by N S Nash
65. One of Townshend’s last signals before his surrender. The tone is self-pitying and does not reflect well on him. (R. Braddon)
The civil population of about 6,000 did not get away unscathed: 247 were killed and 663 wounded. Not mentioned by any source are the Turkish prisoners. About 1,200 were taken by 6th Division at Ctesiphon and brought to Kut. However, thereafter their fate is unrecorded and it is presumed that, given the food issue, they were released. It is an intriguing loose end.
The final butcher’s bill for operations in Mesopotamia from September 1914 to May 1916 was 40,000. ‘All this went for nothing, not an inch of ground or any political advantage. Nothing, that is, beyond corpses and ruined reputations.’272
Chapter notes
249 Mousley, E.O., The Secrets of a Kuttite, p.91.
250 Hardinge to Chamberlain, 25 March 1916, Chamberlain papers, 62/2.
251 Busch, Hardinge of Penshurst, p.224.
252 This is an army expression going back generations to describe more colourfully ‘a long time ago’.
253 Barker, A.J., The Neglected War, p.188.
254 Braddon, R., The Siege of Kut, p.262.
255 The papers of Mr R. Hague, as quoted by Braddon, R., in The Siege, p.216.
256 Moberly, F.J., The Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.358.
257 Major General (later, Lieutenant General) Frederick Stanley Maude KCB CMG DSO (1864–1917).
258 Moberly, F.J., The Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.371.
259 Ibid, p.372.
260 MC Report, p.38.
261 Candler, Edmund, quoted by Moberly, F.J., The Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.382.
262 Whalley-Kelley, H., Ich Dien, privately published.
263 Barker, A.J., The Neglected War, p.209.
264 Moberly, F.J., The Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.393.
265 Mousley, E.O., The Secrets of a Kuttite, p.131.
266 Barker, A.J., The Neglected War, p.214.
267 MC Report, p.35.
268 Townshend, C.V.F., My Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.335.
269 The Siege of Plevna was a series of major battles of the Russo–Turkish War (1877–78). These battles were fought by the combined armies of Russia and Romania against the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman defence of that town held up the main enemy advance southwards into Bulgaria for five months. This had the effect of encouraging other great powers actively to support the Ottoman cause. Eventually, after the fourth major engagement in which the Ottoman forces temporarily broke out of confinement, force of arms and starvation forced the garrison to surrender.
270 MC Report, p.35.
271 Moberly, F.J., The Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.459.
272 Dixon, N.E., On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, p.95.
Chapter 15
Aftermath
‘Commanders must have integrity. Without integrity, they have no power.’
(Sun Bin, The Lost Art of War, c. 350 BC, translated by Thomas Cleary)
The surrender of Kut was, without question, one of the greatest military defeats ever suffered by the British, and the loss of national prestige was commensurately enormous. Kut took its place with Yorktown and Kabul, and was only to be exceeded by the abject capitulation of Singapore twenty-six years later.
Colonel Nizam Bey, commanding the occupying force, was vastly discommoded, when he arrived in the British lines at the head of a Turkish force, to be told that the garrison’s forty-three guns had all been destroyed.273 The Turks swiftly took control of the town, hoisted the Ottoman crescent flag and got down to some serious looting.
The British officers assembled at the erstwhile garrison headquarters and many offered their swords to Nizam Bey as a token of their defeat – he accepted the swords and shook the donors by the hand. Other officers would have none of this and either broke their blades or cast them into the Tigris, where, no doubt under layers of silt, they remain to this day.
There were special arrangements for Townshend’s surrender. Khalil Pasha came to the town, accepted Charlie’s sword and revolver and, immediately, handed both back to him. This was a chivalrous gesture. However, it was in marked contrast with the conduct of a previously, generally admired enemy. The Turks now promptly and summarily hanged a considerable number of locals who they pronounced to be ‘collaborators’. They may well have been, but they really did not have many other options.
Major General Charles Mellis was lying in his hospital bed when a Turkish soldier presumed to steal his boots. Mellis rose from his bed, chased and caught the thief, who was then soundly thrashed by a Turkish officer. Soon thereafter, but unconnected to this incident, a stream of Turks came to gaze at the redoubtable Mellis, whose courage and qualities of leadership were recognised. The feisty little general was the recipient of the title ‘His Excellency Mellis Pasha’.
His captors treated Charles Townshend with fawning courtesy, and when he moved among his troops Mr H. Eato recalled that he said, ‘I’m going to get you all released on parole.’274 It was an empty promise that raised the expectations of the captured soldiers. There was, of course, no parole; only an order to form up and march the 9 miles upstream to Shamran. Nine miles was no test for fit, well-fed and shod infantry soldiers. But these men were starved, sick and in many cases their boots, rotted in the floods, were falling to pieces. Aggressive, hostile captors whipped the column of men along the route. It was a march that was beyond the capacity of some and they fell by the wayside – there they died.
At Shamran, initially, there was no food, only some large tents big enough to give cover to a hundred men. Later, a heap of Turkish army biscuits were dumped on the ground. These biscuits were circular, fibrous and as hard as stone. They looked like dog biscuits and tasted much worse. They contained sufficient straw and dirt to be utterly unpalatable. But to starving men they were all there was, so those who still had teeth tried to gnaw at the circumference. Some tried to break a biscuit into smaller pieces; others soaked them in Tigris water for hours and were agreeably surprised at the degree to which the biscuits swelled. They were now much more digestible but no less disagreeable.
The following morning a grim pattern emerged. Men started to froth at the mouth, their bowels loosened and their stomachs rebelled. ‘A green slime’ was the produce and in short order death followed. The doctors termed it ‘enteritis’, others thought it was an extreme form of cholera. Whatever it was, it was poisoning men who had survived shot and shell and all other sorts of privation. There was no other form of food available in the bleak wastes of the desert and the doctors issued orders that the biscuits should be soaked and then baked, ‘or they will kill you.’275
That was no doubt excellent advice but not easy to implement. There were no facilities whatsoever to bake anything, and only camel thorn to provide a fire. For many it was all ‘just too bloody difficult’. They ate their soaked biscuits and paid the price. The inhumanity of the Turks who watched this business was entirely in character. They had a track record in cruelty, well earned by the persecution of their Armenian population, starting on 24 April 1915. From that date, the Ottoman Government killed from 800,000 to 1,500,000 people. This was on much the same scale as that displayed by the Japanese and Germans some twenty-five years later in different parts of the globe. Compassion was not on offer and these captive British and Indian soldiers would need all the help they could get.
Moberly, in his Official History, The Campaign in Mesopotamia (p. 460), characteristically tried to rationalise the completely irrational and random manner in which the Turks treated their captives. Nevertheless, he concluded:
of the British rank and file in captivity, 209 were exchanged, but more than 1,700, or over 70 per cent, died in captivity or have never been traced. Of the Indian rank and file about 1,300 are known to have died in captivity; between 1,100 and 1,200 escaped or were exchanged; the remainder were either repatriated or have been presumed to be dead.
In total, more than 3,000 British, Indian and followers perished ‘in condition
s and in circumstances which must forever form a blot on the Turkish reputation’. Long after the war, and certainly up to 1924, exprisoners of war were turning up in India.
Townshend was held at Kut for two days while appropriate arrangements were made on his behalf. Then he embarked in a launch with an entourage that consisted of Captain Morland, his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel Parr, two British orderlies, of whom Private John Boggis was one, an Indian servant, and a Portuguese cook. The vessel sailed upriver and, at Shamran, Charlie went ashore to say his farewells to Delamain, Hamilton and the newly promoted Evens, his former GSO1. The soldiers lined the bank, and as ‘Our Charlie’ sailed away they waved and cheered. Townshend commented in his diary that, ‘I shall never forget that cheer. Tears filled my eyes as I stood to attention at the salute. Never shall I have such a command again. I loved the 6th Division with all my heart.’
66. One of the Indian soldiers of the 6th Division who survived a Turkish prison camp – many did not.
He was quite right: he would never have such a command again – in fact, he would never be employed again. His behaviour, from April 1916 until the war’s end, earned him the contempt of some, the dislike of others and the enmity of many more. This was because he did nothing to ease the condition of his men in captivity, despite having access to the senior levels of the Turkish Government. If ‘betrayal’ is an element in this book, then by his outrageous neglect of his duty and his men, Townshend takes his place among the betrayers. With his men out of sight and out of mind, Townshend was now at liberty to focus on things that really mattered – the well-being, comfort, status and reputation of Charles Townshend. All else was secondary.
Townshend was enough of a realist to recognise that the Turks would use him for propaganda purposes. The Turks ‘were determined to show the British Force captured to the world.’276 The Turkish newspaper Tanin was scathing when it said, ‘This time they did not succeed in scuttling. This time the English who, when they cannot achieve success, consider it the greatest honour to run away, have been unable to do so as they did at Gallipoli.’277
When Russell Braddon published his book The Siege in 1969, he was forthright in his condemnation of Townshend, who epitomised all that Braddon abhorred. Braddon found few redeeming characteristics in Charlie and, as a result, his book, excellent though it is, lacks balance. However, Braddon had been able to interview many survivors of the 6th Division, so his book does enjoy a degree of authority. The book was duly published and created uproar with the survivors of the 6th Division, to whom ‘their Charlie’ was a hero despite his behaviour after the surrender being well documented. His surviving soldiers were vocal in his support and, fifty-three years after Townshend had abandoned them to their fate, they still thought that the sun rose and set upon him. As they say in Yorkshire, ‘There’s nowt so queer as folk.’ To return to 1916, The Times, on 31 May, in an editorial thundered:
The main issue is not what General Townshend said to General Nixon, but first, who was responsible for the mad decision to advance on Baghdad. We trust Sir John Nixon will explain why he never transmitted General Townshend’s objections and why he decided to disregard them.
In Baghdad, it was intended that Townshend should stay in von der Goltz’s house, the Field Marshal having recently died. ‘Typhus’, said some, ‘Poisoned by the Turks’, alleged others, but the result was the same and the old German did not live long enough to see the fall of Kut. Townshend was housed in the Italian Consulate, where Khalil threw a dinner party in his honour. They sat for some hours while Townshend spoke at length about Napoleon.
Later in his journey to a comfortable billet, Townshend chanced upon a party of his soldiers and sailors led by Sub Lieutenant Reed. Some of the party were survivors of the Julnar episode, but the meeting was unproductive and all that Townshend could provide for his men was warm best wishes. The peregrinations and lifestyle of Chitrál Charlie, from this point on and until his death in May 1924, are not relevant to this text, but can be found in his biography of that title published by Pen and Sword Books.
Chapter notes
273 Sandes, E.W.C., In Kut and Captivity.
274 Eato, H., quoted by Braddon, R., The Siege, p.259.
275 Spackman, W.S., ibid, p.260.
276 Townshend, C.V.F., My Campaign in Mesopotamia, p.336.
277 Arabian Report, No. XXIa, 4 July 1916, FO/2779/152060.
Chapter 16
The Inquiry
‘In the hunt for legitimate victims the Press has in many cases been hurried into illegitimate extremes. The demand for punishment has almost degenerated into the witch-hunting of barbaric times.’
(Viscount Haldane, House of Lords, 13 January 1917)
In the summer of 1916 there was little to cheer about.
The abject retreat from the Dardanelles on 8 January had left a painful scar in the UK, but in Australia and New Zealand it was viewed as nothing short of a national catastrophe. Politically, the Gallipoli campaign was unfinished business. Empire casualties had been 115,000 and there were questions that had to be answered.
The Easter Rising in Dublin on 24 April 1916 had created fear of an enemy within. The surrender of Kut on 29 April so soon after was a national humiliation, and the pyrrhic naval victory achieved off Jutland on 1 June had done little to offset the loss of prestige. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, a national hero, was lost on HMS Hampshire on 5 June. National morale was low and a proactive press was in pursuit of Asquith and his government.
The Vincent-Bingley Report was drafted in May 1916 after the principals had spent eight days in Bombay (now Mumbai) and a further six weeks taking evidence in and around Basra. Initially, His Majesty’s Government kept the Report under wraps as its findings were nothing short of political dynamite. There were suggestions that the Report could be issued in a shortened form, but that lack of transparency was readily seen to be politically dangerous. However, by now the public was sufficiently aware of the medical debacle in Mesopotamia. Survivors and witnesses to the Battles of Ctesiphon, Sheikh Saad, the Wadi River, the Hanna Defile, the Dujaila Redoubt and Sannaiyat provided reports of the shambles along and on the Tigris. Public anger increased at the reported suffering of Indian and British soldiers, and the Press was in full cry.
The Vincent-Bingley Report was eventually completed in July 1916 but was not immediately made public. Perhaps this was as well, as the nation was reeling in shock at the recent slaughter on the Somme. In 20,000 homes, women were mourning the death of husbands, and sons; 40,000 other homes knew a loved one had been wounded.
General Sir Beauchamp Duff, who had set up the Vincent-Bingley investigation, was now firmly hoisted with his own petard. He did not voice his views publically, and little wonder. However, he wrote that it was ‘of a nature calculated to encourage the enemy and give him information of military value’.278 He thrashed around and then took the line that the reporters had exceeded their brief.
The Report was composed of 180 paragraphs, and Duff pronounced that seventy-seven of these were ‘objectionable’. He placed the ‘objectionable’ paragraphs into four categories. These were: those dealing with operations not yet made public, those showing lack of organisation, those complaining of lack of morale, and those condemning certain officers by name. He thought that the first might be militarily important and the last three could be used as propaganda to disrupt the morale of the troops.279
Duff was in a quandary; that there was a report was no secret but he could not suppress it. Reluctantly, he forwarded it to Chamberlain in the India Office and to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Wully Robertson. Robertson believed, and probably hoped, that the relief of the 6th Division would quell the need for commissions of inquiry.
The priapic David Lloyd George, no firm ally of the Prime Minister and an active rival for political power, had replaced Kitchener in the War Office. The Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, known always as ‘H.H.’, had been in post since 1908. In peaceti
me, he had established himself as a safe pair of hands with the skills to pursue Liberal policies in the face of Conservative opposition. He was not an attractive individual, certainly not with the ladies, as he had a reputation as a ‘groper’. The stress of wartime administration was beyond him and, in any case, he was ‘idle’. He clung to office for almost two years, heading a coalition government from May 1915.
In summary, Asquith was an unsuccessful war leader who devoted a disproportionate amount of time and energy to his personal comfort and affairs. His biographer, John Little, described him as ‘feckless’.280
The Press pursued the Vincent-Bingley issue, reflected public anger and became increasingly strident in its criticism. Asquith’s grip on power was slipping from his grasp but he stayed long enough to appease the Press, in part, and gained some breathing space. He achieved this because, in early August 1916, HMG appointed a group of worthies to form the Mesopotamia Commission. At the same time a separate body was formed to examine the conduct of operations in the Dardanelles.
In the House of Commons, Sir Henry Craik, the MP for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities, put the ball into play on 14 August 1916 when he asked the Secretary of State for India whether he had communicated with the authorities in India and obtained consent to the publication of the report by Vincent, Bingley and Ridsdale, and whether the Report ‘would be laid upon the table before the recess.’281
Austen Chamberlain produced a lengthy answer and said that now that a further commission had been appointed (Mesopotamia), it would ‘proceed with all possible expedition to inquire with regard to the provision for the sick and wounded.’ In the meantime, the conclusions of Vincent-Bingley had to be considered sub judice.
In December 1916, Lloyd George achieved his aim when he brushed Asquith aside and became Prime Minister. The new Prime Minister, his government and, by no means least, Lord Hardinge, were under close scrutiny and the hope was that the MC might pull some chestnuts from the political fires. The Commission was charged to: