Action at Sahil

On 17 November 1914 Indian Expeditionary Force “D” of Lieutenant-General Arthur Barrett fought its first real battle in Mesopotamia. Two days earlier the 16th Brigade of General Walter Delamain had driven the Turks from Saihan. Now, with the troops Barrett had brought with him off the ships, the British attacked with their whole force. In the British chronology of the war the clash appears as an “action”, although it was much larger and bloodier than all the earlier fighting on the Shatt al-Arab.

The Turks had fallen back a few kilometres upriver from Saihan and dug in on a line about five kilometres long, between an old mud fort at Sahil and a mosque near the village of Zain. Their strength is estimated at about 3,500 soldiers with a dozen or so guns and roughly a thousand Arab tribal volunteers. Some studies give as many as 4,500 men.

Attack in the mud

The 18th Brigade of General Charles Fry attacked the northern part of the Turkish line, towards the mosque, and Delamain’s 16th Brigade the fort in the south. They were supported by field artillery and by the fire of the sloops HMS Espiegle and HMS Odin from the river. Downpours that passed over the battlefield turned the desert into a sea of mud. The infantry advanced slowly across open ground under heavy rifle fire. The Turks, however, shot inaccurately, and when the British guns found the range of the trenches, the defence began to waver. A flanking attack by the 16th Brigade, in which the 2nd Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment again distinguished itself, forced the garrison of the fort to retreat. Then the Turks’ Arab allies on the northern sector also fled the field. The British were masters of the field.

The victory was clear but costly. British and Indian troops lost 54 killed and 435 wounded, 489 men in all, more than in any earlier engagement in Mesopotamia. Turkish losses are uncertain. British accounts estimated them at 1,500 to 2,000 killed and wounded; other sources speak of about a thousand. About 150 Turks were taken prisoner.

Date and name

Many authors, including the British chronology, date the battle to 17 November. Some studies, however, give 19 November. The name of the place is sometimes written Sahil and sometimes Salih, and some authors treat the clash as part of a wider “battle for Basra” lasting from 11 to 22 November.

The defeat at Sahil sealed the fate of Basra. The Turks fell back first to Baljaniya, halfway to the city, and after a few days also abandoned Basra itself, withdrawing further upriver.