Loyalties

22–25 November 1915

Battle of Ctesiphon (1915)

CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST ADVANCE ON BAGHDAD . . page 79

The Shatt-al-Gharraf. Protection of Oil-fields. First battle of Kut. Decision to advance. Advance on Baghdad. Battle of Ctesiphon. Retreat from Ctesiphon.

THE FIRST ADVANCE ON BAGHDAD 1915

The Shatt-al-Gharraf. Protection of Oil-fields. First battle of Kut. Decision to advance. Advance on Baghdad. Battle of Ctesiphon. Retreat from Ctesiphon.

V.C., D.S.O.

Turkish reinforcements would be on the spot before ours. The India Office have been blamed for sending the news ‘privately’ to the Viceroy, and the latter has been blamed for not informing General Nixon. The criticism is beside the point: it is the business of the War Office to conduct war, and it was the recognized duty of the War Office to communicate whatever information they thought reliable to India for Sir John Nixon’s guidance. A few days before the battle of Ctesiphon, the War Office wired that 30,000 troops had left Bitlis, and that Von der Goltz 1 was on his way to Baghdad. General Nixon, however, refused to credit the news; military and strategical factors were, in truth, ignored and political considerations arising out of the position in Europe allowed to predominate. No doubts assailed the minds of the attacking troops themselves: victorious in successive fights, toughened by sun and wind, the British and Indian units full of mutual confidence, there was never any ground for General Towns- hend’s claim that ‘their tails were slightly down’, or that ‘they were looking over their shoulders’. We have the testimony of General Melliss and of other commanders that the morale of the whole force remained high to the last, and that flesh and blood could not have done more than was done by the rank and file.

V.C., D.S.O.

Expert military critics, reviewing the series of engagements that constituted the battle of Ctesiphon, have pointed out the absence of any general reserve, the lack of accurate information (on either side), and the fact that at no time was there adequate artillery support at any one spot, to which cause they ascribe the heavy casualties among our infantry. They point out that one-third of the distance was covered in the first 5 days 0/ the retreat, and the remainder in 2 J days—since touch had been lost with the enemy, thanks primarily to the reliance placed on necessarily imperfect aeroplane reconnaissance. It has further been remarked that, as in the battle of As Sinn, General Nixon, the Corps Commander, with his staff, was present with Townshend during the approach to and the battle of Ctesiphon—a very unsatisfactory state of affairs which was accentuated by the fact that General Head-quarters had under-estimated the strength of the enemy by 50 per cent., and rejected Townshend’s estimate of 20,000—now known to be accurate, though he put the figure at 10,000 in his Operation Orders. Such criticisms have their place in the literature of war, but must be weighed in the balance against the appalling difficulties in which the Commander was placed. Whilst, in the light of knowledge acquired after study of the ground and of Turkish records, Sir John Nixon might have done better, it is also clear that nothing would have enabled him to gain the victory. An undaunted soldier, grown grey in arms in the service of his country, his impetuosity in the face of the enemy in the darkest days of the war was his undoing. Yet no subsequent Commander in