Battle of Ctesiphon

The Battle of Ctesiphon halted the British march on Baghdad. General Charles Townshend’s 6th (Poona) Division, reinforced by a cavalry brigade and additional battalions, attacked on 22 November 1915 a fortified Ottoman position among the ruins of ancient Ctesiphon, on the Tigris, about 25 kilometres from Baghdad. After a whole day’s fighting the British and Indians took the entire first line of Turkish trenches on the left bank of the river, but failed to break through the second. In doing so they lost nearly 40 per cent of their men. On the night of 23/24 November they beat off fierce Turkish counter-attacks, but no longer had the strength for a further advance. On the evening of 25 November Townshend began to withdraw. A tactical success turned into a strategic defeat: a few days later the division fell back all the way to Kut, where it was besieged.

Name and dates

The British official history (Moberly, The Campaign in Mesopotamia, vol. II) calls the engagement the Battle of Ctesiphon and counts it from the attack on 22 November to Townshend’s withdrawal on the evening of 25 November 1915. Most studies use the same dates. The Turks call it the Battle of Salman Pak (Selman-ı Pak Muharebesi), after the nearby village with the tomb of Salman the Persian, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad.

We adopt the dates 22–25 November 1915. On 22 November the main battle was fought. On 23 November the British reorganised their units and evacuated the wounded, and from the afternoon until dawn on 24 November they beat off Turkish counter-attacks. On 24 and 25 November the two sides faced each other, each convinced that the enemy had received reinforcements. On the evening of 25 November Townshend withdrew to Lajj. The further retreat to Kut, including the action at Umm al-Tubul on 1 December, is described as a consequence of the battle.

Background

After the First Battle of Kut in September 1915, Townshend’s division reached Aziziyah on 5 October, roughly halfway between Kut and Baghdad. There it halted. The low water in the Tigris and the shortage of steamers made it impossible to bring up supplies, and in London and in India a debate was under way on whether to go further. The commander of the forces in Mesopotamia, General John Nixon, and the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, pressed for the capture of Baghdad. They reckoned that its fall would make a great impression on Muslims from Persia to Afghanistan and offset the setbacks at the Dardanelles. On 3 October Townshend warned that two divisions were needed to take the city safely. On 23 October the British government allowed Nixon to march on Baghdad “if he is satisfied that the force he has is sufficient”, and promised him two Indian divisions from France. Their arrival, however, would take time.

Preparations took several weeks. Supply steamers kept running aground on sandbanks, and sailing barges made their way upriver very slowly, because for a long time an adverse north wind, the shamal, was blowing. On 11 November Townshend’s advanced guard set out from Aziziyah. On 19 November the British took Zor almost without a fight, and on 20 November they halted at Lajj, a dozen or so kilometres from the Turkish trenches. At the same time increasingly frequent but unreliable reports were coming in about Turkish reinforcements. London reported that Field Marshal Colmar von der Goltz, an old acquaintance of the Ottoman army, had left for Baghdad and was to take command of a new Sixth Army. Nixon considered these reports exaggerated. According to his staff the Turks had about 13,000 infantry and 38 guns at Ctesiphon.

The Ottoman position

The Ottoman forces in Iraq were still commanded by Colonel Nureddin Bey, who had been beaten at Kut. During the seven weeks granted him by the British halt at Aziziyah, he fortified a position across the Tigris, where the river flows between the ruins of Ctesiphon and Seleucia. The most conspicuous landmark in the area was the huge arch of the ruined palace of the kings of the Sasanian dynasty, rising several dozen metres above the plain. A little to the south-east of it ran two earth banks, which the British called the High Wall.

The Turks prepared three lines of defence. The first, the most carefully built, ran on the left bank for more than ten kilometres north-east of the river. It consisted of fifteen closed redoubts, linked by a continuous trench and mostly protected by barbed wire. The trenches were low and almost invisible from a distance. At the northern end stood two particularly strong redoubts on low mounds, which Townshend called the “Vital Point” (V.P. for short). Further south lay the Water Redoubt. On the right bank the trenches were shorter and weaker. The second line ran 3–5 kilometres behind the first and was much less well prepared, and the third, barely begun, along the Diyala river. The river was closed by sunken ships and mines. The only bridge of boats lay far in the rear, which made it difficult to shift troops from one bank to the other.

According to the Turkish account on which the British official history relies, on 21 November Nureddin had about 18,000 infantry, 400 cavalrymen, two camel regiments, 52 guns and several thousand Arab volunteers. The right bank was held by the 35th Division. On the left bank the first line was defended by the 38th Division and, on the threatened northern sector at V.P., the fresh 45th Division. In reserve stood the 51st Division, made up of Anatolian Turks and regarded as the best in the whole army. Seven of its nine battalions had reached Ctesiphon by 17 November. The British did not know it was there. On 21 November the only pilot who might have discovered it, Major Reilly, was shot down over the Turkish rear and taken prisoner.

Townshend’s forces and plan

Townshend had 13,756 men, including about 10,200 infantry and just under 1,100 cavalrymen, 30 field guns and 46 machine guns. He was supported by a river flotilla with the new gunboat Firefly and guns mounted on barges. In his orders he gave a lowered figure for the Turks, 10,000–11,000, so as not to discourage the troops, as he later wrote. The air arm, having lost several machines, had only two serviceable aircraft left.

The plan was similar to the one at Kut. Column “C” under General Frederick Hoghton (17th Brigade) was to pin the Turkish front at the Water Redoubt by feigning the main attack. Column “B” under General Hamilton (18th Brigade) and the Flying Column under General Charles Melliss (the cavalry brigade, the 76th Punjabis and armoured cars) were to turn the Turkish left flank from the north and threaten the line of retreat. Once the Turkish reserves were engaged against the turning movement, Column “A” under General Walter Delamain (16th Brigade and the improvised 30th Brigade under Colonel Climo) was to strike at V.P. Townshend kept no reserve at all. Nixon, who accompanied the force, did not take over command. He later told the commission investigating the conduct of the campaign that his state of health did not allow it.

The fighting: 22 November

On the evening of 21 November the columns marched out of Lajj and by dawn, without meeting the enemy, had taken up their starting positions. The Turks, however, knew of their movements. At five in the morning Nureddin received a report of a column heading for the Diyala and was only with difficulty dissuaded from withdrawing the whole 51st Division. In the morning mist lay over the river. Hoghton’s column advanced slowly, unable to see the enemy. At 8.30 a.m. Townshend, not hearing its guns, let Hamilton and Melliss start the turning movement earlier than the plan had envisaged.

Just before nine Delamain reported that the Turks were “in full retreat” and asked for permission to attack V.P. Townshend agreed. The Gurkhas of the 2/7th Gurkha Rifles and the Punjabis and Marathas of the 30th Brigade crossed about four and a half kilometres of open plain under artillery fire, then advanced in rushes of a hundred metres, without firing, covered by their own guns and machine guns. They were stopped only by the wire 40 metres in front of the trenches. They broke through it and shortly after ten took V.P. The British official history calls this “a fine achievement, well conceived and gallantly carried out”. The Turks of the 45th Division fled in disorder.

The turning movement, however, stalled. Hamilton’s column and the 76th Punjabis ran into fire from the 45th Division’s Turkish reserve and units of the 51st Division, which Nureddin had thrown northwards. At about ten they halted and dug in, and Melliss’s cavalry had to fight dismounted and then fall back. At about 10.45 a.m. Townshend galloped to V.P. He decided that his forces had to be concentrated at the captured redoubts and ordered Hoghton to wheel towards them. The brigade marched across the front, one to one and a half kilometres from the Turkish trenches, and suffered heavy losses. Together with Delamain’s men it then took the rest of the redoubts on the northern sector, including the Water Redoubt. Climo’s men pushed west of V.P. and at about 11.30 a.m. captured eight Turkish guns. By 1.30 p.m. the Turks had abandoned the whole first line on the left bank, and the 38th Division fled in disorder all the way to the village of Ctesiphon.

At that point, however, Nureddin threw his last reserve into a counter-attack: two battalions of Cevat Bey’s 51st Division, supported by the fire of heavy guns from the right bank. Climo’s exhausted units, which had lost most of their British officers, fell back towards V.P. and abandoned the captured guns. Climo himself was wounded three times. Delamain gathered about sixty men, including signallers and orderlies, and together with the 7th Rajputs tried to take the second line, but had to turn back before a Turkish attack. Hoghton, with about 250 men from six battalions, held on a few hundred metres from the enemy until dark. All day the gunboats tried in vain to pass the bend of the river at Bustan: they were stopped by accurate fire from the Turkish heavy guns on the right bank.

Shortly after five in the afternoon Townshend broke off the battle and ordered all units to assemble at V.P. Only then did he see how little he had left. Hoghton had, by his reckoning, about 700 men, Delamain about a thousand and Hamilton eight to nine hundred. The wounded were brought to V.P. in unsprung transport carts. Four field ambulances, prepared for just over 400 wounded, had to deal with more than 3,500. The night was bitterly cold and there was a shortage of water and food. That day the British took about 1,200 prisoners.

The fighting: 23 and 24 November

From dawn on 23 November a strong wind blew, raising clouds of dust. Townshend decided that before thinking of a further advance he had to water, feed and reorganise his force. He concentrated his troops along the captured line from the Water Redoubt to the High Wall. Airmen reported that the Turks were falling back to the Diyala. In reality Nureddin, who during the night had divided his forces into two corps (XIII Corps of the 35th and 38th Divisions and XVIII Corps of the 45th and 51st Divisions), had withdrawn only to the second line. In the afternoon, seeing the British inactive, he ordered a counter-attack to recover the first line.

The attack started late and developed only after dark. At V.P., where Hoghton had at most 1,200 men and still half of the wounded, the Turks of the 45th Division attacked until two in the morning, but did not get to close range. The 51st Division, which was to turn the British flank, lost its way in the darkness and wandered until morning. At the Water Redoubt Cevat Bey’s force made, according to Townshend, at least six fierce attacks, all repulsed. The most gallant defence was put up by some four hundred Gurkhas and Punjabis under Lieutenant-Colonel Powell, with a machine-gun battery, on a mound below the arch of Ctesiphon, afterwards called Gurkha Mound. All night they beat off the 35th Division, which finally withdrew with heavy losses. The Turkish staff officer Muhammad Amin wrote admiringly after the war of this “brave and determined little detachment”. Ammunition ran short. A column of carts brought it up from Lajj only at three in the morning.

On the morning of 24 November the front was quiet. According to the Turkish account “deep depression” reigned at Nureddin’s headquarters, and the commander of XVIII Corps reported that the 45th Division “no longer exists”. Townshend, too, was at the end of his tether. In the morning he reported to Nixon that his three brigades numbered 900, 700 and 1,000 men and that “every military reason” pointed to the need to withdraw. Later, however, he changed his mind and decided to stay on the battlefield, because he believed a retreat would have bad political consequences. All day he evacuated the wounded to Lajj, and in the evening he concentrated the whole division at the High Wall. Nixon sailed downriver with his staff.

The retreat: 25 November

On the night of 24/25 November a Turkish cavalry officer reported that the British were turning the position from the north. In fact this was a movement of the cavalry covering the evacuation. Nureddin at once ordered the whole army to fall back to the Diyala. The withdrawal began at four in the morning and turned into confusion at the river. When, however, the cavalry reported that the British were not advancing, at two in the afternoon Nureddin ordered a return to the second line at Ctesiphon. That day Halil Bey, uncle of the War Minister Enver Pasha, arrived at the front from Baghdad and took over XVIII Corps.

Townshend, meanwhile, knew only that in the morning the Turks had been entrenched on the Diyala, and that in the afternoon two large columns, estimated by the airmen at five thousand men each, were again marching on Ctesiphon. He concluded that the enemy had received strong reinforcements. Before noon he informed Nixon that he was returning to Lajj, because “it is always fatal when political considerations override military ones”. After dark, at about 7.30 p.m., the division left the battlefield and, harassed only by Arabs, reached Lajj at one in the morning. In the evening Nixon still asked him by telegraph not to withdraw, but the next day he admitted that Townshend was right.

Losses

According to the British official history Townshend lost 4,511 men on 22 November and a further 82 on 23 and 24 November, about 4,600 killed, wounded and missing in all. Townshend himself gave 4,300. Of 317 British officers, 130 were killed or wounded. The battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry lost 304 men out of 638, and the 110th Mahratta Light Infantry 440 out of 739. Indian Expeditionary Force “D” had never yet suffered such heavy losses. The evacuation of the wounded, who were far more numerous than expected, took place in appalling conditions. They were crammed onto steamers and barges unequipped to carry the sick. The commission that later investigated the medical services in Mesopotamia judged them severely, although it admitted that the removal of the wounded had in the circumstances been “a great achievement”.

The Turkish account estimates Turkish losses on 22–24 November at more than 9,500 men, but including deserters. Muhammad Amin puts the actual battle casualties at 6,188 killed and wounded. The 45th Division lost 60 per cent of its strength (65 per cent according to some studies), the 35th Division 25, the 38th Division 20 and the 51st Division 12 per cent. The Turks took only a few British prisoners.

Significance

At Ctesiphon Townshend’s division won the trenches but lost the campaign. The British official history stresses that both commanders repeatedly made important decisions on the basis of false information. Nixon and Townshend did not know of the arrival of the 51st Division, and later overestimated the Turkish reinforcements. Nureddin, for his part, first withdrew needlessly and then returned only because the British had gone. The battle showed that the Ottoman army, regarded as weak after its defeats at Shaiba and Kut, could fight well in a well-prepared defence and counter-attack, and without German commanders on the battlefield. It also laid bare all the weaknesses of the British expedition: too few troops, too few steamers, aircraft and doctors, and a very long line of communications.

The defeat shook British prestige in the Middle East just when the evacuation of Gallipoli was being considered. The Arabs, hitherto cautious, began to attack the retreating British, and Nureddin set off in pursuit. On 1 December Townshend beat off the Turks at Umm al-Tubul, and on 3 December his exhausted force entered Kut. There he decided to make a stand. A few days later the Turks surrounded the town. The siege ended with the surrender of the division at the end of April 1916.