Third attack on Sannaiyat

At seven in the morning on 22 April 1916 General George Younghusband’s British-Indian 7th Division advanced for the third time that month on the Turkish position at Sannaiyat, on the left bank of the Tigris. It was the last attack of the Tigris Corps, which since January had been trying to break through to General Charles Townshend’s division, besieged in Kut. Wading armpit-deep through mud and water, the men broke into the Turkish trenches, but after an hour of fighting they were driven out. In the evening General George Gorringe concluded that his troops could no longer reach Kut before the garrison ran out of food.

After the fighting at Beit Aiessa on the right bank, the command concluded that the Turks had weakened the Sannaiyat position by moving troops from it to the other bank. The attack was set for 20 April, but on 19 April the wind drove the waters of the Suwaikiya marsh into the 7th Division’s trenches and over the ground in front, and the brigades had to dig new trenches behind the flooded ones. Gorringe postponed the attack to 22 April and shelled the Turkish position for two days. According to the British official history (Moberly, The Campaign in Mesopotamia), the 7th Division had only 5,966 rifles, most of them in the hands of very young, poorly trained soldiers from drafts. Moberly estimates that the Turks had a total of 16,000–18,000 rifles and 93 guns at Kut and below the town, that is, at least as many as the attackers. He also admits that, but for the pressure of time, the conditions would not have justified an assault.

The attack was to be led by two brigades side by side, across a strip of ground about 550 metres wide where the water was shallowest. At 6.05 a.m., however, the headquarters of the 21st Brigade reported that the water on its sector made an advance impossible, so only the 19th Brigade went in, later supported by an English battalion of drafts from the 21st Brigade. The Highland Battalion, made up of men of the Black Watch and the Seaforth Highlanders, and the 92nd Punjabis covered about 400 metres so quickly that they had to wait for the bombardment to end. They passed through the first Turkish line and reached the second. Both trenches were full of water, and the ground between them had turned into a bog. Many men sank to their armpits, and their rifles, clogged with mud, stopped firing. Some reached the third line. The Turks counter-attacked from the rear, over dry ground, and with machine-gun crossfire from the southern part of the position cut off the reinforcements. Supporting artillery and machine-gun fire from the right bank cost the counter-attackers very many men, but at about eight the English battalion, which had entered the deepest water, began to withdraw. The Punjabis fell back after it, and finally the Highlanders too, who had already beaten off several counter-attacks. By 8.20 a.m. everyone was back in the British trenches.

Before noon the Turks hoisted Red Crescent flags and sent stretcher-bearers out for the wounded. The British replied with Red Cross flags. During this informal truce both sides collected the wounded until late afternoon. The Turks, however, did not allow the British to take those who lay beyond their second line, and treated them as prisoners. The 7th Division lost 1,283 men. The heaviest losses, 942 out of 2,165, fell on the 19th Brigade, and the Highland Battalion alone lost 597. Turkish losses are not known. Observers on the right bank who saw the effects of the fire considered them very heavy.

The same day Gorringe told General Percy Lake that calling on the troops for further effort, in the time that starvation at Kut still allowed, no longer offered any prospect of success. Lake telegraphed to India and London that since 5 April, fighting the enemy and the floods, the Tigris Corps had lost 9,700 men, a quarter of its strength, and still stood about 19 kilometres from Kut on the right bank and about 24 on the left. One last, desperate attempt remained: to break through to the town with a ship carrying food.