'Mesopotamia Commission. Report of the Commission Appointed by Act of Parliament to Enquire into the Operations of War in Mesopotamia, together with a Special Report by Commander J Wedgwood, DSO, MP, and Appendices. London: HMSO, 1917.' [‎49v] (98/248)

PART XL—CAUSES CONTRIBUTING TO THE ERRORS OF JUDGMENT
AND SHORTCOMINGS OF RESPONSIBLE AUTHORITIES.
A. Division of Responsibility for Campaign.
Campaign in Mesopotamia— “No Man’s Child.”
1. In the story of the military successes and reverses of this campaign, there con
stantly crops up almost from the day of the landing of the force, evidence of shortage
of transport of all kinds, of the antiquated equipment of the troops, of grave deficiencies
in medical personnel and material, occasional shortage of rations at the front, and a great,
if not total, lack of comforts. To use a current expression, the force from the first was
“ ill-found ” to meet the privations and hardships inseparable from campaigning in
Mesopotamia, and as its numbers increased bad went to worse. General Gorringe graphi
cally gave expression to the feeling which he considered pervaded the force, when he said :
“ It was believed to be a side-show and ‘ no man’s child.’ ” Though these colloquialisms
undoubtedly err on the side of exaggeration, it is impossible to deny that there was some
foundation for them. Indeed, in a sense such haphazard expressions go right to the root
of the causes of the failures and reverses, as will become apparent when we investigate
why this expedition did not receive from either of the great military supervising staffs in
London or Simla that care and attention, which were necessary to surmount the exceptional
difficulties of climate and country which it had to encounter.
2. When the war broke out in 1914, there were in the British Empire two great
military administrative organisations—one in England, the other in India, at Simla. In
our self-governing Dominions such as Canada, Australasia, New Zealand and South Africa
there were self-supporting local forces under the control of their respective Governments.
But the War Office in London and the military departments at Simla were the only com
plete military organisations equipped for the planning, despatch, control and supply of
expeditions beyond their respective territories over the sea. As a preparation for such
operations, the Intelligence Department of each of these organisations had assigned to it
certain territories within and’concerning which it had to collect and collate topographical
and other information during times of peace, the assumption clearly being that the areas
so defined for purposes of information would, in the event of their becoming theatres for
warlike operations, be under the control of the organisation which had previously collected
the information.
3. Under this arrangement, Asia was divided between the Imperial and Indian War
Intelligence Departments. It is inadvisable to give the details of this delimitation ; it
will be sufficient for our immediate purpose to state that a line was drawn through Arabia
from Akaba to Basra, all north of that line belonging to Whitehall, all south to Simla.
Basra was thus given to Indip, Mesopotamia to Great Britain—a somewhat confused
division of responsibility, inasmuch as Basra must inevitably become the base of any
operations in Mesopotamia from the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . The collection of information relative
to Persia fell within the duty of the Indian Intelligence Department, and the whole of
the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. is patrolled by war vessels, which are under the control and policy of
the Indian Government. Mesopotamia, being at the head of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , was not
looked upon by the War Office as an area requiring their special attention, as it was within
the radius of action of India, though outside their sphere of intelligence. The Simla Intelli
gence Department had not before 1914 prepared schemes for military operations north of
Basra. The likelihood of a war with Turkey in alliance with Germany did not, previous
to that date, seem to India to be a reasonable probability. It was also asserted by Sir
Beauchamp Duff that, in order to prevent overlapping, there was an understanding that
the Whitehall Intelligence Department would take Mesopotamia in hand, and that they
deprecated the Indian Authorities preparing plans for a campaign in that country. The
information which Whitehall had collected about the country was, however, sent to
India and Mesopotamia.
4. In addition to these two Military Organisations there is a Military Department
at the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. under the authority of the Secretary of State for India, and with whose
advice he controls and decides the general military policy of India, but this department is
not organised for the purpose of directly managing a campaign. It was, however, through
the instrumentality of this Department that the Mesopotamian campaign was started.
5. At the beginning of the war, from an Intelligence and General Staff point of view,
Mesopotamia was “ no man’s child,” or rather, was the foster-child of both Simla and
Whitehall, the acknowledged child of neither. The War Office had its own gigantic task