An abnormally heavy rain fell on the 16th which flooded everything. The river rose—the trenches in the picquet line along the river bank, which were the temporary home of the Buffs, were swamped—the country was half under water and it was impossible to clean up the battlefield. Our battalion being relieved from picquet on the 18th returned to camp at a place called Kala Haji Fahan and remained there till the 22nd, all this time being utilized by Marshall and his men in methodical preparations for the great crossing which was to be about the Shumran Bend whilst Cobbe, fifteen miles away, was assaulting the lines, in front of which he had been so long, and inducing the enemy to believe that there was the point of danger. On the 17th he gained some trenches, but had to withdraw, only to attack again on the 22nd, on which date the two first trenches were taken and made secure.
Meanwhile Marshall made several feints as if to cross the stream, particularly one opposite Kut, but the real point selected was the south end of the Shumran Bend and there three ferries were arranged, while the bridge was being made. The first ferry trip was a success, but subsequent journeys were pretty strongly opposed; nevertheless by 3 p.m. on the 22nd February three battalions were established across the river about a mile north of the site selected for the bridge, and at 4.30 the work was ready for use. The enemy had tried more than one counter-attack which failed, on account of the quickness and accuracy of our artillery. The Buffs crossed about 7 p.m. on the 23rd and bivouacked three hundred yards or so from the bank.
The enemy on the 24th made a very good fight to retain possession of, at any rate, some portion of the Shumran peninsula, in the northern corners of which exist quite a network of nullahs which, giving good cover and excellent concealment for machine guns, were utilized to their fullest extent. It took four or five hours to clear the peninsula and push back the Turk, but it was done. The Buffs were in support of the 67th Punjabis who were held up on the left. Together these battalions at last made some progress, but were stopped some three hundred yards in front of a nullah which was strongly held; the Gurkhas attacked on the Buffs’ right, but were also stopped, and an attempted flanking movement was of no avail. However, about 9 p.m. patrols which had gone out as soon as it was dark reported that the enemy had evacuated the place and the nullah was at once occupied. The Buffs’ casualties on this day were twelve men killed and Lieut. Howell and thirty-four wounded. Meanwhile cavalry, artillery and another division crossed the river, and Cobbe finished his task by capturing Sanna i Yat and clearing the bank of the main stream as far as Kut.
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.
Imperial War Museum