Second attack on Sannaiyat

At 4.20 a.m. on 9 April 1916 three brigades of the British 13th Division advanced in the darkness against the Turkish position at Sannaiyat, on the left bank of the Tigris. It was the second attempt in four days to break through the last strong barrier on the road to Kut, where since December the Turks had been besieging General Charles Townshend’s division. The Sannaiyat position closed the narrow defile between the river and the Suwaikiya marsh, about 25 kilometres downstream from the town. The first attack, made at dawn on 6 April by the 7th Division, had collapsed under machine-gun fire.

The commander of the Tigris Corps, General George Gorringe, had no time for a slow approach by sapping. According to Townshend’s reports, food in Kut would run out in mid-April. On 7 and 8 April the exhausted 7th Division advanced a few hundred metres by night and dug in closer to the Turkish lines. Reconnaissance showed that the Suwaikiya marsh could be forded, so outflanking the Turkish wing with an infantry brigade was considered. Gorringe judged, however, that with a change of wind the water might rise at any moment, and a brigade beyond the marsh would be cut off. He decided to strike frontally, by night, with fresh forces. The task was given to the 13th Division of General Frederick Stanley Maude, made up of volunteers of Kitchener’s Army, veterans of Gallipoli. On 5 April it had taken the positions at Hanna and Fallahiya, but had lost many officers in doing so. According to the British official history, about 7,350 of its soldiers went into the attack, on a front about 550 metres wide. On its right flank stood the 7th Division in readiness, which by now had only about 3,250 rifles.

The night was cold, and the soldiers, who had taken up their positions between 2.30 and 3, lay for a long time in attack formation. When they moved off they were stiff with cold. They had about 600 metres to go to the Turkish trenches. They covered the first few hundred metres quickly and in silence, but Turkish patrols detected them. A red flare (PL) went up over the Turkish left, then immediately a green one over the right, and the trenches opened fire with guns, machine guns and rifles. The first line of attackers pressed on and broke into the first Turkish trench. The second wavered and fell back, carrying part of the following waves with it. In the darkness and confusion the officers could not restore order among the men. The Turks who had withdrawn to the second line counter-attacked with bombs. A handful of British soldiers in the captured trench held out as long as their bombs lasted, and then their remnants withdrew. By morning the 13th Division had dug in about 400 metres in front of the Turkish line.

According to the official history (Moberly, The Campaign in Mesopotamia), the division lost 1,807 men. Four battalions lost more than a quarter of their strength. Moberly attributes the collapse of the attack to fatigue and cold, the lack of experienced officers and NCOs (40 per cent of the division’s officers had fallen at Hanna and Fallahiya), and the poor training of the young soldiers, who did not lack courage. Townshend later wrote that the commander of the Ottoman forces, Halil, admitted to him that the attack had failed only for lack of support. On the same day, on the right bank, the Tigris broke through a freshly built embankment and flooded large stretches of ground. Part of the 3rd Division and several batteries were cut off by the water and could be supplied only by boat at night.

After two failed attacks the commander in Mesopotamia, General Percy Lake, concluded that Sannaiyat would have to be taken slowly, by sapping, and there was no time for that. He decided that the next blow would be delivered along the right bank, against Bait Isa and the Es Sinn position. The next day he asked Townshend whether he could hold out longer. Townshend reduced the rations once more and reported that he could hold out until 21 April, and a few days later he moved this limit to 29 April.