Among the number of captives were sixteen officers. Several mountain guns were also taken. The British casualties were heavy, especially among the infantry.
The remainder of General Aylmer's force having advanced from Ali Gherbi, January 6, 1916, fought a simultaneous action on the left bank of the river while the action on the right bank just described was in progress.
Early in the afternoon of this day the British forces were subjected to heavy rifle and Maxim fire from the Turkish trenches 1,200 yards away. The hazy, dusty atmosphere made it difficult to see with any accuracy the enemy's defenses. Their numerous trenches were most carefully concealed. Toward evening the Turkish cavalry attempted an enveloping move against the British right, but coming under the fire of the British artillery, that move failed. Finding the resistance of the Turkish infantry too strong, the British troops abandoned any further offensive and intrenched in the positions they had won. Later in the evening the Turks suddenly evacuated their defenses and retired. A heavy rainfall hindered the British commander from pursuing, and a stop was made at Sheik Saad to enable him to get his wounded away. The Turks finding that General Aylmer did not pursue, fell back on Es Sinn, from which they had been ousted by General Townshend in September of the previous year. The Turkish version of the Battle of Sheik Saad estimated the British losses at 3,000.
On January 12, 1916, the Turks advanced from Es Sinn to the Wadi, a stream that flows into the Tigris about twenty-four miles from Kut-el-Amara. Here the British relieving force came in touch with the enemy on January 13, 1916, and a hotly contested struggle ensued that lasted all day long. The British force consisted of three divisions. One of these, occupying a position on the south bank of the Tigris, was being opposed by a column under General Kemball. On the northern bank General Aylmer's troops engaged two divisions in the neighborhood of the Wadi.
On January 14, 1916, the Turkish army began a general retreat and General Aylmer moved his headquarters and transport forward to the mouth of the Wadi. On the day following the whole of the Wadi position was captured by the British relieving force, and the Turkish rear guard again took up a position at Es Sinn. It was reported that German officers were with the Turkish force.
Further military operations against the Turks were delayed by storms of great violence that continued for about ten days. General Aylmer found it impossible to move his troops through the heavy mire, and not until January 21, 1916, could he advance and attack the Turks who after their retreat occupied a position near Felahie, about twenty-three miles from Kut-el-Amara. Here a brisk engagement was fought in the midst of torrents of rain that greatly hindered operations. The struggle was indecisive. Owing to the floods, General Aylmer could not attack on the following day, but took up a position about 1,300 yards from the enemy's trenches.
Mr. Edmund Candler, the well-known English writer, who was with the British troops operating on the Tigris, furnishes some striking details of the engagement. His picturesque description of what took place at this point in General Aylmer's advance to relieve the besieged army at the Kut, shows the desperate character of the Turkish resistance:
"The Turks were holding a strong position between the left bank of the Tigris and the Suweki Marsh, four miles out of our camp. It was a bottle-neck position, with a mile and a half of front: there was no getting around them, and the only way was to push through.
"We intrenched in front of them. On January 20, 1916, we bombarded them with all our guns and again on the morning of the 21st preparatory to a frontal attack.
"At dawn the rifle fire began, and the tap-tap-tap of the Maxims, steady and continuous, with vibrations like two men wrestling in an alternate grip, tightening and relaxing." It was not light enough for the gunners to see the registering marks, but at a quarter before eight in the morning the bombardment began. "The thunderous orchestra of the guns shook the earth and rent the skies. Columns of earth rose over the Turkish lines, and pillars of smoke, green and white and brown and yellow, and columns of water, where a stray shell—Turkish no doubt—plunged into the Tigris.