Retreat from Ctesiphon

On the evening of 25 November 1915 General Charles Townshend withdrew his division from the battlefield of Ctesiphon. At about 7.30 p.m., under cover of darkness, the troops left the ruins on the Tigris and at one in the morning, harassed only by Arabs, reached the camp and the ships at Lajj, some ten to fifteen kilometres downstream. Three days earlier Townshend had taken the first line of Turkish trenches, but had lost nearly 4,500 men in doing so. The march on Baghdad was over.

Two armies in uncertainty

After the bloody 22 November both sides were exhausted. On the night of 23–24 November the Turks tried to retake the lost trenches, but the British and Indians repulsed all their attacks. On the morning of 24 November Townshend reported to the commander of the forces in Mesopotamia, General John Nixon, that his three brigades numbered 700–1,000 men each and that “every military reason” argued for a retreat. A few hours later he changed his mind: he decided to stay on the battlefield, because a retreat would have bad political effects in Mesopotamia, in India and at home. In the evening he gathered the whole division by the river at the embankments known as the High Wall.

The Turkish command was in a similar mood. According to a Turkish account, “deep depression” reigned in the headquarters of Colonel Nureddin Bey, and one of his four divisions had practically ceased to exist. On the night of 24–25 November a Turkish cavalry officer reported that the British were outflanking the position from the north. It was in fact a movement of British cavalry covering the evacuation of the wounded. Nureddin believed it, and at four in the morning of 25 November his whole army began to fall back to the Diyala river. The retreat quickly turned into confusion. But when the cavalry reported that the British were not advancing at all, at two in the afternoon Nureddin ordered a return to the positions at Ctesiphon. That afternoon Halil Bey, the uncle of the war minister Enver Pasha, arrived at the front from Baghdad.

Townshend’s decision

Townshend watched these movements through the eyes of his airmen. In the morning they reported that the Turks were digging in a few kilometres in front of the Diyala, and in the afternoon that two large columns, estimated at five thousand men each, were again moving on Ctesiphon, and that Turkish cavalry was threatening the river. He concluded that the enemy had received large reinforcements and that his depleted force would not withstand another battle. Before noon he had written to Nixon that for strategic and tactical reasons he would withdraw to Lajj, adding: “Politically it would be best to stay at Ctesiphon. But in history it is always fatal when political considerations prevail over military ones.” He was also short of food and ammunition, because the ships could not come any closer, being under fire from Turkish guns on the right bank.

Nixon had already sailed downstream with his staff, to Aziziyah, and received these reports only in the evening. At 9.40 p.m., when the division was already on the move, he telegraphed that Townshend should not retreat, because the Turks, hitherto intimidated by the resolute bearing of the British and themselves fearing an attack, would regain their confidence and raise the Arabs against the British. Townshend replied on the morning of 26 November from Lajj that to remain at Ctesiphon with 4,300 killed and wounded would have been “madness”. Nixon agreed with him. The irony was that, according to the Turkish account, the Turks had received no reinforcements at all, and had returned to their positions only because the British had not moved.

The wounded

The fate of the wounded was the most tragic. There were far more of them than had been expected, and they did not fit on the two steamers prepared for them. The doctors had to cram most of them onto six other ships and barges not equipped to carry the sick. There was a shortage of staff, medicines and dressings, and the journey downstream was going to be long. Nixon later explained that there had been no choice, because wounded left behind would have been murdered by Arab marauders.

Lajj did not remain a halting place for long. On 26 November the Turks returned to their first line, and Nureddin sent cavalry and Arab detachments after the British. On 27 November Townshend learned that about 12,000 Turkish infantry were approaching and in a single night march fell back to Aziziyah. On 1 December he repulsed the Turks at Umm al-Tubul, and on 3 December his exhausted troops entered Kut. There Townshend decided to stand and wait for relief. A few days later the Turks surrounded the town.