The War in the Air, vol. 5

PREFACE

The reader will find, in the narrative dealing with the subsidiary campaigns, frequent mention of the exploits of individual pilots. He may perhaps think that there has been a change of scale, but he will realize that in the battles fought outside the main theatre of war single aeroplanes sometimes mattered greatly. His attention, as an example, might be directed to the story of the ac- tions leading to the siege of Kut. When Major-General C. V. F. Townshend was ready to fight the battle of Ctesiphon a pilot discovered the arrival of the Turkish 51st Division. He was alert to the importance of his dis- covery and made a careful study of all he saw, but when the reconnaissance had been completed a chance hit by a shell splinter put the engine in his aeroplane out of action and forced him to land within the Turkish lines. Although, as Mr. Arthur Balfour once said, when dis- cussing an Air Board memorandum, 'imaginary history is very easy to write and quite impossible to refute', it may be stated as unlikely that Major-General Townshend would have fought the battle of Ctesiphon if the aero- plane had returned with the news of the arrival of the

CHAPTER V. The Campaign in Mesopotamia,

Decision for an advance on Baghdad. Preparation. Arrival of aircraft reinforcements. Air reports about the Ctesiphon defences. Ready for the attack.

THE CAMPAIGN IN MESOPOTAMIA

From after darkness on the 28th of September, Major- General Townshend was without information about the progress of the main enveloping column until the morning of the 29th when an air observer brought back the news that the Turkish forces had, during the night, evacuated all their positions east of Kut and were in full retreat up the Tigris towards Baghdad. Kut was entered the same day and the Turks were pursued thence fifty miles up-river to Aziziya, which was reached by an advanced column of the 6th Division on the 3rd of October. The progress of the Turkish retreat was reported in some detail by the aeroplane and seaplane observers, who also discovered that the enemy halted with the apparent intention to make a stand at a prepared position astride the river at Ctesiphon. Major Reilly made a reconnaissance of this position on the 3rd of October and he reported that it was of a formidable kind, with six miles of entrenchments on the left bank of the river. By the 6th of October the aeroplane Flight, with its three serviceable aeroplanes, had moved to Aziziya. On this day the first reconnaissance of Baghdad was made in one of the Martinsydes by Captain H. A. Petre, who stated that he found the town nearly empty of troops.

THE CAMPAIGN IN MESOPOTAMIA

Until the middle of January 191 7, while consolidation of the positions on the Hai proceeded, there was little of importance to record. On the 24th of December an air reconnaissance of the whole of the Tigris as far as Baghdad was made and no massing of Turkish troops was disclosed; this was the first visit paid to Baghdad by a British aeroplane since the battle of Ctesiphon. On the 26th of December the weather broke, and for a fortnight there was steady rain which led to a rise of the Tigris and to the flooding of large tracts of country with the result that the maintenance of supplies became diflicult.

PREFACE

Again, the first battle of Gaza, the failure of which changed the aspect of the campaign in Palestine, was lost mainly because the German air observers gave an empha- tic warning to the Turkish command of the impending British attack. The military student who studies the dis- positions of the Turkish forces before changes were made as a result of the air reports may find it difficult to believe that the battle could have been lost if the original Turkish dispositions had been maintained. When the third battle of Gaza, prelude to the fall of Jerusalem, was fought, the Royal Flying Corps had local air superiority. The success of General Allenby's brilliant plan depended upon sur- prise. The British pilots had the equipment which enabled them to play their allotted part in the preliminary efforts by which surprise was achieved. One German aeroplane which, helped by patches of cloud, eluded the British patrolling aircraft and closely reconnoitred the British area just when the concentration for the battle had been completed, was shot down on its homeward journey, and the observer's report, of vital mihtary importance, never reached the enemy command. These instances are of a kind which may serve to show why it has been necessary to examine the campaigns in some detail.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

^ he Second Battle of Gaza . . . . p. 215 Sir Archibald Murray instructed to proceed to the capture of Jerusa- lem. Gaza defences strengthened. New attack on Gaza. An operation of siege warfare. Attack fails through insufficient artillery support.

XX TABLE OF CONTENTS

Seaplane co-operation in the Third Battle of Gaza. The City of Oxford in the Red Sea.

THE ADVANCE INTO PALESTINE

l!he First Battle of Gaza