Second Battle of Qurna

The Second Battle of Qurna opened the British advance up the Tigris in 1915. On 31 May General Charles Townshend’s 6th (Poona) Division attacked Turkish positions north of Qurna. The spring flood had turned the area into a shallow lake, from which only the sandy hillocks held by the Turks rose above the water. The infantry therefore went into the attack in hundreds of flat-bottomed Arab boats, supported by artillery and by warships steaming up the Tigris. By noon it had taken all the advanced posts. The next day the Turks abandoned their main position without a fight and fled upriver, and the British flotilla set off in pursuit, which ended on 3 June with the capture of Amara. The British called this curious operation “Townshend’s Regatta”.

Name and dates

The British chronology of the war and the British official history speak of the “Second action of Qurna” and date it to 31 May 1915. The first was the battle of December 1914, when British and Indian troops took the town itself. The English Wikipedia and some studies treat the whole operation from 31 May to 3 June as a single battle and call it the Battle of Amara. We adopt the dates 31 May – 1 June 1915, because on those two days the British took the Turkish posts and the main position north of Qurna. The pursuit upriver and the capture of Amara on 3 June are described as the aftermath of the battle. The term “Townshend’s Regatta” comes from the accounts of participants. Townshend himself wrote of a “regatta week”, and the British official history chose it as the title of the page devoted to the operation.

Background

After the victory at Shaiba in April 1915 Basra was no longer under threat, and General John Nixon, who had commanded the forces in Mesopotamia since 9 April, could go over to the offensive. His orders from India were to secure the whole vilayet of Basra, and therefore also Amara on the Tigris and Nasiriyah on the Euphrates. Amara mattered especially because from its surroundings the Turks threatened Persian Arabistan, through which ran the pipeline carrying oil to the refinery at Abadan. In May General George Gorringe’s troops drove the Turks from the area of Ahvaz and opened the way for operations on the Tigris.

On 11 May Nixon ordered the advance. Townshend was to drive the enemy from the positions between Qurna and the river bend the British called Pear Drop Bend, capture his guns, and then push on and occupy Amara. London agreed with hesitation. The Secretary of State for India, Lord Crewe, warned on 23 May that Nixon would get no more troops and must be sure he could hold Amara through the summer.

Townshend, who had taken over the 6th Division at the end of April, inspected the ground and concluded that the Turkish positions could not be outflanked. North of Qurna, as far as the eye could see, stretched water from a few dozen centimetres to a metre deep, cut by invisible deeper channels and overgrown with reeds as tall as a man. Wading was impossible, and ordinary river steamers could not move outside the main channel of the Tigris, where the Turks had laid mines. Nixon decided that the infantry must attack in bellums, long and narrow Arab boats somewhat resembling Venetian gondolas, which were punted with poles or rowed. Townshend compared it to punting on the Thames. He and his brigade and battalion commanders had serious misgivings about such a frontal attack and proposed postponing it until July, when the waters would fall, but Nixon decided the attack would go ahead as planned.

Forces

The attack was entrusted to the 17th Brigade, commanded temporarily, after the sick General Dobbie had left, by Lieutenant-Colonel Climo. It consisted of the 1st Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, the 22nd Punjabis, the 103rd Mahratta Light Infantry and the 119th Infantry, supported by the 30th Mountain Battery and sappers from Sirmur. According to the British official history 372 bellums were prepared, of which 296 carried 2,560 men of the brigade. Ninety-six boats were fitted with machine-gun shields at the bows. The mountain guns and machine guns travelled on rafts. In reserve, aboard ships, waited General Walter Delamain’s 16th Brigade, a battalion of the Norfolk Regiment and a field artillery battery.

Supporting fire came from four 5-inch howitzers emplaced at Nuhairat, heavy guns at Qurna and five guns on barges. The Royal Navy flotilla was commanded by Captain Wilfrid Nunn. He had at his disposal the sloops Espiegle, Clio and Odin, the armed Royal Indian Marine ship Lawrence, the armed launches Shaitan, Sumana, Miner and Comet, and three 4.7-inch guns mounted on flat-bottomed boats. Townshend directed the battle from the deck of Espiegle. Nixon arrived at Qurna on 30 May. He announced that he would not interfere with the command but wanted to be on the spot so that he could send reinforcements quickly if needed. The British also had two aircraft, which had reached Basra on 14 May. The lack of dry land delayed their use, and the first of them did not take off until 27 May.

British intelligence estimated the Turkish forces at five battalions with ten guns, the gunboat Marmaris, about 600 volunteers fighting in the name of jihad and about 1,200 Arab riflemen. The Ottoman general staff officer Muhammad Amin, in a post-war pamphlet summarised in the British official history, gives seven battalions, three of them Kurdish, two machine guns and an artillery battery, plus Arab auxiliaries. The advanced posts on the hillocks, which the British named Norfolk Hill, One Tower Hill, Gun Hill and One Tree Hill, were held mainly by Arab soldiers of the Ottoman army under Turkish officers. The main position ran along both banks of the Tigris through Abu Aran, Ruta and Muzaibila. According to Muhammad Amin it was a good position until the flood turned the area into a sea dotted with islands. The small detachments scattered on them could communicate and be supplied only by Arab boats. According to this account the new Ottoman commander in Iraq, Nureddin Bey, ordered the troops on the Tigris to withdraw around the middle of May, but the local commander replied that he had nothing to do it with and stayed where he was.

Course: 31 May

Shortly after one in the morning a flanking column set out from Qurna: Lieutenant-Colonel Blois-Johnson’s 22nd Punjabis, which was to strike along the left bank of the Tigris at One Tree Hill. The water proved so shallow that the men had to get out and push the boats. A section of mountain guns turned back, but before five in the morning the Punjabis came within about one and a half kilometres of their objective.

At five, at sunrise, the howitzers, heavy guns and warships opened fire on the Turkish posts. The Turkish guns replied only after twenty minutes, aiming mainly at the ships. Before six the main group of boats set off on the right bank of the Tigris from the area of Fort Snipe, an advanced post north of Qurna. The boats moved in several lines, together with rafts carrying machine guns and mountain guns. At 6.30 a.m. the Punjabis took One Tree Hill, which was defended by only twenty men.

At about 7.30 a.m. the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire battalion, covered by machine guns and mountain guns, crossed the last few hundred metres of water, jumped out of the boats a hundred metres from the shore and stormed Norfolk Hill. Of its garrison 75 men were killed, 26 wounded and 34 taken prisoner. The British lost one officer killed and five wounded. A British aircraft, which carried out reconnaissance that day, was already circling over the ships. The ships, preceded by launches sweeping for mines, moved up under Norfolk Hill, and the infantry advanced on One Tower Hill. At 9.30 a.m. it took this hillock too, capturing a Turkish officer and 86 men. There the British seized a switchboard from which 24 mines in the channel of the Tigris could be fired electrically. The captured Turkish officer responsible for the mines was later persuaded to show where they had been laid.

Gun Hill held out longest. The 103rd Mahrattas pushed towards it through dense reeds that hid the objective from them. The poles with which the men punted the boats, however, betrayed their position to the enemy. The fire of the ships, mountain guns and machine guns finally prevailed, and after eleven the Turkish guns fell silent. When the Mahrattas came up, the garrison surrendered. An officer and 132 men were taken prisoner, and the British captured two guns. The 119th Infantry covered the left flank of the attack all morning, under fire from Arab riflemen in the reeds. At the same time, on both sides of the main attack, friendly Arabs supported by armed vessels made feint attacks along the side channels of the river to distract the marsh tribes.

The first phase ended in complete and unexpectedly easy success. The British official history attributes it above all to the superiority of the artillery, for which the hillocks rising from the water were easy targets, and to the cover the reeds gave the boats. The main Turkish position, however, remained untouched and the British expected stiff resistance there. The heat was intense and the sun glaring off the water exhausted the men, who had been pushing boats since the night, so Townshend halted operations until the next day. During the night the men of the 17th Brigade removed the heavy shields from the boats so as to move faster in the morning.

Course: 1 June

On 1 June at about 5.30 a.m. the British guns opened fire on Abu Aran. There was no reply. The ships moved upriver behind the minesweeping launches, on one of which the captured Turkish engineer officer was travelling and helping to locate the mine cables. The 17th Brigade advanced very slowly through the reeds, still meeting no resistance. The explanation came from the aircraft, which dropped a message on Espiegle: Abu Aran, Ruta and Muzaibila had been abandoned, and the Turks were fleeing north in everything that would float. The first men of the 17th Brigade reached Abu Aran in time to fire on the last boat of fugitives.

Before eleven the flotilla anchored off Abu Aran. Townshend and Captain Nunn went in a motor boat to inspect the obstruction of sunken barges at Ruta. It turned out that it could be bypassed, and after the cables of three large mines had been cut a safe channel was marked out. After talking with Nixon, Townshend decided to pursue the Turks as far as Ezra’s Tomb and, if possible, to enter Amara together with the fugitives. After three in the afternoon Espiegle, Clio and Odin set off in pursuit. Before six the launch Shaitan opened fire on the fleeing vessels, and the sloops then joined in. The Turkish steamers began casting off the barges and boats they were towing, full of soldiers and stores, which the British found at Ezra’s Tomb at 7.30 p.m. In the gathering darkness, on an unknown, winding stretch of river, the flotilla anchored just after eight. Searchlights revealed ahead of it the sunken steamer Bulbul, hit by a shell from Shaitan. That day the British took about 200 Turkish soldiers prisoner and captured three field guns and large quantities of stores, explosives and mines, without losing a man.

Pursuit to Amara

At two in the morning on 2 June, when the moon rose, the ships moved on. Espiegle soon ran aground, but before that the flotilla overtook the abandoned and burning gunboat Marmaris and forced the steamer Mosul with her barges to surrender. Townshend and Nunn transferred to the shallow-draught Comet and with a few launches pressed on, far ahead of their own infantry. On 3 June the launch Shaitan under Lieutenant Mark Singleton, with eight sailors aboard, was the first to reach Amara and accepted the surrender of several hundred Turkish soldiers who, in their panic, did not fire a single shot. In the afternoon Townshend landed in the town and accepted the surrender of the governor and the commandant. Through the night, with a handful of men, according to the official history a mere 41 sailors and soldiers, he guarded more than a thousand prisoners, pretending that a great army was close behind him. On the morning of 4 June, as the Arabs began looting the town, a battalion of the Norfolk Regiment arrived, and in the evening Nixon as well.

Casualties

According to the British official history, in the whole operation from 31 May to 4 June the British and Indians lost a mere 4 killed and 21 wounded. The Turks had about 120 killed and wounded, and 1,773 men were taken prisoner. The British captured 12 field guns and 5 naval guns, sank the gunboat Marmaris, a steamer and a tug, and took several other vessels. Muhammad Amin puts Turkish losses in the battle of 31 May alone at 428 men and three guns. He accused the divisional commander of watching through his binoculars as the troops were destroyed piece by piece instead of withdrawing them in time. He also described how, during the flight, the Turks’ former Arab allies attacked, robbed and murdered them.

Significance

The operation from Qurna to Amara was one of the most successful British undertakings in Mesopotamia. With negligible losses they routed the entire Turkish force on the Tigris, and the Turkish river flotilla lost vessels it had nothing to replace with. The capture of Amara covered Basra and Qurna from the north and cut the Turks off from Persian Arabistan with its oilfields and pipeline. A Turkish detachment withdrawing from there towards Amara at that very moment ran into the British and scattered in panic.

The easy victory had another side, however. It confirmed Nixon and Townshend in the belief that the Ottoman army in Mesopotamia was weak and that boldness could make up for numbers. In the summer the British took Nasiriyah on the Euphrates, in September Kut, and in the autumn they advanced on Baghdad. That march ended in defeat at Ctesiphon and the siege of Townshend’s division in Kut, which ended in its surrender in April 1916.