III. Pursuit to Baghdad
On the evening of the 24th February there were clear indications that the enemy was in full retreat and that Marshall had been fighting a strong and well-posted rear guard. The next few days were strenuous and energetic ones, but they were triumphant to an extraordinary degree. Since March, 1915, the Turkish enemy in Mesopotamia had proved a stubborn and a dogged foe. Till now he had never been badly beaten and he had scored, to his credit, the capture of a British Field Force at Kut. At last, however, he was on the run; and Baghdad, after Constantinople, the principal city of his empire, as well as the main centre of his Asiatic operations, had lost its defensive positions—so patiently perfected and prepared, and now lay open to the advance of the British army. But for hundreds of years there have been few better fighting men than the Turkish soldier, and even now he proved ready to see the thing out to a finish. He took up a strong position in some nullahs eight miles from Shumran, and it took us severe fighting on the 25th, in which, however, the Buffs did not take part, to gain a footing in his line; but after that his retreat was rapid. On the 26th one column followed the river while another, in which our battalion was, made a forced march over the arid plain of from eighteen to twenty miles to intercept him while the naval flotilla pushed up stream; the Turkish vessels struggling to escape, by no means wholly with success.
All movements to intercept the retreat were too late, however: the enemy had gone, leaving guns and all sorts of impedimenta behind him; and he streamed through Aziziya in confusion, shelled by gunboats and harassed by cavalry. Our pursuit was almost too rapid, the reason being that there was at one time hope of huge captures of fugitives. These, however, proved too quick for us, and about the 1st March it was found necessary to halt at Aziziya because the Field Force had outstripped their supplies. On that day the Buffs had no rations and had to obtain leave to consume the emergency one which everybody carries, but which is never opened except by high permission and in extreme cases.
On the 2nd March the regiment obtained some Turkish flour and a few sheep, late in the evening, but the first supply ship arrived late that night. Cobbe and his force had been following in Marshall’s footsteps and found on their way immense quantities of rifles, vehicles, stores, equipment and so on, which the enemy had abandoned in his flight.
On the 5th March, things being now a little more in order, Marshall marched to Zeur and the Buffs marched with him, in a terrible dust storm and over a network of nullahs. On the 6th, the dust still continuing, a position was found to have been carefully prepared by the enemy at Ctesiphon, but it was unoccupied and the men pushed on to Bustan: a terrible day’s march, particularly when the weather was taken into consideration; but fatigue and exhaustion were treated with the light-hearted contempt of triumphant conquerors, who knew that the object striven for so long was now within their grasp.
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ARCH AT CTESIPHON
On the 8th March our advance guard came in contact with the enemy on Dialah river, eight miles below Baghdad, where the country was as flat and afforded as little cover as a billiard table. At first it was thought that the river bank had been abandoned, but the first pontoon that was launched was riddled with bullets from rifle and machine guns, and it was found that the crossing must be made with skill and care. A small party ferried across the Tigris to bring the Turks under enfilade fire, and a lodgment was made on the far bank of the Dialah by about seventy men of the Loyal North Lancashires, who formed a post there and held it alone for twenty-two hours, when they were followed up, after the river had been bridged. It was now ascertained that on the other bank of the Tigris the enemy had taken up a position at a place called Shawa Khan to cover Baghdad from the south and south-west; so, on the 8th March, a bridge was made near Bawi and a portion of Cobbe’s force (the 7th Indian Division) crossed to drive him away from it. Prior to the building of the bridge, however, and on the night of the 7th/8th March, the 35th Brigade, which had marched to Bawi and reached that place about noon, crossed the river by river-boat and barges. This proved a very difficult job as a landing-place could only be found a mile down-stream; the barges were very difficult to load, and the first-line transport carts had to be left behind to follow on the first opportunity. After getting across in two trips the brigade marched for the remainder of the night, with frequent and tiresome halts, for it was necessary to ramp the banks of the various nullahs which crossed the path. At length, on the 8th, however, more open ground was reached and the troops deployed and proceeded in two lines of platoons, the Dogras with their right on the Tigris directing the movement; then came the Buffs, with the Ghurkas in reserve. The march was kept up till 2 p.m., when a high-walled and extensive garden was reached and utilized for bivouacs.
At 11 a.m. next day the journey was continued in company with the 7th Division, which had also crossed the Tigris, and at noon our brigade was directed to fit in between this division and the river and advance with it and under the command of its general, the Buffs, nearest the stream, to act as directing unit; and the battalion commander directed A Company to hug the river and direct the whole movement. The enemy was found and he was strongly enough entrenched, but his resistance was somewhat feeble. His left was driven back and an attempted counter-attack defeated by A Company. The Turks vacated their position after dark and it was occupied by our patrols. Lieuts. Johnson and Holyman and four men were killed and thirty-nine men wounded on this day.
On the 10th March patrols, pushing forward, gained touch with the Turks once more, about a mile and a half further back than their original position. They were apparently in force, and so heavily shelled the 28th Brigade on the left of the 35th that it had to withdraw. The patrols of the latter brigade also met with strong opposition. Orders were issued for the Buffs to attack in the middle of the night, but these were cancelled, as the enemy was found to have vacated his position.
There was a good deal of jealous anxiety in the Mesopotamian Army at this time as to which unit was to first enter the city of Baghdad, and it seemed now that the honour must fall to some portion of Cobbe’s force on the right bank of the Tigris. It will be remembered that the 35th Brigade, of which the Buffs was the British or white unit, was only temporarily attached to the 7th Division of Cobbe’s Force. The divisional general on the morning of the 10th sent round a circular note to his units directing that the 7th Division should make sure that they should be first into the city. By some error on the part of the messenger (presumably) this note was also taken round to the Buffs, and Colonel Body promptly reminded his men that they, by their position closest to the river, were actually the nearest soldiers to Baghdad.
During the coming night the brigadier, being really much fatigued after a strenuous day or two, was urged to take his rest, and the Buffs, with their Indian comrades, pushing out patrols and following them up, somehow by daylight found themselves a couple of miles further up stream at the bend of the river opposite Garabah Island and only three miles from the city.
That day, the 11th March, the brigade advanced to the Iron Bridge in two lines of platoons in fours, the Buffs on the right, the 102nd Grenadiers on the left, with the 2/4th Ghurkas and 37th Dogras in rear. They met with no opposition, but just as the bridge was approached the 21st Brigade of the 7th Division appeared, coming up rapidly from the westward with a view to entering the place. Now “Let all things be done decently and in order,” as St. Paul says, and the whole party or whole of the parties were halted at the site of the Iron Bridge at 8.35 a.m. Then the welcome order came that the 35th Brigade was to enter the city first, the Buffs to lead the column. The crossing was no easy matter and was carried out by means of goofahs, which each contained about twenty men. The Turkish flag was hauled down from the citadel and the Union Jack[17] hoisted in its place by Captain G. K. Harrison of the Buffs at 9.40 a.m.
The city of Baghdad was found to be in a most extraordinary state, and fires were bursting out everywhere. There are no more determined and persistent looters in the world than Arabs, and these and the Kurds had seized the opportunity of their lives with avidity. The Turk for the moment was too busy to protect his property, and until the English entered the city anarchy prevailed and the thieves were in paradise, and so it came about that our reception approached the cordial by the regular inhabitants. Guards, prepared beforehand, were quickly mounted and a few looters shot. The flotilla anchored opposite the British residency. The Buffs marched through the city and bivouacked in the compound opposite the American consulate and things soon began to quiet down generally.
An immense amount of booty was found in Baghdad, though the enemy had been removing stores and so on for over a fortnight; still many guns, machine guns, rifles, ammunition, machinery and other things were left behind, and in the arsenal were found Townsend’s guns which had been taken at Kut, after having been rendered useless before the surrender.
The hoisting of the flag on the citadel would seem a natural point at which to leave for a while the history of the 5th Battalion and turn our attention to the doings of others, but Sir Stanley Maude ends his despatch on the campaign, which included the fall of the great Turkish city, three weeks later, on the 31st March, and, though the Buffs had no very stirring adventures during this period, it may be as well to finish the record for the present at the end of the month.
A junction with our Russian allies, who appeared to be advancing from the direction of Persia, caused Maude to stretch out a hand, so to speak, in that direction: that is, up the River Dialah. Another matter that required arranging was that the Tigris is protected from overflowing by means of banks (or “bunds,” as they are called), and if the enemy cut these up stream of the city disastrous floods would result. Another river, the Shatt el Adhaim, flows into the Tigris above Baghdad and runs roughly parallel to the Dialah, which enters the Tigris below the city, and on this river the enemy made attempts at a stand. Altogether during March there was fighting on these rivers and some gallant work was done, notably by the Manchesters on the 25th. Taking it all round, however, further opposition on the enemy’s part was but feeble. The most notable event of this period was perhaps the occupation of Feluja on the Euphrates river on the 19th March, giving the English, as it did, the control of both the great rivers of Mesopotamia. The Buffs spent most of the latter end of March in camp at Hinaidi, just south of Baghdad, and in the careful preparation and excavations for a permanent camp to be occupied during the rapidly approaching hot season.
VICINITY OF KUT