THE TIMELY BOMB
This is not the place, even if it were now possible, to describe in detail the brilliant campaign in which General Maude retrieved previous errors and disasters, and struck a blow at German aggression in the east from which, it is to be hoped, it will never recover. A bare outline will suffice to bridge the gap between Burnet's last day on the island, and the day, three months later, when, fully recovered from his wound, he made another solitary entry into Bagdad.
On the night of December 13 the great advance, the climax of months of the most careful preparation, began. General Maude, by a surprise attack, seized a point on the Hai stream some seven miles south of Kut, and threw his mixed force of cavalry and infantry northward towards the enemy's formidable entrenched position round that town. About a week later, his airmen, who had done invaluable work in scouting and in raiding the enemy's camps, heavily bombed his ammunition dumps higher up the river. While one of his corps, under General Cobbe, was making deceptive demonstrations against the fortifications at Sanna-i-Yat, on the north bank of the Tigris, another, under General Marshall, steadily pressed the Turks back towards the south bank; and parties of cavalry harassed their communications between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
For three weeks more the enemy maintained an obstinate resistance to General Marshall's pressure; then they were compelled to abandon all their positions south of the river, and fell back beyond Kut. It was not until February 22 that General Cobbe's force captured the first two lines of trenches at Sanna-i-Yat. On that night also British and Indian troops, after heroic efforts, forced the passage of the river at Shumran, some ten miles upstream, and next day the fortifications which had defied all the attacks of the troops who attempted to relieve General Townshend were in British hands. The immediate result was the fall of the town which had been the scene of almost the greatest surrender in British history.
There was no relaxation in the forward movement. While cavalry and airmen chased the fleeing enemy on and over the land, gunboats harried them from the river. Here and there they made attempts to stand, but lost so heavily, especially in guns and prisoners, that their flight degenerated into a stampede. Within less than a week they had been hunted half-way to Bagdad. Then the rapidity of the pursuit necessitated a halt, in order that supplies might be brought up and the extended lines of communication secured. This inevitable halt prevented General Maude from destroying the Turks as a military force, and enabled them to restore some semblance of order.
The advance was resumed on March 5, after only a week's delay. The Turks had had time to throw up entrenchments in more than one well-selected position, and here they contested the ground with the stubbornness for which they are famed. At the Diala river, twenty miles below Bagdad, they were massed in great strength, and fought with courage and tenacity to prevent the British troops from crossing. The story of the forcing of the passage, after repeated failures and terrible losses, by the Lancashire and Wiltshire regiments, is one of the most heroic in our annals.
When the river was crossed, the enemy lost heart, and withdrew towards Bagdad. On March 11 General Cobbe occupied the railway station on the right bank of the Tigris, and General Marshall flung his advanced troops into the outskirts on the left bank. Without parade or the insolence of victors the British troops marched into the city, between crowds of inhabitants, a mixed population with elements from almost every race known in the East, shouting, dancing and clapping their hands. For the first time in history the city of Haroun al Raschid welcomed a Western conqueror.
A few hours before this historic event, Firouz Ali, the barber of Bagdad, came within an ace of losing his life.
When it became clear that the city must soon fall to the victorious British forces, the Turkish soldiery, with a licence which their German masters could hardly have exceeded, had begun to plunder the inhabitants, among whom they were always foreigners and the agents of a corrupt despotism. They stripped the houses of everything valuable that they could carry away, and with threats, blows and actual murder extorted huge sums of money from the wealthier citizens. Having thus provided themselves, they crowded into the last outward-bound trains, and left the city to its fate.
Their departure was the signal for all the ruffians of the place to sally out of their haunts and loot the defenceless citizens. Checked by no authority, restrained by no scruples, they pillaged from midnight till dawn, gutting houses and shops, sparing none who resisted them, and even wrenching away the beds of the wounded in the Turkish hospital from under them.