,000 between Aylmer and Kut. This, the latest and final of Nixon’s estimations, was no more valid than any of those that had preceded it. However, it was to be his last.
We will return to Aylmer and his tribulations, but other significant aspects of this campaign were being enacted elsewhere.
* * *
Finally, on 19 January 1916, Nixon left India. The reason was the ill health that had affected him from early December. He was not sacked but had asked to be relieved. In a final message to Townshend he said that he had (as requested) recommended Charlie for command of the Tigris Corps and promotion to lieutenant general.
Both recommendations were most unlikely to come to fruition as promotion was dependent on the command of a corps and, given his domestic circumstances, Townshend was not available to command anything other than the garrison in Kut.
Duff appointed Lieutenant General Sir Percy Lake KCB KCMG, his 60-year-old chief of staff, to replace Nixon in command. Duff had only a small pool to pick from as the most talented of his generals had all been sent to France. Lake was probably the least bad choice, although Hardinge regarded him as ‘an old woman’.
Duff had written to the Viceroy on 6 January 1916 on the subject of Nixon’s replacement, and the following day Hardinge replied, saying that the appointment ‘did not inspire me with any confidence’ since, in his view, Lake was ‘indecisive, easily biased and too old for active duty’.217
56. Lieutenant General Sir Percy Lake KCB KCMG.
The Campaign in Mesopotamia, the Official History, in dealing with this very important change of command, said of Nixon’s service:
By his ability, determination and the confidence he inspired in his force – and after overcoming very great difficulties with limited means – General Nixon had achieved unbroken success during his first six months’ operations in Mesopotamia. … At the end of this period General Nixon had found himself with his advanced force well on the road to Baghdad and with only the broken remnant of a frequently defeated Turkish force to bar his further progress. He was aware that the capture of Baghdad was deemed to be politically desirable and it appeared to him that he would be to blame if he missed the opportunity, which circumstances appeared to offer him.
He failed.
On the one hand it has been said that his plan was based on political and military miscalculations and attempted with tired and insufficient forces and inadequate preparations. On the other hand there are those, who were on the spot and in a position to judge, who say that it was only through sheer bad fortune that he failed to achieve his object. War is not an exact science; no commander has ever achieved great military success without incurring risks and committing mistakes.218
That is a very generous summation of Nixon’s performance, and the writer made every effort to be even-handed and to limit criticism of Nixon. In fact he attributed to Nixon a quality of generalship he clearly lacked, and this despite having had the benefit of the MC Report, published in 1917, and Townshend’s memoir, published in 1920. Moreover, in implying that the neglect of Nixon’s soldiers might have been the product of ‘sheer bad fortune’, F.J. Moberly damaged the authority of his otherwise excellent The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914–1918, published in 1924.
* * *
The incompetent, culpable Nixon was being replaced by another general of doubtful quality, and it did not auger well for the fresh troops now arriving at Basra to face, first, the trillions of flies, second, the unbridled chaos of the inadequate port, and next, the rigours of soldiering in the ill-named ‘Garden of Eden’ in order to bring relief to the denizens of Kut.
On 8 January, the British evacuated the Dardanelles. By so doing, they released Turkish divisions for service in Mesopotamia, and there was credible intelligence that from two to five divisions would soon join the Kut theatre.
As the year turned so, in Simla, Hardinge and Duff were the recipients of unwelcome reports of a medical debacle in Mesopotamia. Duff did not at first respond, ‘knowing from experience that in unsuccessful operations, carried out under difficult conditions, hardships must occur and that complaints were often unduly exaggerated.’219
On this basis Duff did nothing.
Aylmer’s reasonable attempts to involve Townshend, to some degree, in assisting in his own (Townshend’s) salvation, had been firmly squashed by Nixon, and that left the Corps Commander with very few other options. Townshend had estimated that only 4,000 men could be ferried across the Tigris in one night, twenty hours would be needed to get the guns over and seventy-five hours for the animals. In addition to these difficulties, the Turks were solidly ensconced behind their well-built defences in the Hanna Defile.
Although a breakout by the 6th Division or any part of it was a nonstarter, nevertheless, in Kut a plan had been prepared and codenamed Project ‘E’. A main body commanded by Townshend and composed of two weak brigades, each of 2,500 men, was to cross to the right bank and seek to cooperate with Aylmer’s relieving force. Meanwhile, Kut was to be defended by about 4,000 – a number that included the sick and convalescents.
Previously, Townshend had declared his strength as being 12,400, so there is a discrepancy of about 3,000 men who are unaccounted for. This is of no practical consequence as Project ‘E’ was never activated, but it does cast doubt on the authenticity of the plan.
Nixon, sick man that he had been, nevertheless made major decisions without viewing the ground over which he expected his soldiers to fight. Aylmer had been defeated twice and his confidence had taken a frightful blow. He was only too aware that unsuccessful generals get the sack and knew that unless he was able to take the Hanna Defile and open the path to Kut, his career was facing oblivion. To add to Aylmer’s difficulties, Sod’s Law came into play. A boat bridge had been built across the Tigris and this would provide him with the means of switching his troops from bank to bank as required. Just after its construction was completed the bridge was struck by one of the steamers in gale force conditions. The component parts of the bridge that were not destroyed drifted off downstream. Repairs could be made, but the bitter cold and driving rain made it testing for the sappers who were called forward to assist.
The persistent bad weather was affecting not only the morale and efficiency of the troops, but also their health. The unremitting exposure to the elements was taking its toll before Hanna but in Kut as well, where men stood up to their waists in flooded trenches.
Townshend’s senior doctor, Colonel P. Hehir, advised his commander that scurvy had broken out among his non-meat-eating Indian troops. Their gums exuded pus, their teeth had loosened in their sockets and their breath was foul.220 Sick lists were growing daily.
There were still in Kut 3,000 horses and mules. They were being slaughtered routinely and the Christian element of the garrison lived on unpalatable but welcome horse stew. Townshend, despite protestations to the contrary, did not hold his Indian soldiers in much affection, but it was now clear that he had to address the matter of their diet. The perceived wisdom was that those Indian soldiers who ate horseflesh would be damned in their villages at war’s end. No girl would take such a man as a husband and he would be unwelcome in the family home. In a phrase, it was social suicide to eat horseflesh; well, the reality was a little different.
If Townshend, an officer of the Indian Army, had been closer to his men, he would have known that Sikhs we
re not overly concerned over the issue, Gurkhas were entirely pragmatic and it was only the Muslims who were immoveable on the matter. Townshend asked Simla to obtain religious dispensation for his Sikhs, Dogras, Rajputs and Gurkhas. This was swiftly obtained, and just as Mellis and Delamain had been counselling for weeks, once given this dispensation and ordered on 21 January to eat horse, most of the soldiers readily complied. Only the most devout of the Muslims did not.
A German aeroplane made an appearance and, although unskilled, its capacity to drop small bombs added to the trials of the garrison.
Battle casualty replacements had to march up the long river line from Basra in the dreadful weather and were obliged to halt at Kurnah and Amara on the way. The weather, and in particular the strong winds, affected the river steamers. The ships, with their high profile, were unable to steer an accurate course up the winding river and their sailings were interrupted or postponed.
Aylmer, who was, by now, an older and wiser man, realised that he had to make better use of all his assets and determined to move some of his artillery across to the right bank in order to enfilade the Turks. The master plan was not sophisticated and, apart from a more comprehensive artillery programme, a frontal attack was all that the General could muster. The ground was firmly to the Turks’ advantage. An attack from a flank was quite impossible. There was only one approach, so deception was not on the menu. The Turks had the river on their right and the now flooded marsh on their left. Their trench line was only about a mile wide but it was defended in considerable depth. The ground over which the British were to attack was already a muddy morass, and the proposed artillery bombardment would make the ground even more so.
57. Pack animals and soldiers make their way across the Mesopotamian ‘desert’. Note the depth of mud. (Henry Weaver)
It was going to be a tough nut to crack.
In order to spot for the guns, observation ladders or scaffolding were necessary. The slightest fold in the ground concealed everything behind it and in the forthcoming battle the artillery carried a great responsibility. Aylmer had forty-six guns and the firepower of the two gunboats Cranefly and Dragonfly. In total, Aylmer’s available artillery bore no comparison with the support available to a division on the Western Front, where hundreds of guns, firing for several hours, would precede a divisional operation.
The intention was that, on 19 January, the Turkish line would be bombarded, from two directions, the wire destroyed and a frontal assault would sweep forward and take the enemy position. How simple is that? In the event, the weather was so appalling that the operation was delayed. The Turks kept on digging and they put the respite to good use.
British intentions were signalled to the enemy on the 20th when a brief artillery strike fell on the front line. This served to identify the British objective if anyone was at all in doubt. The following day the dose was to be repeated as a precursor to the infantry attack; nevertheless, this planned artillery programme was far too small to be effective.
On 21 January, the weakened 7th Division prepared for its test. The Division was only at brigade strength, and of the established strength of 9,000, only about 4,000 men were fit. In the face of the manpower deficiency 21st Brigade’s battalions had been dispersed among the 19th and 35th brigades. This was an entirely logical measure but was not without its problems. These battalions were now working with complete strangers at every level. Younghusband deployed his two brigades, with 19th on the right and 35th on the left. He had planned his assault meticulously but much depended upon the efficacy of the preliminary bombardment by those forty-six guns.
There was a carefully calculated, timed programme: after the cessation of the bombardment and when a foothold had been made in the first line of Turkish trenches, ‘bombers’ were to move along the Turkish position clearing out survivors. In the plan, provision was made to deal with prisoners.
Townshend reported that he had seen about 3,000 Turks moving back towards Kut, complete with guns; this message was taken by Aylmer at face value. This was a serious error and Townshend’s veracity, always doubtful, should not have been relied upon. The conclusion was incorrectly drawn that the preliminary bombardment, on 20 January, had been so effective as to cause Khalil/von der Goltz to withdraw. Aylmer’s conclusion was strengthened when Turkish artillery did not reply. The assault planned for the 21st looked likely to be a walkover.
A mist that covered the defile delayed the dawn attack; this prevented the gunners registering their guns. This registration should have been unnecessary after the ‘stonk’ of the previous day. Nevertheless, Younghusband waited (again) for the mist to clear and this, of course, was much to the benefit of the Turks, who had clear line of sight of their attackers. The advantage that the mist had offered to the British infantry had been spurned and, when the guns finally came into action, any initiative had been surrendered. The bad news was that the Turkish wire was not destroyed.
The infantry was launched at the Turks across a muddy swamp. The pace of the assault was slowed by the conditions. The Black Watch, on the left, covered the first couple of hundred yards, but the Turks, far from sheltering from the British guns, were in a position to respond with small-arms fire. The kilted warriors started to take severe casualties. Together with some Jats, a small group of Scots got into the front line and did sterling work driving their opponents back to their second line. It did not last, and well-organised counter-attack retook the Turkish front line and saw the death of the occupying Scots and Jats.
Only two officers and fifteen men of the Black Watch survived this attack and a fine battalion of an outstanding regiment had been reduced to company strength. It was no longer a viable fighting unit. This repulse on the left of the British line was repeated right along the front. Over on the right, two battalions of Dogras, brave men that they were, got about twenty-five men into the Turkish front line.
There they all perished.
Communications between the Divisional Commander and his brigades broke down and Younghusband, who had established his headquarters about a mile behind the British line, was unaware of the disaster unfolding to his front. The telephone line was cut and the conditions underfoot made nonsense of the word ‘runner’, on whom all communications now depended. Any movement on this battlefield attracted fire and runners had a low life expectancy. The attacks of the 7th Division petered out in the deep mud of the Mesopotamian desert. Captain F.W. Page-Roberts was a witness to the aftermath, and wrote in a letter:
Some of the wounded drowned; some died of cold; many were picked off by the watchful Turks; all suffered agonies. One of them shot through the leg lay all day in no-man’s-land. As bullets began to splash around him, once the battle had stopped, he scooped a wall of mud around his head, and then around his shoulders, and then around his legs, until he lay in a sort of mud coffin, lacking only a lid. The water inside it getting deeper with the rain and redder with his blood.
Most of that night he lay there too. He was found by two stretcher-bearers, who carried him for more than three hours – dropping him twice as they fell into holes, to the ambulance point. Here he was given rum and lay for another three hours in the rain. Then onto a cart, to be wheeled to the river, where, sardine-like, he was packed onto the open deck of a boat – which reached Basra six days later.221
The man whose dreadful experience is described above was actually and incredibly one of the fortunate ones. As night fell it became possible to try to bring in some of his comrades. Even the unwounded suffered in the extreme conditions, and according to contemporary accounts the night of 21 January 1916 exceeded in misery, horror and pain anything previously seen in this God benighted campaign. The medical staff strove manfully under an impossible burden; 2,700 men (of 4,000) needing medical aid, and the surviving 1,300 could not cope with the responsibility of caring for their comrades lying in deep mud out in the darkness. Gallant, willing soldiers who had given of their best went to their Maker in the ghastly wind-lashed night as wounded men, suff
ering from shock, died of exposure.
Medical arrangements that had failed at Ctesiphon, Kut, Sheikh Saad and the Wadi failed again, but this time it was, ‘the most complete breakdown of all’ (MC Report). Tents had been erected in the casualty clearing centre in ankle-deep mud. Wounded, bleeding men, under the brutal light of hurricane lamps, were laid in this saturated tract as the two sections of five field ambulances gave of their inadequate best. HMS Julnar had been designated as a hospital ship and patients, if they were lucky, were carried in the infernal army transport carts to the riverbank and on to the ship. Many others spent the night in the rain and wind in an AT cart. This text has repeatedly reported on the grievous medical situation, and the fact that it has been repeated again here serves to underscore the crashing, ongoing incompetence of a command structure that betrayed those it directed.
After the event, not unreasonably, Aylmer criticised Younghusband for not following his quite specific instructions, which were to ‘hold the enemy and not commit himself’. The latter admitted receiving the order and said in his defence that he advanced and ‘felt the enemy hard on both banks.’ So be it, but he had clear instructions. Later giving evidence to the MC, Aylmer said that he had ‘fought the action on the Wadi against his better judgement, acting under superior orders and that he had proposed another plan of attack, which was not accepted by Headquarters.’222
Aylmer had a direct and personal responsibility to ensure that his force was, in all respects, ready to fight an intractable foe. The unavailability of doctors, nurses and equipment must have been known to, in ascending order, Younghusband, Aylmer, Nixon and now Lake. All of these senior officers are culpable. Their men deserved very much better.