On the 26th November 80 men of the regiment were reported unfit for further service at Aden, and reference to sick reports shows that on the 1st of that month there were no less than 93 of the battalion in hospital and 121 attending daily. The determination not to attack the enemy and his disinclination to come on resulted in comparative peace till the end of the year.
On the 8th January, 1916, however, the Turks appeared to be contemplating a movement against the Fadli country, and it was considered that British prestige seemed likely to suffer from our inaction. It was reckoned that about 700 of the enemy with 4 guns were at Subar, 1,000 with 8 guns at Waht and a small body at Lahej; so another reconnoitring column was arranged and sent out from Shekh Othman to threaten the enemy’s line Waht-Subar. The men carried two days’ supplies of all sorts, and were afterwards to be rationed from Shekh Othman. Our force took up a position at 5.30 a.m. and a covering line advanced, but hostile artillery opened upon it from the Subar direction, and at 10.30 compelled a rearward movement, and the party was finally withdrawn at 2.30 a.m. Later, the Turks themselves advanced about 1,000 strong with 2 machine guns, but this advance on their part was checked at about 500 yards from our position. Attempts were made by our small body of cavalry to take this hostile movement in flank and rear, but the close country impeded movement and the enemy’s artillery soon checked the horsemen. At 4.30 the Turks withdrew towards Subar. Their artillery had been well handled and had kept up a very persistent fire. The officer in command determined to return to Shekh Othman, being unable to carry out the programme and recognizing the impossibility of getting the upper hand of his enemy’s artillery. The retirement was faultlessly carried out.
A telegram from India arrived early in February ordering the battalion to proceed to Bareilly on relief by the 4th Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry from that place. The movement was duly carried out a few days later, and only some few men, who had been trained as gunners, remained behind until their places could be taken by newly made acting gunners from the new regiment. The 4th Battalion remained at Bareilly till July, 1918, and though as a complete unit it saw no more fighting, most of its men did so, for while at Bareilly it sent up detachments to the North-West Frontier, and several large drafts, about five hundred men in all, to the 5th Battalion in Mesopotamia.
ADEN
II. Mesopotamia
The war in Mesopotamia was quite a different one to any of the others, and perhaps resembled the operations of Lord Wolseley on the Nile in the early eighties more than any other in which England has been engaged. In fact, it was a river war and, until the siege of Kut-el-Amarah began, early in December, 1915, it had been a successful one.
A very brief sketch of the campaign, which ended in the surrounding of General Townsend’s force in Kut, is perhaps necessary in order properly to understand what followed: Sir John Nixon commanded an Anglo-Indian army in the land of Mesopotamia, which was, of course, a Turkish province. His headquarters were at the port of Basrah on the River Tigris, about sixty miles from the real mouth of the river. In the spring of 1915 the forces were much scattered: one brigade being at Ahwaz, eighty miles away on the right (to the eastward), and another brigade was at Qurnah (or Kurna), forty miles further up the river than Basrah. The enemy, which had been driven from Basrah because the English wanted the place, had collected mostly about Nasiriyah, one hundred miles away to the westward. This was a most important place from the Turkish point of view. It is on the Euphrates river, and from it runs a watercourse into the Tigris. It was from there that any attempt the enemy might make to recover what he had lost must start. About one hundred miles, as the crow flies, above Basrah and on the same river, stands Amarah, a place which, in 1915, was in Turkish hands; from the garrison of this town, early in 1915, had been detached a party of six battalions and ten guns down-stream as far as Qurnah, and this force was, of course, in contact with our brigade there.
Early in May General Gorringe, with the 12th Indian Division and a cavalry brigade, operated about Arwaz and, crossing the Kharkeh river with some difficulty, drove all the enemy in the eastern regions of the province in upon the garrison of Amarah. Meanwhile General Townsend with the 6th Indian Division advanced up the Tigris supported by the Naval flotilla, and, pursuing the Turkish detachment before him, entered Amarah practically unopposed, because General Gorringe’s operations had prevented the enemy from reinforcing his garrison. Amarah was entered on the 4th June, 1915. Immediately after the taking of this place arrangements were made for the capture of Nasiriyah, which was after serious opposition effected by General Gorringe on the 25th July. The defeat of Nur-ed-Din and the occupation of Kut-el-Amarah became the next objective as soon as Nasiriyah was secured, and the transfer of troops towards Amarah was begun the following day.
Kut is another one hundred miles higher up the Tigris than Amarah, without counting the bends, and in the summer the river is the only approach to it.