It was a general surrender. Ahmed Bey, the Turkish commander, who had been on the Euphrates all through the campaign from the battle of Shaiba, March, 1915, came out and surrendered with his whole force.
The British captured 3,455 prisoners, thirteen guns, ten machine guns, 1,061 rifles, a quantity of ammunition, some railway material, two steam launches and a large quantity of miscellaneous engineering material, equipment, and military stores. When the British entered Ramadie they found that such Turkish forces as had not surrendered had hurriedly fled.
To the north and east of Bagdad the British forces, too, succeeded in advancing in the direction of the Persian border. In this undertaking they had for some time the cooperation of Russian troops still fighting in this region.
On August 19, 1917, British columns attacked the Turks near Shahroban on the left bank of the Dialah, about fifty miles northeast from Bagdad. The Turks made little resistance and retreated hastily to the Hamrin Hills, and British troops remained in possession of Shahroban.
In an action fought on October 20, 1917, the British occupied Deli Abbas, about ten miles northwest from Shahroban, and established themselves on the Jebel Hamrin range on the left bank of the river Dialah. The Turks retreated across the Dialah River in the vicinity of Kizil Robat, burning the bridge behind them, and continued to hold a position in the hills on the right bank of that river, north of Deli Abbas, which is on the Bagdad-Kifri road.
This position was attacked on the morning of December 3, 1917, by converging columns, one of which successfully bridged the Dialah near Kizil Robat, sixty miles northeast of Bagdad, on the road to Khanikin.
The Turks attempted to delay the British advance by flooding the area between the Nahrin and Dialah Rivers close to their junction, six miles east of Deli Abbas, but by the morning of December 4, 1917, British troops had driven back the Turks and were in possession of the Sakaltutan Pass, eleven miles north of Deli Abbas, and between the Dialah and the Nahrin, a northern tributary of the Dialah, flowing through the Jebel Hamrin, and crossed on the main road between Deli Abbas and Kifri at an elevation of 600 feet above sea level. Through the Sakaltutan Pass the road from Deli Abbas leads to the north to Kifri and Mosul.
A force of Russians, under the command of Colonel Bicharakoff, operated on the British right flank and rendered valuable assistance.
Immediately after the capture of the pass, the Turks were pursued as far as the village of Kara Tepe, thirteen miles north of the pass and about twenty-five miles north of Deli Abbas, through which the Turks were driven on December 5, 1917, after a sharp engagement. The pursuit was carried out over difficult country containing bogs and intersected by numerous watercourses.
On the morning of December 7, 1917, British aeroplanes bombed Tuz Kurmatli, on the Mosul road, thirty-five miles north of Kara Tepe, with good results. It was reported that the Turks set fire to the Kifri coal mines on December 5, 1917, and the British observed that fires were burning there on the following day.