The Battle of Bughaila (25–26 February 1917) was a military engagement in the Mesopotamian campaign of World War I between British and Ottoman Turkish forces. It was fought shortly after the British recapture of Kut in February 1917.
Background
At the outset of World War I, the British began preparing to invade Iraq in September 1914, anticipating the possibility of war with the Ottoman Empire. On 10 October 1914, General Delamain, commander of the forces specially trained in India, received orders to prepare for the protection of British interests in the Persian Gulf. Once preparations were complete, the troops departed from Bombay on 6 October and assembled on the Bahrain Islands on 23 October. After Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 5 November 1914, fighting broke out along the Iraqi frontier. The following day, the Indian Expeditionary Force "D," consisting of the Sixth Division, landed near Shatt al-Arab. Basra was occupied on 22 November, followed by Qurna on 9 December.
On 22 April 1915, Major General C. V. F. Townshend assumed command of the Sixth Division. In the months that followed, British forces steadily advanced into Iraq according to plan. Amarah was occupied on 3 June, and Nasiriyah on 24 July. Encouraged by these rapid successes, General John Nixon, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in Iraq, began considering the capture of Baghdad. At the same time, decision-makers in both India and London believed that conquering Baghdad would help restore British prestige in the Middle East after the defeat at Gallipoli. Consequently, General Nixon ordered Charles Townshend, commander of the Sixth Division, to advance from Amara along the river and capture Kut al-Amara, located approximately 190 kilometers away.
Orders were given on 24 October 1915 for the British troops to begin an operation to capture Baghdad. Before deciding to proceed with the invasion, Townshend considered it unfavorable to advance without substantial reinforcements. As a result, he was promised support from two additional divisions. In particular, Sir Percy Cox, the officer responsible for political affairs, argued that Townshend's capture of Baghdad would be equivalent to the conquest of Istanbul, and that such news would have a profound impact across Asia. The British were reportedly dreaming of being in Baghdad by Christmas Day. After capturing Kut al-Amara, General Townshend advanced toward Baghdad in mid-November with a force of 15,000 soldiers.
Townshend advanced toward Ctesiphon on 20 November. On 22 November, he engaged in a new battle against the Turkish forces under the command of Colonel Nurettin Pasha. The battle was extremely bloody, and both sides suffered heavy losses. Ultimately, the British forces were forced to retreat. Closely pursued by the Turkish troops commanded by Colonel Nurettin, the British withdrew to Kut al-Amara. Following the retreat, General Townshend and his troops took refuge in Kut al-Amara on 3 December. Hoping that reinforcements would soon arrive, General Townshend decided to establish defensive positions in the town against the advancing Turkish forces. On 7 December, the Turkish Army under the command of Colonel Nurettin surrounded the British forces at Kut al-Amara from all sides. Several rescue attempts organized by the British Government and the British-Iraq Army Command proved unsuccessful, and the British forces in Kut al-Amara were ultimately forced to surrender.
British recovery after Kut During the First World War, Frederick Stanley Maude emerged as one of the British Army's most capable senior commanders in the Middle Eastern theatre, gaining a reputation for reorganising exhausted forces and directing successful offensives in difficult conditions. His rapid advancement reflected both the pressures of wartime command and confidence in his leadership abilities.
He was a staff officer with the III Corps when in October 1914 he was promoted to Brigadier-General and given command of the 14th Brigade. He was wounded in April 1915 and returned home to recover. He returned to France in May and in June was promoted to Major-General and transferred to command 33rd Division, then still in training. However, in mid-August he was instead given charge of 13th Division at Suvla. The 13th suffered heavy casualties retreating from Suvla and landing, and later evacuating, from Helles before being shifted to Mesopotamia in March 1916.
They arrived to catch the end of the British failure at the Siege of Kut, and Maude was promoted to Lieutenant-General and replaced George Gorringe as commander of the newly dubbed Tigris Corps (III Army Corps) in July 1916. Despite being instructed to do no more than hold the existing line, Maude set about reorganising and re-supplying his mixed British and Indian forces. He was made commander of all Allied forces in Mesopotamia in late July 1916.
Given reinforcements and more equipment, Maude directed his force in a steady series of victories. Advancing up the Tigris and winning the battles of Mohammed Abdul Hassan, Hai and Dahra in January 1917, alongside recapturing Kut in February 1917. After the reoccupation of Kut al-Amara, General Maude lost no time in organising the pursuit of the beaten Turks with gunboats, aeroplanes, and cavalry, while the infantry were ordered to make forced marches in order to keep the Turks on the run and prevent them rallying. Turkish withdrawal from Kut to Sivri Devre Following reports of the Second Battle of Kut, in which the XVIII Corps narrowly escaped annihilation, the Acting Commander-in-Chief Enver Pasha sent a coded order to the Sixth Army demanding that the British units that had crossed to the left bank of the Tigris be destroyed or captured at all costs. If this proved impossible, he insisted that the army go on the defensive during the Shamran phase and halt the British advance.
The commander of the XVIII Corps recognized that the situation would become dangerous if the British continued their offensive and therefore decided to maintain the defense in the Sivri Devre area. In accordance with the general withdrawal order issued at 8:00 PM, the 43rd Regiment at Kuru Kerme and the 41st and 156th Regiments occupying the western side of the sand dunes assembled at Imam Muhammad Castle under the command of Colonel . Following the Baghdad road past Reşit Castle, they systematically withdrew 4 kilometers behind the previously selected and prepared defense line in the Sivri Devre area. During this withdrawal, the units marched approximately 16 kilometers.
Prelude British preparations On 24 February at 19:25, General Maude issued orders for pursuing operations to be carried out the following day. It was clear that the Turkish main force was in full retreat up the Tigris, although its rearguard had so far succeeded in delaying the advance of the British cavalry and the 14th Division.
The Cavalry Division was ordered to move off at 06:00 the next morning and operate around the Turks' northern flank. Simultaneously, one of the divisions of III Corps was to advance up the left bank of the Tigris along the route which the enemy main force would be compelled to follow due to the lack of water inland. The second III Corps division was held in reserve, ready to move westward if required. The senior naval officer was requested to cooperate with the operation using the flotilla, while the I Corps was tasked with completing the clearance of the battlefields on both banks of the Tigris and the Hai as far as the western side of the Shumran peninsula. By this stage, the Tigris upstream had been opened to British shipping.
That evening, General Maude sent the following telegram to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff:
During the night of 24–25 February, the Turkish rearguard was reported, both by the 35th Infantry Brigade and the patrols of the Cavalry Division, to have withdrawn from its positions of 24 February. Although, in both cases, contact with the enemy had been lost, General Maude still hoped, by vigorous action on the part of his cavalry, to deal the Turks further heavy blows before they got out of reach. This hope was sustained by the reports next morning of the British aeroplanes, which said that the retiring Turkish main body was about Bughaila, covered by a rearguard of some 1,500 rifles with seventeen to twenty guns, which occupied a canal extending northwards from the river near Imam Mahdi.
Turkish preparations The commander of the Sixth Army, after British forces crossed to the left bank of the Tigris River on 24 February 1917 and could not be pushed back into the river by counterattacks, ordered the immediate transfer of the 6th Division of the XIII Corps from the Iranian theater of operations to Baghdad. He was also forced to reinforce the XVIII Corps with units transferred from other fronts.
The British III Corps, by not continuing its attack after 17:00 on 24 February 1917 and instead remaining on the line it had captured to reorganize there, gave the XVIII Corps an opportunity to withdraw and regroup its units deployed along the left bank of the Tigris from the Falahiya position to the Shumran sector. During the withdrawal, the commander of the 45th Division, Lieutenant Colonel İsmail Hakkı, was wounded in the foot after being kicked by an animal. In his place, the commander of the 52nd Division, Lieutenant Colonel Bekir Sami, was appointed on 25 February 1917 at 11:00. Under the command of the 52nd Division commander were the 141st, 142nd, and 3rd Regiments, together with the 45th Division engineer company, medical company, the 43rd Regiment, and the 52nd Artillery Regiment. The 40th Regiment of the 52nd Division had suffered heavy losses during the Battle of Shumran and had effectively ceased to exist; the 45 surviving soldiers who could be withdrawn assembled east of Imam Mahdi together with divisional personnel.
Turkish Positions The withdrawal was completed after sunset, near midnight. The Turkish units assembled in the Sivri Devre sector, on the western edge of the Husayniya sector, where they established a defensive position five kilometers wide and carried out fortification and defensive preparations as far as possible. Although the troops were extremely exhausted, they continued working on the fortifications until dawn. Even so, the fortifications did not progress beyond basic trench works. To provide depth to the defense, three successive defensive lines were designated.
Muhammad Amin in Baghdad and the Story of its Last Fall says that in the early hours of 25 February, the XVIII Corps, now composed of about 10,000 fighting men, including the weak 4th and 14th Divisions, arrived at the position supposed to have been prepared near Qala Shadi. There it occupied an old disused canal, which for the most part had not been prepared for defence, and where, in spite of extreme fatigue, it worked till the morning at entrenching.
The three-kilometer sector south of the Sivri Devre position was held by the 51st Division, while the two-kilometer sector to the north was occupied by the 45th Division. The 141st and 142nd Regiments had entered the position by making use of the trenches in front of their sectors, while the 3rd Regiment had carried out fortification work. Because the left flank of the position was highly exposed, the 11th Company of the 141st Regiment—reinforced by the 45th Division's engineer company and two machine guns—was deployed in echelon formation and placed under the command of the 3rd Regiment's commander. The Şevket Bey Detachment, composed of the 43rd Infantry Regiment together with the 41st Infantry and Depot Regiments, was kept in reserve, while the 18th Cavalry Regiment was assigned responsibility for protecting the left flank of the position.
Battle of Sivri Devre Prelude