Start of the march on Baghdad

On 11 November 1915 General Charles Townshend began the march on Baghdad. From the camp at Aziziyah on the Tigris his advanced guard set out under General Hamilton: a cavalry brigade, a field artillery battery and the 18th Infantry Brigade, supported from the river by the armed tug Sumana. It was to take the village of Kutuniyah and reconnoitre the Turkish positions at Zor. From Aziziyah to Baghdad was about 77 kilometres by land. On the way, at Ctesiphon, waited the Ottoman army of Colonel Nureddin Bey, defeated in September at Kut but not destroyed.

The decision

Townshend’s division had been at Aziziyah since 5 October. In London and India the question of whether to go further was then being weighed. The commander in Mesopotamia, General John Nixon, was sure he could take Baghdad with the forces he had. The Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, hoped that the fall of the city would make a great impression on Muslims from Arabia to Afghanistan. The cabinet in London, alarmed by the failure at the Dardanelles and by the road opening from Germany to Constantinople, was also looking for a striking success. Lord Kitchener was sceptical: at most he would have preferred a raid on Baghdad. On 23 October the government authorised the Secretary of State for India, Austen Chamberlain, to telegraph that Nixon “may march on Baghdad if he is satisfied that the force he has is sufficient”. He was promised two infantry divisions from the Indian Corps in France, but with the proviso that moving them would take time.

Townshend himself had doubts. As early as 3 October he had warned that the certain capture of Baghdad required two divisions, and that his one weakened division was running a great risk on a very long line of communications. Nixon, however, judged his force sufficient. Townshend, as he later wrote, considered further argument pointless and prepared a plan of attack. He meant first to drive the Turkish covering force from Zor and then to force Nureddin to fight in the open.

Long preparations

Nixon wanted the march to begin by 14 November and the battle at Ctesiphon to be fought before 18 November, the tenth day of the month of Muharram. Everything was delayed, however. The Tigris was shallow, steamers ran aground on sandbanks and blocked river traffic, and the sailing barges with supplies made their way upstream very slowly, because the contrary north wind blew longer than usual. The pack animals and carts left Kut only on 8–10 November. In the camp at Aziziyah the troops were plagued by dust, flies, fever and beriberi.

By 13 November the cavalry brigade, the 6th (Poona) Division and the 30th Brigade had concentrated at Aziziyah, about 14,000 men in all with 35 guns and five aircraft. On the river they were accompanied by gunboats, including the new Firefly, which reached Aziziyah on 9 November. On the same day Nixon arrived at Aziziyah with his staff. The force carried supplies for eighteen days.

What the British knew

Reports of Turkish reinforcements came in from various quarters. Agents reported troops coming from Mosul, Syria and Lake Van, and on 11 November Nixon received a report that 15,000 Turks had set out from Mosul for Baghdad. Such rumours had been circulating for a year, however, and had usually proved exaggerated. Nixon’s staff estimated that the reinforcements had not yet reached Baghdad and that Townshend would face about 12,000 Turkish soldiers. On 13 November the Turks shot down a British aircraft sent to cut the telegraph lines near Baghdad, and Nixon forbade long-range reconnaissance flights. In this way, at the crucial moment, the British lost their eyes.

Townshend’s main force left Aziziyah on 15 November, but concentrated at Kutuniyah only on 18 November, because four steamers were late. On 19 November it took Zor almost without a fight, and on 20 November it halted at Lajj, some fifteen kilometres from the trenches at Ctesiphon. No one on the British staff knew that the fresh Turkish 51st Division was already waiting there.