Chapter 19
In This Chapter
● The defence of Egypt, 1915-1917
● The Dardanelles and Gallipoli, 1915-1916
● The campaign in Mesopotamia, 1914-1918
● The campaign in Palestine, 1916-1918
● Campaigning elsewhere in the world
Although the war is mostly remembered for the action on the Western Front (see Chapters 17 and 18), during the First World War British and Commonwealth troops also fought in other places. This chapter considers these campaigns.
When Great Britain linked itself with France and Russia (Turkey’s traditional enemy - see Chapter 13) in the Triple Entente, the Turks viewed this action almost as treachery by an old friend. When war between the United Kingdom and Germany became inevitable, the Royal Navy requisitioned two dreadnought battleships that British yards were building for Turkey. These would have been the pride of the Turkish navy and their loss caused widespread anger throughout the Ottoman Empire. As a gesture of friendship, Germany despatched the battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau as gifts for the Turkish navy. They eluded British warships in the Mediterranean and sailed through the Dardanelles, which Turkey immediately closed in contravention of an international agreement. On 29/30 October 1914 the two ships, now nominally Turkish but retaining their German crews, bombarded Russian positions on the Black Sea coast. The Turkish government ignored an Allied ultimatum and on 31 October hostilities between Turkey and the Allies commenced, opening up a whole new front of the war.
In the Middle East these campaigns involved not only the British and Indian Armies, but also the first major deployment for the Australian and New Zealand Armies, who quickly established their formidable reputation as fighting soldiers.
Defending Egypt
British concern in Egypt centred on the defence of the Suez Canal, the lifeline to the British Empire in the Far East. To the east, the Sinai Desert offered the defenders of the canal some protection, but an army could cross the desert, provided it made adequate logistic preparations. In this respect, the Turks were at something of a disadvantage. Even so, the Turks were determined to bring the war to the British in Egypt. In the circumstances, they could consider nothing more than a raid. Even then, the best that the Turks could expect was to halt canal traffic by means of sinking captured ships and damaging installations. They set no firm objectives. In fact, the Turkish leaders seemed happy to think about such things when the moment came. No one knew much about the British defences, or had considered that warships may form part of these. The approach was unbelievably amateur.
Attacking the Suez Canal
In mid-January 1915 the Turkish VIII Corps, under the command of Djemal Bey with a team of German advisers led by Colonel Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein, left its base at Beersheba and commenced a march across the Sinai - avoiding the coastal route that put marching columns within range of British naval gunfire. The central route was cool enough in winter and heavy rain had filled the pools and cisterns along the way. To be on the safe side, no fewer than 5000 water-carrying camels were taken on the march. If Djemal and Kressenstein had hoped to achieve surprise by using this route they were sorely disappointed, for seaplanes flying off the canal regularly reported on their march. The defenders therefore had plenty of time in which to complete their preparations.
On 3 February the Turks launched a series of uncoordinated attacks on the canal along a wide front. Heavy fire from warships and troops dug in on the west bank defeated them. Just three assault boats managed to complete the crossing of the canal. The British killed or captured all their occupants as soon as they set foot ashore. Having sustained 2000 casualties for no return, Djemal made a leisurely withdrawal to Beersheba. British casualties amounted to only 163.
Fighting in the Western Desert
Hardly had the British dealt with the threat to the Suez canal (see the previous section) than Lieutenant General Sir John Maxwell, responsible for the defence of Egypt, faced another threat - this time from the Western Desert.
The powerful Senussi Moslem sect that lived there was engaged in a prolonged guerrilla war against the Italian authorities in Libya, who were allies of the British. An amicable relationship had always existed between the Senussi and their British neighbours in Egypt, but that changed when war broke out.
The Sultan of Turkey held the office of Caliph (spiritual leader of the Moslem world), and his advice to the Grand Senussi, Said Ahmed, was that they must declare a holy war against all infidels and not just the Italians. To that end, German U-boats delivered artillery, machine guns, and ammunition to deserted stretches of coastline, together with military advisers, to aid the Senussi against the British.
Matters began to come to a head when a U-boat sank HMS Tara, a British armed boarding vessel in the Gulf of Sollum. The survivors were landed at Bardia and handed over to the Senussi. A British envoy went to the Grand Senussi with a request for their release. Said Ahmed regretted that he could not comply, as the Turks had left the seamen in his care as hostages.
He was, in fact, under the influence of two Turkish senior officers, Nuri Bey and Ja’far Pasha, who pointed out, correctly, that the British were not doing at all well at Gallipoli or Mesopotamia (see later in this chapter). An invasion of Egypt, they promised, would bring about the collapse of the weakened British, particularly if the large number of Senussi supporters in Egypt rose against them. Convinced, the Grand Senussi announced that the holy war had begun.
Campaigning with the Western Frontier Force
The British garrison at Sollum beat off an attack by the Senussi on the night of 17 November 1915 and was then evacuated by steamer. Next day the British also repulsed an attack on Sidi Barrani. Maxwell knew that if he despatched sufficient troops to defeat the Senussi he would be left with too few to mount counter-insurgency operations, should the need arise. Nevertheless, he placed a number of Territorial infantry battalions and Yeomanry cavalry regiments under the command of Major General A. Wallace and designated them the Western Frontier Force. Wallace managed to halt the Senussi advance after fighting a number of sharp actions west of Mersa Matruh. The situation stabilised further when South African and New Zealand infantry reached the front, followed by troops returned from Gallipoli.
The Western Desert Gentlemen's Armoured Car Club
The Western Frontier Force included a Royal Naval Air Service armoured car squadron formed to meet the emergency, but this saw little fighting because the winter rains turned the going into a quagmire. In January 1916 the squadron went up the Nile to Upper Egypt where Senussi bands had occupied several oases. The Duke of Westminster's armoured car brigade (formerly No. 2 Squadron Royal Naval Armoured Car Division) replaced it, consisting of three batteries each of four Rolls-Royce armoured cars and a small headquarters, supported by an echelon of Model T Ford tenders. The unit was the closest thing imaginable to a gentleman's club, as the Duke had chosen his officers and men with care. Most came from cavalry and yeomanry regiments, with a leavening of chauffeurs, professional motor drivers, and mechanics.
Major General W.E. Peyton relieved Wallace, who was suffering from ill health, on 10 January 1916. Maxwell now felt that the Western Frontier Force was strong enough to take the offensive and ordered Peyton to recapture Sollum. As air reconnaissance revealed that the main Senussi camp was located at Agagya, southeast of Sidi Barrani, Peyton led out a column to deal with this first. On 26 January a hard-fought action took place at a ridge 8 kilometres (5 miles) north of the camp. Some 1500 of the enemy held the ridge, supported by artillery and machine guns. During the action, Brigadier General Lukin’s South Africans stormed the enemy position at the point of the bayonet. As the Senussi withdrew, the Dorset Yeomanry charged into the enemy mass, cutting down 300 of them, capturing Ja’far Pasha, and chasing the rest across the desert. The regiment sustained 58 personnel casualties, but the loss of 85 horses reduced its strength by half.
The British occupied Sidi Barrani on 9 March and recaptured Sollum without a fight five days later. The Senussi had crossed the frontier into Libya, no doubt thinking that they were safer on Italian territory. Peyton, however, was determined to destroy their field army and doubted whether the Italians would raise too many objections. When aircraft reported a large enemy camp at Bir Wair, he despatched the Duke of Westminster’s armoured cars to attack it (see the sidebar ‘The Western Desert Gentlemen’s Armoured Car Club’). The going was excellent, enabling the cars to close in at high speed. They found that the Senussi had abandoned the camp at Bir Wair and were retreating westwards. The Duke caught up with them near a well named Bir Azeiz.
The Senussi were holding a rocky position fronted by rough going and opened fire with their mountain and machine guns at once. The cars fanned out from column into line and went straight for the enemy, maintaining a continuous fire with their own machine guns. When the British shot down the enemy’s heavy weapons crews, the entire Senussi army broke and ran. Hundreds were killed or wounded during the pursuit. The booty for the British included three 4-inch (10-millimetre) guns, nine machine guns, a large quantity of small arms, and 250,000 rounds of ammunition. Two of the Duke’s men received superficial wounds.
In March, the surviving crew of the Tara, horribly emaciated, half naked, starving, and suffering from dysentery but waving and cheering, were rescued from Bir Hacheim, taken back to Sollum, and put aboard a hospital ship for passage to Alexandria. On 26 July a joint operation with the Italians, supported by naval gunfire, ejected the Senussi from the Wadi Saal. Lying between Bardia and Tobruk, this was a landing place at which armaments and ammunition destined for the Senussi were put ashore from U-boats.
The wadi contained numerous caves closed by stout wooden doors, each containing a treasure trove of munitions.
Heading into the desert
By the end of November 1916, the British had also recaptured the oases in Upper Egypt. Said Ahmed now accepted that getting involved in someone else’s global war was not a good idea, and withdrew his troops to the Siwa oasis. Together with the neighbouring oases of Girba and Jarabub, this not only lay 320 kilometres (200 miles) south of Mersa Matruh, but was also 300 metres (1000 feet) below sea level. No army had ever penetrated this far south across the desert, and Said Ahmed had every reason to feel secure.
That was not the case, for in Cairo the British had decided to bring the Senussi war to an end by means of a motorised raid. The Duke of Westminster’s armoured car brigade led this, together with three light car patrols equipped with Model T Fords mounting a Lewis gun. Under the command of Brigadier General Hodgson, the force assembled at Sheka, 300 kilometres (185 miles) south of Mersa Matruh, on 2 January 1917. The following day it began to fight its way down the difficult pass to Girba, while a diversionary patrol set off in the direction of Jarabub. The passage was difficult, sometimes requiring picks, shovels, and crowbars to clear obstacles from what was really nothing more than a camel track. Too late, the Senussi realised what was happening. They failed to prevent the cars from reaching the valley below the escarpment, and after a day’s hard fighting the British broke their resistance. Said Ahmed abdicated in favour of his cousin Said Idris, who had of a more neutral turn of mind.
For the remainder of the First World War, light car patrols that ranged far and wide kept the peace in the desert. They little knew it, but the army would use the detailed maps they produced again during the Second World War (see Part VI), while their experience provided a thorough knowledge of how men and machines could be made to operate efficiently in such difficult, demanding circumstances.
Landing in the Dardanelles
By the end of 1914, two schools of thought were beginning to influence the British direction of the war:
● The Westerners, as they were called, believed that they could only win victory by defeating the main mass of the German army in France and Belgium.
● The Easterners, on the other hand, thought that if they defeated its weaker Turkish and Austro-Hungarian allies first, they would isolate Germany and force the Kaiser to sue for peace.
One thing was certain: Russia was not equipped to fight an industrialised war and had to be supplied with what the country needed to carry on fighting. The Black Sea ports offered the best way to do this, but Turkish control of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus denied access to them
Optimism gone mad - the Dardanelles plan
Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, believed that the Royal Navy’s battleships were capable of fighting their way through the Dardanelles, then crossing the Sea of Marmara and bombarding Constantinople. This would solve two problems at once:
● The Sultan’s government would request an armistice.
● The supply route to Russia would be wide open.
If the Turks had been complete fools, the plan may have worked. Unfortunately, they were not. Under the direction of General Liman von Sanders, they laid no fewer than 11 minefields on the approach to the narrowest part of the straits and strengthened their coast defence batteries on both shores. Nevertheless, during late February and early March 1915, Royal Marine landing parties silenced the outer forts and destroyed the guns within. That was the easy part. The British minesweepers were simply North Sea trawlers that had been conscripted along with their crews. They drew too much water for the job and were not powerful enough to work in the currents running through the straits. Worst of all, when they tried to sweep towards the inner forts, mobile howitzer batteries, whose positions were difficult to locate, constantly harassed them.
In the belief that the inner forts were causing the problem, the British decided to batter them into submission. On the morning of 18 March no fewer than 18 British and French battleships, accompanied by cruisers and destroyers, sailed into the straits. They met a fierce response from the Turks’ coastal defence batteries, but by 4 p.m. the inner forts were silenced. As they turned away to allow the minesweepers to continue their task, three battleships, HMS Irresistible, Ocean, and the French Bouvet, ran over an uncharted minefield and sustained damage from which they sank with heavy loss of life. As for the minesweepers, the elusive howitzer batteries drove them off once again. The straits could not be forced, and that was that.
Getting everything wrong: Gallipoli
If the Royal Navy could not force the Dardanelles, went the argument, the British had to find some other way of getting to Constantinople. Someone put forward the crackpot idea of landing troops on the Gallipoli peninsula, from which they could march to Constantinople. No one present knew much about the peninsula. In fact, it was ideally suited to the Turkish defence:
● The peninsula consisted of a central spine to which steep ridges separated by gullies rose sharply from the sea to the west and the Dardanelles to the east, making it easier to defend.
● No maps existed and while some detailed knowledge of the terrain did exist, no one passed it on to those who were to do the fighting. As a result, objectives were set without any appreciation of the physical difficulties involved.
● The British had seriously underestimated the will of the Turks to fight in defence of their homeland.
Reluctantly, the War Cabinet sanctioned the venture, although some senior officers believed that a better use of the troops was on the Western Front.
Major General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston’s 29th Division was to land at various beaches around the tip of Cape Helles, while Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood’s Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was to land between Gaba Tepe and Ari Burnu. The entire operation was under the command of General Sir Ian Hamilton, a man of wide experience and undoubted courage, but lacking in decision and drive. Preparations took place on several islands off the Turkish coast. Neither service had any experience of mounting amphibious operations on this scale, and the necessary command, control, and communications network existed only as a sketchy framework. No purpose-built landing craft were available. The troops were to go ashore sitting upright in unprotected ships’ boats or lighters. A variation existed in the converted collier (coal ship) River Clyde, which had four sally ports cut in its sides. The intention was that the troops aboard would leave through these when the ship grounded. They would then run along gangways down to lighters (flat-bottomed barges) forming a bridge to the shore.
When the landings took place at dawn on 25 April, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. In some cases the troops landed in the wrong place, in others machine guns created carnage in the packed boats, and in others the attackers were pinned down at the water’s edge in coves that formed natural killing grounds. The River Clyde's sally ports were natural aiming points.
The Turks shot down so many of those who emerged from them that the British suspended landings from the ship until nightfall. On the Australian sector the Turkish 19th Division, commanded by Colonel Mustapha Kemal, one of the Ottoman Empire’s most able soldiers and the first president of the new Turkey, launched a counter-attack. The Australians shot down the Turks in droves or killed them in savage bayonet fighting, but Kemal’s vigorous defence ensured that the ANZAC lines remained where they were for the rest of the campaign. Elsewhere, chances were missed to occupy features that were later considered vital objectives. The only redeeming feature amid the day’s bloodstained chaos was the courage of the troops: On W Beach, for example, 1/Lancashire Fusiliers, one of the ‘Unsurpassable Six’ Minden regiments (see Chapter 8), won their celebrated six VCs before breakfast.
The 29th Division managed to link its small beachheads, but never held more than a few square miles at the tip of Cape Helles. From this point on, barbed wire and machine guns guaranteed the sort of stalemate that existed on the Western Front. Throughout the months that followed, both sides displayed suicidal courage, piling up casualties without result. In an attempt to turn the Turkish flank, the 10th and 11th Divisions of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stopford’s IX Corps landed at Suvla Bay, north of the ANZACs, during the night of 6/7 August. Thanks to the provision of armoured lighters the troops reached the shore safely, but then the same sort of inertia that prevented exploitation of the earlier landings seems to have gripped their commanders. Their beachhead was linked to that of the ANZACs, but the Turks quickly contained it and therefore rendered its possession useless.
Hamilton had written to Kitchener the previous month, commenting that the campaign had degenerated into a pointless killing match. Suvla Bay was the last straw for the War Cabinet, who relieved Hamilton of command on 15 October. His successor, General Sir Charles Monro, recommended evacuation and this was approved the following month. Suvla Bay and the ANZACs were evacuated on the night of 19/20 December and Cape Helles on 8/9 January 1916. The British and Dominion armies sustained 200,000 casualties at Gallipoli, while the French incurred a further 40,000 on their sector of operations. No accurate record exists of Turkish losses, but 300,000 is a reasonable estimate, of whom one-third were killed. Despite incurring the heavier loss, the Turks were entitled to feel pleased with themselves and could claim to have seen off the Royal Navy and Hamilton’s troops as well. Amid the recriminations following the defeat, Winston Churchill had to resign his position as First Lord of the Admiralty and went off to command an infantry battalion in France for a while.
Fighting in Mesopotamia
Safeguarding the Middle East’s oil supplies for the Royal Navy was a keystone of British policy. As part of this strategy, the British had occupied Basra and the Shatt-al-Arab waterway in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) without difficulty in November 1914. They defeated weak Turkish counter-attacks with such ease that the Government of India, responsible for the security of the area, reached the mistaken conclusion that the enemy troops were representative of the Turkish army as a whole. As a result of this, it took the decision to extend the scope of operations to include an advance on Baghdad, the loss of which would be a serious blow to Turkish prestige throughout the entire Muslim world. The unforeseen and unwelcome consequence was that Great Britain had to open a fresh war front.
In the spring of 1915 Lieutenant General Sir John Nixon commanded the British army in Mesopotamia. It consisted of two Indian infantry divisions (Major General Charles Townshend’s 6th and Major General George Gorringe’s 12th) and a cavalry brigade. Nixon’s career in the Indian Army had been long and honourable, although those who knew him best regarded him as impetuous, lacking in strategic sense, inclined to base decisions on wishful thinking, and seriously ambitious. This was to have unhappy consequences when allied to Townshend’s personality. If Nixon’s ambition was a driving force, Townshend’s was nothing less than a mania: What he wanted most of all was glory and lots of admiration. Compared to Nixon and Townshend, Gorringe was a refreshingly normal, capable divisional commander.
In May, Nixon ordered Townshend’s division to break through the Turkish position at Qurna and advance up the Tigris to Amara, thereby consolidating his hold on the captured territory further south. Unexpectedly, Turkish resistance collapsed completely on 31 May. Townshend embarked troops aboard any vessel he could lay his hands on and set off upstream. Passing Ezra’s Tomb on 1 June, he reached Amara two days later and received the immediate surrender of the 2000-strong garrison. During the 130-kilometre (80-mile) advance the British disabled the Turkish gunboat Marmaris and captured the steamer Mosul. The episode became known as ‘Townshend’s Regatta’. The public loved it.
Baghdad or bust: Take one
Townshend fell victim to the torrid, unhealthy Middle East climate for a while and went to India to recover. He returned to find that Gorringe’s division had taken Nasiriya on the Euphrates in July 1915. Nixon now felt that to secure the south of the country it was necessary for Townshend’s division to take
Kut-al-Amara. That was easier said than done, because the Turks had constructed a strong fortified zone on both banks of the Tigris, some kilometres below the town. Under the command of a Turkish general named Nur-ed-Din, 6000 men and 30 guns held this zone. On 27 September, Townshend made a feint attack against the entrenchments on the right bank. Nur-ed-Din moved up his reserves to meet the threat. That night, two of Townshend’s brigades crossed a bridge of boats two miles downstream. They then carried out a successful night march and fell on the Turkish left flank at dawn. After hard fighting they took the position and held it against counter-attacks. Air reconnaissance on the morning of 29 September revealed that the enemy was retreating through Kut.
Marching into trouble
Nixon believed that the road to Baghdad was wide open and ordered Townshend to take it. To his credit, Townshend pointed out the serious dangers involved in overextending the advance, but his warning fell on deaf ears. After spending five weeks in preparation, the 6th Indian Division and the cavalry brigade set off to the north. At about the same time, Nixon received intelligence reports indicating that 30,000 good-quality troops under the command of Khalil Pasha, one of the best generals in the Turkish service, were converging on Baghdad. Townshend was obviously marching straight into trouble, but Nixon made no attempt to recall him.
On reaching Ctesiphon, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Baghdad, Townshend discovered that the Turks had constructed entrenchments on both banks of the river. In November he fought his way through at the cost of heavy casualties and most of his ammunition stock. When air reconnaissance revealed fresh Turkish formations streaming out of Baghdad on 25 November, he wisely decided to withdraw.
Defending Kut - for all the wrong reasons
Townshend fought a successful holding action on 1 December 1915. He entered Kut the next day and immediately decided to compensate for his failure to capture Baghdad by conducting a heroic defence of the town, just as he had defended Chitral Fort on the North West Frontier in 1895. In fact, he had no need at all to defend Kut: If he wanted to halt the enemy’s advance, better defensive positions existed downstream. What he really wanted was lots of good personal publicity. Tamely, Nixon approved his decision and made an empty promise to relieve him within two months.
Townshend’s men beat off a Turkish assault on 24 December, so the Turks decided to starve Kut into surrender and concentrate on defeating Nixon’s relief attempts. To emphasise the drama of his situation, Townshend reported that his garrison had just one month’s food supply in hand. The truth was that he did not seriously cut the rations until early April 1916. In response to the plea, Nixon ordered Lieutenant General Sir Fenton Aylmer, commanding the relief force, to attempt a breakthrough. The attempt was premature and failed, as did every subsequent attempt. Aylmer requested that sorties by the Kut garrison should coincide with his attacks. It made sound military sense, but Townshend wanted to sit tight and be relieved in style, just as he had been at Chitral. Throughout the siege, he submitted regular demands for his own promotion. When his rival Gorringe took over from Aylmer and received promotion, Townshend openly wept at the news. When rations became short in April, an attempt was made - the first in history - to supply the trapped garrison by air, but the amount of rations deliverable by air fell far short of the consumption rate.
The War Cabinet was furious that Nixon and Townshend had allowed what had been intended as a sideshow to develop into a full-blown campaign, but it could hardly leave the Kut garrison to its fate. The government rushed reinforcements into Mesopotamia and Nixon’s deteriorating health enabled him to make a dignified exit, his replacement being General Sir Percy Lake. On 24 April the British made a last-ditch attempt to run a supply steamer through to Kut. The attempt failed. By now some 23,000 casualties had been sustained in attempts to relieve the 8000-strong garrison of a town nobody wanted. No point lay in continuing and Kitchener told Lake of this decision that night. Lake informed Townshend early on 26 April that his men were to make no further relief attempts. Predictably, Townshend blamed the relief force, then opened negotiations with the Turkish commander. He offered him £1 million in gold in exchange for the garrison’s freedom and its guns. Interesting through the offer was, Constantinople wanted the famous General Townshend and his men as trophies. All the Turks agreed to was the exchange of 345 of the garrison’s hospital cases for an equal number of fit prisoners and a promise that they would treat the garrison as honoured guests. Townshend declaimed that he would go into captivity with his 2070 British and 6000 Indian soldiers, even if it killed him. Instead, he let the Turks treat him like royalty and spent the rest of the war in a luxurious villa on an island in the sea of Marmara. His men died in their thousands from starvation, disease, lack of medical facilities, and the brutal indifference of their guards. The British public never forgave Townshend and he slid into the obscurity he had always dreaded.
Baghdad or bust: Take two
The British public, unused to their armies surrendering, were shocked by Townshend’s defeat (see the previous section). Coming as it did hard on the heels of the Gallipoli debacle (see the section ‘Landing in the Dardanelles’, earlier in this chapter), it caused additional damage to British prestige throughout the Middle East and the country dare not risk a further reverse. Khalil, the Turkish commander, decided not to exploit his victory at Kut. Instead, reacting to Russian incursions in Asia Minor and Persia, he withdrew many of his troops from the Tigris, leaving only three divisions under Kiazim Karbekit to hold the line at Hanna.
In August 1916 Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Maude relieved Lake. Maude was an officer as far removed from generals of the Nixon and Townshend sort as it was possible to get. He was cold, uncommunicative, and he understood that he could not gain lasting success without a sound logistic infrastructure. He was also an able administrator whose plans left nothing to chance, and was as good as Kitchener in this respect . His major fault was a tendency to meddle in the internal workings of his subordinate formations instead of letting them get on with their respective jobs.
By December 1916 Maude’s army was 166,000 men strong, two-thirds being drawn from the Indian army, and consisted of two corps and a cavalry division. He also had armoured cars, river gunboats, and a narrow-gauge railway to support him. Kiazim, seriously alarmed by these developments, asked Khalil to reinforce him. Khalil, overconfident in victory, replied that the Hanna lines were impregnable and that no reinforcement was necessary.
Maude's offensive
Having spent some time studying Kiazim’s defensive layout, Maude reached the conclusion that the enemy had put everything in the shop window and left nothing in reserve. The strength of the Turkish defences still lay on the left bank of the river, but those on the right bank were not as formidable as they had once been. Maude decided to fight his way through the right bank defences one section at a time, steadily working his way upstream until he was beyond Kut, then cross. This could force Kiazim to abandon his positions on the left bank, or trap him if he failed to withdraw in time.
Maude’s offensive opened on 13 December with a feint on the left bank.
As Maude had hoped, Kiazim responded by concentrating his troops there. On the right bank, the British made progress slowly and step by step, so as not to alert the Turks to their real intentions. However, by the third week of February 1917 the advance had reached a point some kilometres north of Kut. Having endured weeks of artillery pounding from across the river, on 23 February the defenders of the Hanna defile finally left their trenches. Simultaneously, to the north, the British 14th Division crossed the river at the Shumran Bend and put in a pontoon bridge. Kiazim, suddenly realising the terrible danger he was in, abandoned the Kut sector altogether, harried by the British cavalry division. At the Nahr Kellek Bend British gunboats caught up with Kiazim’s marching column and engaged it with sustained fire from their main armament and automatic weapons until it disintegrated in rout.
Capturing Baghdad
Maude paused at Aziziyeh for several days to replenish his supplies. He resumed his advance on 5 March 1917, brushing aside Turkish attempts to form a new front. Two days later, he reached the banks of the Diyala, a tributary of the Tigris that flowed in from the northeast, and was able to make out the distant domes and minarets of Baghdad itself. Khalil was personally conducting the defence of the city, but Maude pushed his 13th Division across the Diyala to make a holding attack while the cavalry and two infantry brigades recrossed the Tigris and by-passed the city. Khalil, believing that he was in danger of falling into the same trap as Kiazim, hastily abandoned his positions and withdrew out of harm’s way. Maude entered Baghdad on 11 March.
Horrified by the loss, the Turks pushed a corps down the Diyala in the hope of recapturing the city. The Cavalry and 13th Divisions defeated this at Delli Abbas and by the end of April the Turks began to withdraw. Meanwhile, the advance upstream from Baghdad continued. The British captured Samarra on 24 April, but with the onset of the hot season active operations ceased for several months.
Maude had inherited a demoralised army and led it to victory. Tragically, he did not live to see the end of the campaign. Despite his reserved nature, his troops sincerely regretted his death from cholera on 18 November. Lieutenant General Sir William Marshall succeeded him.
During the final year of the First World War Mesopotamia became less important to both sides. Palestine had a higher priority for the Turks and because the fighting was going badly for them there, Palestine received reinforcements that the Turks had originally earmarked for Mesopotamia. Marshall was able to maintain the initiative and throughout 1918 he steadily strengthened his hold on the upper reaches of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Campaigning in Palestine
Following the evacuation of Gallipoli (see the section ‘Landing in the Dardanelles’, earlier in this chapter) and the arrival of fresh Imperial troops, it became possible to establish an Egyptian Expeditionary Force under the command of General Sir Archibald Murray in the spring of 1916. In Murray’s view, a renewed Turkish advance from Palestine would enter Sinai between El Arish and El Kusseima, so he decided to establish his own front line between those two points. Doing so required an immense logistic effort. This began with hiring thousands of labourers who started building a standard-gauge railway at El Kantara on the east bank of the Suez Canal. This extended steadily across the Sinai at the rate of 80 kilometres (50 miles) per month.
In parallel, the expeditionary force laid a freshwater pipeline, complete with storage tanks, a portable reservoir holding 2.25 million litres (0.5 million gallons), and batteries of standpipes. Beyond the railhead, an efficient Camel Transport Corps supplied the forward troops. Murray also established a logical casualty-evacuation system. In short, he did everything possible to avoid the disgraceful episodes that had taken place during the early phases of the Mesopotamian campaign. Murray made his methodical advance with the infantry divisions closest to the coast and railhead, while the cavalry and Camel Corps covered the open desert flank.
An Australian regular officer, Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel, commanded the cavalry, and many regarded him as the greatest cavalryman of the modern era. Most of his troopers were Australian Light Horsemen or New Zealand Mounted Rifles. Used to the outdoor life, they were tough, aggressive, and natural hard riders. They rode large, hardy horses called Walers that were more at home in the demanding Middle Eastern climate than other breeds. Some of the men were veterans of the 2nd Boer War and Gallipoli. Visiting British officers were shocked by the informality of their discipline, but it was effective. Their level of personal initiative was also higher than in more traditionally minded cavalry regiments. They were trained to fight a fast-moving mounted infantry battle. They had an unwritten law that no man, wounded or not, was allowed to fall into Turkish hands, and they took tremendous risks to keep that promise. Chauvel’s command also included British yeomanry regiments that were more flexible in their approach than their Regular Army counterparts. Later, they were joined by Indian cavalry regiments used to soldiering in hard climates. Chauvel’s divisions formed the Desert Mounted Corps.
Fending off early Turkish advances
Kress von Kressenstein, de facto commander of the Turks’ Sinai sector, was fully aware of Murray’s intentions. On 3 August 1916 he launched a spoiling attack against the railhead, which had now reached Romani. His troops contained many Gallipoli veterans who pressed home their attack, only to be halted by the dogged defence of the 52nd (Lowland) Division. Chauvel’s Light Horsemen then closed in and counter-attacked from the southwest, forcing the enemy off a vital ridge. Having sustained the loss of 5000 killed or wounded and a further 4000 taken prisoner, Kressenstein had to disengage and withdraw. At a stroke, he lost half his entire force. The British loss came to 1130 killed or wounded.
Kressenstein abandoned El Arish without a fight. However, he retained a toehold on Egyptian soil at Magruntein, 40 kilometres (25 miles) beyond El Arish and just south of Rafah. Chauvel captured Magruntein after a day-long fight on 9 January 1917. The way was now open for a British invasion of Palestine. Prime Minister Lloyd George, an Easterner by instinct (see the section ‘Landing in the Dardanelles’, earlier in this chapter, for more on this), approved a plan for a limited offensive with the town of Gaza as its objective.
The First Battle of Gaza, 26 March 1917
Gaza sprawled across a low hill some two miles from the sea, a ridge to its east being dominated by the shrine of Ali el Muntar. South of the town were three more ridges, from east to west the Sheikh Abbas, the Burjabye, and the Es Sire. Elsewhere, almost impenetrable cactus hedges separated the numerous fig and olive orchards. The Turkish garrison consisted of just 3500 men and 20 guns.
Murray waited until his railhead had caught up with him, then launched his attack at dawn on 26 March, shielded by a dense sea mist. The infantry of the 53rd (Welsh) and 54th (East Anglian) Divisions advanced on the left, while the ANZACs swung round the eastern end of Sheikh Abbas to take Ali el Muntar ridge. Throughout the day Turks put up a determined resistance. They conducted a determined counter-attack against the ANZACs, but this came to grief after bayonets were crossed in savage hand-to-hand fighting.
By dusk the Welshmen of the 53rd Division had joined the ANZACs on Ali el Muntar and were looking down into the defenceless streets of Gaza.
Incredibly, Murray ordered a general withdrawal. The troops queried the order, but they had to obey. The instruction originated in a headquarters that was 24 kilometres (15 miles) behind the fighting, where the commanders of the two infantry divisions decided that if the troops had not physically captured Gaza by sunset, they should pull out to prevent them being trapped between the garrison and the reinforcements that Kressenstein was bringing up. As if one blunder wasn’t enough, another compounded it. At about the same time as the withdrawal order was issued, radio operators in Cairo intercepted a transmission from the German commandant of Gaza to Kressenstein. The transmission made clear that the Turkish situation was desperate and that if the British continued to attack the sender would have to ask for terms. Thanks to what amounts to criminal negligence, the radio operators did not relay the message to the front until midnight, and by then the damage was done. The Turks could hardly believe their luck and followed up the withdrawal next day, pushing the British line further away from Gaza.
British losses in the First Battle of Gaza came to 523 killed, 2932 wounded, and 412 missing. The Turks lost 301 killed, 1085 wounded, and 1061 missing. Not wishing to report failure, Murray submitted a despatch claiming a partial success that just fell short of a complete disaster for the enemy, whose casualties he wildly exaggerated. He received messages of congratulation from the King and Lloyd George.
The Second Battle of Gaza, 17 April 1917
Kressenstein promptly set about turning Gaza into a fortress, extending the defences inland to Beersheba. This left Murray with no alternative other than a frontal assault, although in theory the arrival of eight tanks made his task easier. The Second Battle of Gaza began on 17 April and involved direct assaults by the infantry of the 52nd (Lowland), 53rd (Welsh), and 54th (East Anglian) Divisions. They faced defences similar to those on the Western Front, if not so well developed. The tanks, distributed along the front in penny packets, were unable to strike a concentrated blow, although they did achieve some local successes. By the time the battle ran down two days later the British had dented the Turkish front but not broken it. British casualties included 509 killed, 4539 wounded, and 1576 missing. The Turks lost 402 killed, 1364 wounded, and 245 missing. This time Murray was unable to hide the truth and he was dismissed. If his vanity had temporarily got the better of his judgement, he deserved a great deal of credit for bringing his army across Sinai in good order.
Taking the Gaza Line
Murray’s replacement was General Sir Edmund Allenby, who had recently commanded the Third Army at Arras on the Western Front (see Chapter 17). Big, bluff, and energetic, his bellow when angry earned him the nickname of The Bull. The two reverses at Gaza had damaged the morale of his new command and he saw that his first task was to restore spirits. He immediately chased his General Headquarters Staff out of its comfortable quarters in Cairo and re-established it just behind the lines at Rafah, where the troops got used to seeing him.
Reinforcements had arrived from Salonika and Aden, bringing the strength of the British army up to three corps. Allenby accepted a suggestion that the capture of Beersheba would turn Kressenstein’s line. The plan was for the Desert Mounted Corps to carry out a long approach march through the desert and then launch an immediate attack from the south and southeast, while XX Corps brought further pressure to bear on the Turkish left. Simultaneously, on the Gaza sector, XXI Corps would mount a diversionary attack, supported by a heavy bombardment.
Allenby struck on 31 October. Despite achieving tactical surprise as they emerged from the desert, the ANZAC and Australian Mounted Divisions had to overcome stiff opposition from the enemy’s outposts. Nevertheless, the 4th Light Horse Brigade made a dashing charge, with the men holding their unsheathed bayonets as though they were sabres. The torrent of horsemen swept over two lines of trenches and on into Beersheba itself. This thunderbolt attack so startled the Turks that resistance collapsed and the British took the wells intact.
The Turkish Gaza Line had now been knocked off its hinges. XX Corps began to roll up the defenders and push them away to the northwest. Then something quite unexpected happened. On 1/2 November XXI Corps’ diversionary attack suddenly developed into the real thing. Allenby had insisted that all the tanks were under the command of the 54th Division, and they punched a hole clean through the Turkish defences. He reinforced their unexpected success and, unsettled by indirect pressure from the Beersheba direction, the Turks began pulling out. On 7 November XXI Corps hardly had to fight to take possession of Ali el Muntar ridge. Taken together, the actions that broke the Gaza-Beersheba Line became known as the Third Battle of Gaza. On 9 December the Turks abandoned Jerusalem. In military terms, the loss of the city meant little, but following the loss of the other Holy Cities of Mecca and Baghdad the damage to the morale of the Ottoman Empire was immense.
In total some 17,000 British casualties were sustained during Allenby’s 1917 offensive. The Turks, however, sustained 25,000 casualties and their morale was badly shaken. Kressenstein was dismissed. General Erich von Falkenhayn, the former Chief of German General Staff who had overrun Romania the previous year, took his place. When the Gaza Line disintegrated, he was commanding a force of 14 Turkish divisions and the 6000-strong German Asia Corps, known collectively as the Yilderim (Lighting) Army Group. This was earmarked for the recapture of Baghdad, but Falkenhayn considered that the situation in Palestine was potentially more dangerous and he redirected the group there. The creaking railway system failed to prevent the Germans reaching the front before Jerusalem fell, but the troops enabled Falkenhayn to create a new front north of the city, stretching from the sea to the Jordan valley. Torrential rain brought further operations to a standstill.
Battle of Megiddo, 19-21 September 1918
During the first half of 1918, Ludendorff’s offensives on the Western Front in Europe overshadowed everything else (refer to Chapter 18). Allenby had to send reinforcements to France to help hold the line, but apart from mounting two raids across the Jordan on Amman, neither of which produced lasting results, his men remained largely inactive. With the passing of the crisis on the Western Front, Chauvel’s cavalry corps was brought up to its maximum strength and enabled Allenby to plan an autumn offensive aimed at the complete destruction of the Turkish army group. In simple terms, the Desert Mounted Corps would exploit an infantry breakthrough on the coastal sector with a huge wheel to the east, severing the Turks’ lines of communication and taking the Jordan Valley as its objective. The function of the newly formed Royal Air Force’s Middle East Detachment, consisting of seven squadrons under Major General Geoffrey Salmond, was first to destroy the enemy’s telephone communications, and then strafe (bomb and machine gun) his columns behind the front until their will to fight had been broken.
Building up to Megiddo
As a prelude to the breakthrough, the British mounted an elaborate deception plan to convince the Turks that the blow would fall in the Jordan Valley. The ANZAC Mounted Division moved into the area and began simulating the presence of the whole Desert Mounted Corps with dummy gun parks, battery positions, horse lines, camps, and a buzz of activity. Simultaneously, the Arab army advancing north through the desert beyond the Jordan intensified its efforts against the Hejaz Railway (see the later sidebar ‘With Lawrence in Arabia’ for more on the Arab army’s role). Lieutenant General Sir P.W. Chetwode’s XX Corps held the right of Allenby’s line, responsible for 70 kilometres (45 miles) of front. To its left, concentrated on a 25-kilometre (15-mile) frontage, was Lieutenant General Sir Edward Bulfin’s XXI Corps. Immediately behind Bulfin was the Desert Mounted Corps (4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions and the Australian Mounted Division).
Across no-man’s land, squabbles had seen General Liman von Sanders, who had successfully defended the Gallipoli peninsula, replaced Falkenhayn as Turkish commander. The experience at Gallipoli made him a firm believer in holding ground at any price. His preparations suited static defence rather than mobile warfare. Furthermore, Allenby’s deception plan had convinced von Sanders that the British offensive would begin in the Jordan Valley and most of his strength concentrated in that area. Sanders’ command consisted of three armies, none of which was stronger than a weak corps:
● On the right Djevad Pasha’s Eighth Army of 10,000 men and 157 guns included most of the German Asia Corps and held a 30-kilometre (20-mile) front from the sea to Furqa.
● From Furqa to the Jordan Valley the front became the responsibility of Mustapha Kemal’s Seventh Army of 7000 men and 111 guns.
● Across the Jordan was Djemal Kucuk’s Fourth Army with 8000 men, including the German 146th Regiment, and 74 guns.
● In reserve were 3000 men and 30 guns. Sanders’ General Headquarters was in Nazareth, too far behind the front. It was connected to HQ Eighth Army at Tul Karm and HQ Seventh Army at Nablus by telephone lines than ran through a main switchboard at Afula.
Fighting the main action
So thorough had Allenby’s preparations been that the British had won the battle before it began. At 4.30 a.m. on 19 September the combined artillery of XXI and the Desert Mounted Corps began bombarding the forward trenches of the Turkish Eighth Army. At times, no fewer than 1000 shells per minute were exploding in the enemy positions. As the guns lifted their fire to targets in the rear, Bulfin’s infantry swamped the stunned defenders. Chauvel’s mounted columns began to pass through into the open country beyond, while the infantry divisions began wheeling eastwards to roll up what remained of Djevad’s army. As soon as it was light enough to bomb, the Royal Air Force eliminated the central telephone exchange at Afula. In Nazareth, Sanders was ignorant of what was happening. At noon he was able to talk to Kemal, who told him that Djevad had been routed and that as the right flank of his own Seventh Army had been turned, he also had to withdraw. The only other piece of intelligence Kemal offered was that Allenby’s cavalry was streaming forward.
For the Turks, the situation rapidly escalated from disastrous to catastrophic. The remnant of Djevad’s army was moving eastwards along the Tul Karm-Mus’udye road. As well as complicating Kemal’s withdrawal, this provided the Royal Air Force with a splendid series of targets that they strafed to destruction.
The night was one continuous movement for both sides. At 5.30 a.m. on 20 September the 5th Cavalry Divsison’s 13th Brigade galloped into Nazareth itself. Sanders’s staff put up a fierce but hopeless fight, while the general escaped to Tiberias by car. Elsewhere, the 4th Cavalry Division took Bet Shean (Beisan) and the Australian Mounted Division captured Jenin, both lying squarely across Kemal’s intended line of retreat. Kemal, already fighting a skilful rearguard action against the British infantry, realised that he was in danger of being surrounded and decided to retreat eastwards towards the Jordan Valley.
At first light on 21 September, the Royal Air Force discovered Kemal’s Seventh Army strung out along the Wadi Far’a. For four hours aircraft bombed and strafed the Turks’ panic-stricken column continuously.
The enemy became a dispersed mob of fugitives fleeing across the hills. When the British cavalry entered the valley it took possession of 90 guns, 50 lorries, 1000 carts, and much else besides. This was the first occasion in history when air power alone completed the destruction of an army.
Following up after the battle
In two days Allenby had destroyed two of his opponent’s three armies and taken 25,000 prisoners. The fugitives were streaming across the Jordan fords and up the road to Damascus. In vain, Sanders tried to rally on a line based on the confluence of the Yarmuk and Jordan rivers, but this broke apart when the 4th Light Horse Brigade took Samakh on 25 September.
Now isolated, Djemal Kucuk’s Fourth Armydid not have much longer to live.
A force under the command of Major General E.W.C. Chaytor, including the ANZAC Mounted Division, an Indian and a Jewish brigade, crossed the lower reaches of the Jordan and received the surrender of the Turkish corps at
Amman without the need to fire a shot. Lawrence’s Arabs (see the sidebar ‘With Lawrence in Arabia’) took Der’a on 27 September and Major General Sir George Barrow’s 4th Cavalry Division joined them there the next day. Both then advanced directly up the parallel railway and road to Damascus. The 5th Cavalry and Australian Mounted Divisions also converged on Damascus, having passed between the Sea of Galilee and Lake Hula.
They entered an undefended Damascus on 1 October. A few miles to the northwest of the city the Australian Mounted Division trapped what was left of the Fourth Army in the Barada Gorge and pounded it until wreckage and bodies blocked the road. Meanwhile, on the coast, the infantry took the ports of Haifa, Acre, and Beirut in rapid succession.
With Lawrence in Arabia
Thomas Edward Lawrence was born at Tremadoc, Wales, on 16 August 1888. His father was Sir Thomas Chapman, an Anglo-Irish baronet. Lawrence was educated at Oxford, where he developed his interest in archaeology and military history. In 1911 he joined an archaeological expedition led by Sir Flinders Petrie at Carchemish in Mesopotamia and spent his time exploring the area and learning to speak a number of Arabic dialects.
On the outbreak of the First World War, army intelligence employed Lawrence as a junior officer in Egypt. In 1916 Hussein ibn Ali, the Grand Sherif of Mecca, proclaimed Arab independence of Turkey. With the Arabian tribes supporting him, he occupied Mecca, captured Jeddah, and laid siege to Medina. Because of his knowledge of the Arabic language and culture, Lawrence was sent to meet the Emirs Feisal ibn Ali and Nuri es-Said, influential leaders in the Arab revolt, in Jeddah. Lawrence agreed to remain there as part of a team of British advisers. He quickly earned the trust of the Arabs and was given a small motorised force consisting of a Rolls-Royce armoured car battery, a Ford light car patrol armed with Lewis guns, two Talbot lorries mounting heavier weapons, and supporting transport. This force provided the mainstay of his operations, as many of the Arabs fought for plunder and vanished with their loot for a while after a successful raid. In July 1917 Lawrence played a prominent part in the Arab capture of the port of Aqaba. During the last year of the war, the Arab army operated on the right wing of the Allied advance through Palestine and Syria, and actually reached Damascus before the Allies. Lawrence, the supreme irregular, ended the war with the rank of colonel.
A convert to the cause of Arab nationalism, Lawrence felt that the various treaties the Allies signed at the Paris peace conference betrayed the promises he had made the Arabs on the Allies' behalf. In 1921 he served as special adviser on Arab affairs to Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary. Fate had thrust Lawrence to the forefront of affairs and that did not rest easily with his complex psyche. Seeking anonymity, he joined the Royal Air Force, but the press discovered his whereabouts and the air force discharged him. From 1923 until 1925 he served in the Tank Corps, again under an assumed name. In 1926 he joined the Royal Air Force again, spending two years on the North West Frontier of India. In March 1935 he left the air force and retired to his home in Dorset. He died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident later that year.
Allenby decided to continue the pursuit to the north, encountering only scattered resistance. British armoured cars reached Aleppo on 26 October. Three days later they took Muslimie Junction, through which passed the Turks’ railway lifeline to the Mesopotamian Front. On 31 October Turkey requested an armistice, which the British granted. Since the beginning of the Battle of Megiddo, Allenby had destroyed three Turkish armies, advanced 560 kilometres (350 miles), and captured 76,000 prisoners, 360 guns, and 89 locomotives. No figures exist for the numbers of the enemy killed or wounded. The cost to his troops was 782 killed, 4179 wounded, and 382 missing. Megiddo was the crowning - and last - achievement of the British cavalry.
Megiddo should be remembered as the first time that all the elements of what became known as the Blitzkrieg technique (see Chapter 20 for more on this) came together. The fact that the battle employed horsed cavalry rather than tanks is not significant, the method of achieving the desired result was what counted. Blitzkrieg warfare features prominently in Part VI.
Engaging Enemies World Wide
As part of the overall Allied effort in the First World War, smaller numbers of British troops served in Italy and at Salonika in the Balkans. British and Empire troops also captured most of Germany’s colonies during the early months of the war. In the Pacific these included part of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville and Buka in the Solomon Islands, Samoa, and the Caroline, Pelew, Marshall, and Marianne Islands. The Japanese, with British assistance, took the German Treaty Port and naval base of Tsingtao on the coast of China. In Africa the German colonies included Togoland, the Cameroons, South West Africa, and East Africa (becoming Tanganyika under British rule, now Tanzania).
Only in East Africa did the war run its full course. There, the German commander, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, led British, South African, and Portuguese troops a merry dance for years in the bush without their being able to pin him down. A master of improvisation, he salvaged the guns of the German cruiser Konigsberg, which British naval gunfire had sunk in the Rufuji river, fitted them with travelling carriages, and used them as heavy artillery. Lettow-Vorbeck was still at large when Germany requested an armistice and the German command had to order him to surrender, which he did on 25 November 1918.