Naval Operations, vol. 3

25 September – 16 October 1915

Battle of Loos

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monitors was hit. The casualties were confined to the drifter Great Heart, which was blown up with the loss of her com- manding officer and seven men, and the auxiliary patrol yacht Sanda, which was acting with the Eastern drifters and was sunk by gunfire from Blankenberghe with the loss of her commander and twelve officers and men.^ In the evening the Eastern Squadron rejoined the Admiral at Dunkirk, to receive the news of the capture of Loos and the promise of our first successes in other parts of the front of attack.

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In good heart the naval demonstration was renewed next day, but only on Middelkerke and Raversyde. Ostend was considered out of the question, owing to the Tirpitz battery. Its range was so great that to attack it effectively the monitors would have to crawl in under its accurate fire for at least 8,000 yards, and with their low speed this would mean almost certain destruction before they could get even into extreme range. The only chance was to deal with it at night, and this was being arranged when the weather changed and nothing beyond some desultory firing at extreme range could be done for a week. It was not till October 2 that the weather mended. On that night the Admiral with four monitors steamed up the coast past Ostend under clouds of star shells from the enemy, which seemed to tell the anxiety ashore, and in the morning fifty rounds were spent on Zeebrugge to keep up the alarm. There the operation ended. Though the battle of Loos had not yet come to an end, the Admiral, feeling that he had exhausted the possibilities of a pretence of landing, reported that he could do no more to assist the army till an advance from Nieuport was intended, and that he proposed to devote his force to preparing for this eventuality, and to trying to destroy the heavy coast batteries. So the whole fleet was withdrawn to Dover, without the enemy having made any attempt to interfere with it by torpedo attack.

22–25 November 1915

Battle of Ctesiphon (1915)

PREFACE

The present volume deals with the events in Home Waters from the spring of 1915 to the Battle of Jutland. It is also concerned with the Dardanelles Campaign up to the final evacuation and the opening of the Salonica Expedition; with the campaign in Mesopotamia as far as the Battle of Ctesiphon, and with operations in minor theatres.

THE MESOPOTAMIA CAMPAIGN — JULY TO OCTOBER

It now consisted of the Shaitan and Comet with four steamers, in which were the General and a brigade. After four days' grounding and steaming they reached Aziziya, ninety miles above Kut, but only to find that the enemy were already securely established in a long-prepared position at Ctesiphon, thirty miles below Bagdad, and that all hope of destroying Nur-ud-Din's army was for the time at an end.^ True we had captured 1,700 prisoners and thirteen guns and inflicted heavy losses in men and material, and had the prestige of having broken a position deemed impregnable. At least it could be said that the vilayet of Basra had been finally cleared of the enemy, and the defensive objects of the expedition had been completely attained.

THE DOOM OF GALLIPOLI AND THE BATTLE OF CTESIPHON

THE DOOM OF GALLIPOLI AND THE BATTLE OF CTESIPHON

D.S.C.

attempt on which he was bent, but so difficult was the work of transport from the far-away base at Basra, with the river at its lowest, that it was not till nearly a month later that General Townshend was ready to strike. Meanwhile the Turks had been preparing a strong position athwart the river at Ctesiphon, about eighteen miles below Bagdad. It consisted of two lines of entrenchments extending on either bank of the river and well connected by a bridge of boats. By November 21 General Townshend had his whole force of four brigades and one cavalry brigade concentrated about five miles from the Turkish position by the main Bagdad road, but twice as far by the bend of the river of which the road formed the cord. The flotilla consisted of the new Yarrow gunboat Firefly (Lieutenant C. J. F. Eddis), the ~! old Comet (Lieutenant G. E. Harden), the two armed launches, ' Shaitan (Lieutenant A. C. Thursfield), and Sumana (Sub- Lieutenant Tudway), with four 4* 7-inch naval guns in horse- j boats towed by the armed stern-wheelers Shushan and 1 Messoudieh.^ Of these vessels Captain Nunn, having just I rejoined, took command on November 22, as General Towns- ' hend's attack was developing. It was on identical lines with that which had been so successful at Kut — that is, a turning attack on the enemy's left or landward flank, and with a minor holding attack along the river supported by the flotilla. But it was little the flotilla could do, for in the reach below the Turkish position the banks were too high for direct fire, and when at the first rush the army captured the advanced line of trenches and were advancing on the next line. Captain Nunn found it impossible to move forward into the reach above. He was held up by a battery on the right bank; on that side we had no troops to trouble it, and it was able to develop a fire which the frail gunboats could not face. Thus, when the Turks counter- attacked to recover the part of the line which the troops had penetrated, the flotilla could give no adequate assistance, and after a prolonged struggle General Townshend was com- pelled to withdraw to the first position, with the loss of nearly a third of his force.

24 October – 19 November 1917

Battle of Caporetto

MARMARA

At present, therefore, all hope of carrying through the original plan of the Dardanelles enterprise was gone. Even if we succeeded in breaking through to the Bosporus, Russia would not be able to join hands with us for crushing Turkey out of the hostile alliance. With the overpowering moral impression of the Austro-German advance, Bulgaria must be looked upon rather as a probable enemy than a possible ally. From Italy no help could come, as at one time we had hoped. Her first great effort against Austria was exhausted. By August 10 the fighting on the Isonzo, which had begun at the end of June, had come to an end, and although our Allies had established themselves on the river in enemy territory, the defensive front which the Austrians had taken up remained unbroken.^ To make matters worse, the relaxa- tion of the Italian pressure was marked by an Austro-German concentration on the Serbian frontier. We had therefore to face the prospect that at any time a third invasion of that unhappy country might begin, with Rumania in a position which made it difficult for her to move, and Bulgaria lurking in keen anticipation for the moment when she could safely play jackal to the Central Powers.

MARMARA

^ What the Italians call the first battle of the Isonzo began on June 29 and ended on July 7. The second battle was from July 18 to August 10. The third did not begin till October 18.

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joined the Entente, and as an inducement for her to do so we were offering her Cyprus. None of our conditions was acceptable to the French Government, and M. Millerand, the Minister for War, came over to London to try to arrange matters. The day after he left Paris (October 17) the situa- tion had grown distinctly worse. News arrived that the Bulgarians had cut the railway south of Uskub and that General Sarrail was advancing in order to restore communica- tions with the Serbians. To us the movement seemed rash in the extreme. Rumania had just definitely refused to move unless the Allies sent half a million men ; Italy was protesting she could give no help till her coming offensive against Austria on the Isonzo was delivered, and Greece could not be tempted from her attitude by any territorial concession. We therefore had no hesitation in informing General Mahon that he must not follow General Sarrail's lead without further instructions.^