'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎197r] (398/862)

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
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This action by the Royal Navy, which was broken off at dusk, con
verted what had been an orderly retreat into a panic-stricken rout.
Next morning the scene of action was littered with dead and wounded
men and animals, weapons, wagons, and stores. Far up the river
straggled small parties of men exhausted, starving, and harassed by
marauding Arabs.
Close pursuit was impracticable for supply reasons, but by 6 March
the forward British troops reached Ctesiphon without opposition.
Two days later the Turks were attacked across the Diyala, the Tigris
was bridged, and their position on the right bank was captured.
Baghdad was taken at dawn of the nth. Before the end of March
British columns had pushed outwards to Falluja on the Euphrates,
to Baquba on the Diyala, and to Mushahida station on the railway
to Samarra. Early in April a Turkish counter-attack from Delli
Abbas on the Diyala front was met and defeated, the Turks being
driven behind the Jabal Hamrin, and on the 23rd, after two days’
fighting, the British occupied Samarra and drove the Turks north
wards up the Tigris to Tikrit. A last effort by the Turkish 13th Corps
to restore their fortunes by an advance from the Jabal Hamrin down
the Shatt al Adhaim was crushed at the end of the month, an action
which left the Turkish forces widely separated and Baghdad secure
at the beginning of the hot weather.
The Campaign of igiy-igiS
The capture of Baghdad was the first important success by the
Allies in the 1914-1918 war and had a resounding effect both on the
Arab world and in Persia and Afghanistan, where German propa
ganda suffered a severe setback. General Maude viewed his opera
tions as the centre of a co-ordinated attack converging on Turkey
from Egypt, Iraq, and the Caucasus, but the British reverse in
Palestine at Gaza in April and the effects of the Russian revolution,
which led the Russian rank and file in June to ‘down tools’ and go
home, shattered the prospect of further offensive for the time being
and threw on him the burden of protecting Persia.
Defence of Baghdad. The British campaign of the winter of 1917-
1918 was therefore primarily defensive in strategy, though it took the
form of a tactical offensive whenever Turkish forces came within
reach. There were three possible routes by which the Turks could
converge on Baghdad: the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the old Assyrian
route by Altun Kopru, Kirkuk, Kifri, and the Diyala. The last-
mentioned was the most promising because supplies were fairly