In May, 1917, the 7th Division tried to put together, for the Press, a connected account of their campaigning since Maude's offensive began. After various people, well qualified to do the work, had refused, it was devolved on me, on the simple grounds that a padre, as is well known, has only one day of work a week. The notion fell through. The authorities declined flatly to allow any reference to units by name, and no one took any more interest in a task so useless and soulless. But I had collected so much information from different units that I determined some day to try to put the story together. I have now selected two campaigns, those for railhead and for Tekrit, and made a straightforward narrative. From a multitude of such narratives the historian will build up his work hereafter.

An article by General Wauchope appeared in Blackwood's, 'The Battle that won Samarrah.' This article not only stressed the fact that the Black Watch were first in Baghdad and Samarra—an accident; they were the freshest unit on each occasion, while other units were exhausted from fighting just finished—but dismissed the second day of 'the battle that won Samarra' with one long paragraph, from which the reader could get no other meaning except the one that this day also was won by the same units as did the fighting of the 21st. This was a handling of fact which appealed neither to the Black Watch, whose achievements need no aid of embellishment from imagination, nor to the Leicestershires, who were made to appear spectators through the savage fighting of two days. If the reader turns to the chapter in this book entitled 'The Battle for Samarra,' he will learn what actually happened on April 22, 1917. The only other reference in print, that I know of, to the fighting for Samarra is the chapter in Mr. Candler's book. This, he tells us, was largely taken over by him from a journalist who visited our battlefields during the lull of summer. He showed the account to officers of my division, myself among them, and they added a few notes. But the chapter remained bare and comparatively uninteresting beside the accounts of actions which Mr. Candler had witnessed.

For this book, then, my materials have been: First, my own experience of events quorum ego pars minima. Next, my own note-books, carefully kept over a long period in Mesopotamia and Palestine, a period from which these two campaigns of Samarra and Tekrit have been selected. Thirdly, I saw regimental war-diaries and talked with brigade and regimental officers. Most of all, from the Leicestershires I gained information. It is rarely any use to question men about an action; even if they speak freely, they say little which is of value on the printed page. One may live with a regimental mess for months, running into years, as I did with the Leicestershires' subalterns, and hear little that is illuminating, till some electric spark may start a fire of living reminiscence. But from many of my comrades, at one time and another, I have picked up a fact. I am especially indebted to Captain J.O.C. Hasted, D.S.O., for permission to use his lecture on the Samarra battle. I could have used this lecture still more with great gain; but I did not wish to impair its interest in itself, as it should be published. From Captain F.J. Diggins, M.C., I gained a first-hand account of the capture of the Turkish guns. And Major Kenneth Mason, M.C., helped me with information in the Tekrit fighting. My brother, Lieutenant A.R. Thompson, drew the maps.

In conclusion, though the Mesopotamian War was of minor importance beside the fighting in Western Europe, for the chronicler it has its own advantages. If our fighting was on a smaller scale, we saw it more clearly. The 7th Division, as I have said, usually had a campaign, with its battles, to themselves. We were not a fractional part of an eruption along many hundreds of miles; we were our own little volcano. And it was the opinion of many of us that on no front was there such comradeship; yet many had come from France, and two divisions afterwards saw service on the Palestine front. Nor can any front have had so many grim jokes as those with which we kept ourselves sane through the long-drawn failure before Kut and the dragging months which followed.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
[INTRODUCTION]15
I.[BELED]21
II.[HARBE]48
III.[THE FIRST BATTLE OF ISTABULAT]59
IV.[THE BATTLE FOR SAMARRA]70
V.[SUMMER AND WAITING]104
VI.[HUWESLET; OR, 'THE BATTLE OF JUBER ISLAND']120
VII.[DAUR]124
VIII.[AUJEH]131
IX.[TEKRIT]135
X.[DOWN TO BUSRA]145