The British Campaign in Mesopotamia.
The uniform flatness of the terrain in this region and entire absence of cover for the attacker, whether the movement be frontal or enveloping, was responsible for the heavy losses the British incurred in this engagement. Here there were no protecting villages, hedges, or banks. A swift, headlong rush that could be measured in seconds was impossible under the circumstances. At 2000 yards the British infantry came under rifle fire, and had no communication trenches to curtail the zone of fire. An armistice was concluded on January 21, 1916, for a few hours, to allow for the removal of the wounded and the burial of the dead. In forty-eight hours the Tigris had risen as high as seven feet in some places and the country around was under water, which effectually prevented all movements of troops by land.
General Townshend meanwhile, besieged at Kut-el-Amara, continued cheerfully to repel attacks and to await the arrival of the relieving force. He was well supplied with stores, and there was no fear of a famine. He described his troops at this time as being in the best of spirits. Evidently he was not in a position to be of any assistance to the relieving force, whose advance had been delayed by the storms. At the close of January, 1916, he reported that the enemy had evacuated their trenches on the land side of the Kut defenses, and had retired to a position about a mile away from the British intrenchments.
The floods of January, 1916, were a distinct benefit to General Townshend, for the Turks, intrenched in a loop of the Tigris, were driven out by the deluge and compelled to seek higher ground.
In the first days of February, 1916, Sir Percy Lake, who had succeeded Sir John Nixon to the chief command of the British forces in Mesopotamia, dispatched General Brooking from Nasariyeh with a column up the River Shatt-el-Har, a branch of the Tigris, to make a reconnaissance. On February 7, 1916, on his way back, General Brooking was attacked by hostile Arabs near Butaniyeh. He was also attacked by tribesmen who had been considered friendly to the British and who issued from villages along the route. There was some sharp fighting in which the losses were heavy on both sides. The British had 373 men killed or wounded, while the Arab dead numbered 636. On the 9th a small punitive expedition was sent against the treacherous tribesmen, and four Arab villages were destroyed. The incident offered another striking proof that no dependence could be placed on the faith of the Arabs.
General Aylmer finding, after his failure at Felahie, that his force was too weakened physically to attempt to break through to relieve the beleaguered division at the Kut, decided to intrench in the position then occupied by his troops and to await the reenforcements which were on the way.
On February 17-19, 1916, hostile aeroplanes dropped bombs on the Kut, without doing any damage, General Townshend reported. For two and a half months the British army had been bottled up in this river town, and the Turks had tried every means to dislodge them.
On February 22, 1916, British columns under General Aylmer advanced up the river on the right bank to Um-el-Arak, occupying a position which commanded the Turkish camp behind their trenches at El Henna, a marsh on the left bank. At daybreak the British guns opened a heavy bombardment on the enemy's camp across the Tigris, which at this point makes a sharp bend to the north. The Turks were evidently taken by surprise, for a lively stampede followed.