The British occupy Basra

On 22 November 1914 the main body of Lieutenant-General Arthur Barrett’s Indian Expeditionary Force “D” entered Basra, the chief city and port of the Ottoman province on the Persian Gulf. The Turks gave it up without a fight. Only two weeks earlier the British had landed at Fao at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, and now they held the most important point in lower Mesopotamia. The formal occupation of the city was proclaimed the following day, 23 November.

The Turks leave the city

The fate of Basra was decided by the Battle of Sahil on 17 November. The beaten Turkish units fell back to Baljaniya, halfway to the city, and Barrett began preparing a further attack. On 20 November, however, he received word from his ally, Sheikh Khazal of Mohammerah (today’s Khorramshahr), that the Turks had abandoned not only Baljaniya but Basra itself. The vali of Basra and commander of its defence, Subhi Bey, withdrew the remnants of his troops upriver, towards Qurna at the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Looting broke out in the abandoned city, and local notables begged the British to come as quickly as possible and restore order.

The Turks tried to close the waterway to Basra by sinking several ships in the channel of the Shatt al-Arab, among them a steamer of the German Hamburg-Amerika line. The barrier, however, proved incomplete. On 21 November the sloops HMS Espiegle and HMS Odin squeezed past the wrecks and the same day anchored off Basra. They found the customs house on fire and the streets being plundered. A landing party of sailors quickly stopped the looting, and when it began again the next morning, another party from the ships restored order once more.

The troops enter Basra

Barrett sent two battalions of the 16th Brigade, the 104th Wellesley’s Rifles and the 117th Mahrattas, upriver on river steamers to occupy the city as quickly as possible. According to some accounts they entered it as early as the evening of 21 November, according to others only on 22 November. The rest of the force marched overland all night. At about noon on 22 November the tired troops reached Basra, and the city was wholly in British hands.

On 23 November a ceremony took place which the British chronology records as the formal occupation of Basra. The troops marched past and the British flag was raised over the city. Sir Percy Cox, the force’s chief political officer, read a proclamation to the inhabitants in Arabic. In it he assured them that, although a state of war with the Ottoman government continued, the British bore no hostility towards the population, whose “good friends and protectors” they wished to be. He also announced that nothing remained of the Turkish administration, and that under the British flag the inhabitants would enjoy freedom and justice in religious and secular matters.

Significance

The occupation of Basra closed the first stage of the Mesopotamian campaign. The British had secured the refinery and pipeline of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company at Abadan, controlled the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab and gained a port through which they could supply further operations. It was one of the first clear British successes of the war. The London “Daily Mail” announced it under the headline “Another red spot on the map”, a reference to the colour in which the possessions of the empire were marked.

The easy victory, however, whetted appetites. As early as December the British moved upriver against Qurna, and in India there was more and more talk of a march on Baghdad. That temptation led in 1916 to the surrender of a British division in besieged Kut. Basra, by contrast, remained in British hands until the end of the war and became the main base of the forces fighting in Mesopotamia.