pute a revolta
tratans to rise a
au of Europe.
ed thousand Rus
Chapter 9
ble in 191
90
southern Iraq, where floods, swamps, and heat impeded their advance. And
finally, local Arabs resented both the Ottomans and the British, and engaged
shed significan
marian prepara
th December
ins on the Otta
the most of then
happened, the British general in charge of the Indian army in Mesopotamia,
The Ottoman
dies of retaking
cities of topogra
menan leadership
several million p
nithe Oitoman si
ir Otoman Ara
sem. In any cas
in sniping and ambushes against both sides.
Nevertheless, the capture of Amara and Nasiriya and the securing of the
oil fields at Ahwaz represented successes for the British at a time when the
Gallipoli campaign was bogging down. Had the British stopped there, they
would have been overextended and subject to a Turkish counterattack. As it
Sir John Nixon, with the support of the British government, decided to con
tinue moving up the Tigris River toward Baghdad. His subordinate, Major
General Charles Townshend, led four brigades up the river in November
1915. At Ctesiphon, just south of Baghdad, Townshend’s Indian force en-
countered a larger Turkish force, which they fought to a standstill. With
many of his officers and troops wounded and sick, Townshend withdrew
south to the town of Kut, which he fortified in preparation for a siege.
Townshend had fought before in such a situation. In 1895, as a junior
officer, he successfully commanded Indian troops who were besieged at
Chitral on India's Northwest Frontier. Yet Kut was different. Townshend
hoped to be relieved by Indian units to the south, even though he knew that
these were outnumbered. At Kut, Townshend overestimated his food supply.
Indian troops were unwilling to contemplate eating cattle and horses, which
would have violated religious scruples. The Ottoman force was led by pro-
fessional officers, including both Turks and Germans, who engineered excel-
lent positions in order to prevent a breakout or an attack from the outside.
And the environment around Kut favored the attackers: winter rains turned
the banks of the river into a sea of mud, making it difficult for armies to
move. Townshend and his troops began to starve. On April 29, 1916, Town-
shend surrendered his force of thirteen thousand. This was the worst defeat
for the British Empire since 1781, when Washington defeated Cornwallis at
Yorktown. Townshend himself was treated well in captivity, living in a villa
near Istanbul, but most of his soldiers were killed in forced marches that the
Ottomans required them to make on their way to prison. Ottoman and Ger-
wine in the Cau
a soldiers began
the loting
, rid
cament ordered
Sra
. Armenia
led on them
those who sur
chey were
man victories in the Middle East and the propaganda that went with them did
not persuade many Indians to rebel against the British Empire
, even as the
empire's prestige suffered. And at least the oil remained secure.
THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
CLIC ATT
soldiers
East. In the Ottoman territory of Iraq, then still called Mesopotamia, the
Ottomans inflicted what was, in some ways, a worse defeat on the British.
away.
nously, de
EMPIRES AT WAR IN IRAQ
onnet.
The British had two reasons for being interested in Iraq. In the years before
the war, the British navy, led by Winston Churchill, began to convert its
battleships from coal to oil. Oil-powered engines were capable of greater
speeds, and speed, as we have seen, was a principal goal of the British
navy-in designing battle cruisers, the admirals had even been willing to
sacrifice armor for speed. There was another sacrifice involved in the switch
from coal to oil: plenty of coal was produced in Britain itself, while oil
supplies had to come from sources overseas. Depending on oil from overseas
ran the risk of it being cut off by hostile powers. The large oil fields of the
day lay in the United States, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the
region around the Caspian Sea. It would be difficult for the British to secure
une
Kars
October 30, 1918
CASPIAN
SEA
***
Trebizond
Sarikamish
ARMENIA
AZERBAIJAN
une 8
Rakas
Z-
Bitlis
OTTOMAN
EMPIRE
6101
Front Line
August 1916
120
Anglo-
severe
Front Line
January 1915
& Jeu
Aleppo
Front Line
August 1916
Front Line
October 30, 1918
A The
& ladia's
Muslims
hardc
MESOPOTAMIA
Damascus
Front Line
March 1917
Baghdad
PERSIA
*********
Ctesiphon
The ca
Front Line
January 1918
Amman
PALESTINE
Jerusalem
Front Line
August 1916
te Otton
candles
Beersheba
Front Line
March 1917
Basra
Front Line
January 1915
abot na
dar lea
Aqaba
strength
Front Line
October 1914
Conc
ARABIA
arsye
Okorna
mured
0
100 200 300 km
EGYPT
RED
SEA
the tow
bat ra
The Middle East, 1914-1918
Whe
access to these sources. Oil exploration had only just begun in the Persian
Gulf during the years before the war. The oil fields on the southern, Arab
side of the gulf were not yet discovered, but it was then at least becoming
clear that there was abundant oil on the northern shores, in Persia (Iran).
The
War in the Middle East, 1914-1916
89
ZERBAIJAN
which had obtained a concession from the weak Persian government. The
Persian oil was starting to be exploited by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company,
Persian government was so weak, in fact, that in 1907 Russia declared a
southwest. The British protectorate was managed by colonial officials from
protectorate over northern Persia and Britain declared a protectorate over the
British India, who supported the development of Anglo-Persian's large refin-
eries on the offshore island of Abadan. When Churchill began to build oil-
burning battleships, he took steps to secure this oil supply for Britain. In
1913, Churchill persuaded the British parliament to acquire a majority share
in Anglo-Persian. When the war broke out, Churchill was keen for the Indian
government to take steps to secure the oil supply from Ottoman attack.
Concerns about oil were not the only motive for the British invasion of
January
romane
Aug. 19
the war, a power that was under threat in the most important British colony,
India. The Indian government had special concerns. A significant proportion
of India's population was Muslim and disinclined to fight against fellow
Muslims in the Ottoman Empire. To complicate the picture further, the fig-
urehead Ottoman sultan, Mehmet V, was the caliph—the successor of Mo-
hammed and leader of all Muslims. When the Ottoman Empire joined the
Central Powers and went to war against the Allies, Mehmet V called for all
Muslims in British, French, and Russian territory to rise in a holy war, or
Baghdad
Cohor
jihad, against their rulers.
16
Front Line
January 1915
The call for a jihad failed, but British administrators were conscious of
the need to maintain British prestige when it came to the war effort against
the Ottomans. British defeats would not only play into the hands of propa-
gandists from the Central Powers. In prewar India, there had been a rising
tide of nationalism. Few Indians called for independence yet, but many In-
dian leaders hoped for greater self-government. Their hand would be
strengthened by British defeats as well as by pleas for help from India.
Concerns about prestige, coupled with the desire to secure an oil supply,
persuaded the British cabinet to request that India send troops to attack the
Ottomans in Iraq. In the fall of 1914, troops of the Sixth Indian Division
secured southern Iraq, driving Ottoman forces out of the port of Basra and
the town of Qurna, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow together. They
also secured the oil fields in Ahwaz, Persia, the source of oil for a pipeline
that ran to Abadan, near the gulf. Reinforced by the Indian Twelfth Division
in the early months of 1915, British forces in Iraq rose to nearly thirty
thousand to form an army that had significant manpower but that lacked
equipment and medical supplies
. British officers led Indian soldiers in suc-
100 200 200
st begun in the per
on the southern
cessful campaigns to take Amara, up the Tigris River, in June 1915, and to
take Nasiriya, up the Euphrates River, in July. In doing so, the Indian army
not only had to overcome Ottoman defenders who built fortifications along
the rivers. They also had to find their way across the hostile landscape of
then at lave
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