'Critical Study of the Campaign in Mesopotamia up to April 1917: Part I - Report' [‎45r] (94/424)

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the only means of removing the wounded from the battle-fields was by-
means of springless A.T. carts. The suffering thus caused to frac
ture cases requires no comment. Owing to the mud the mule-carts
very often stuck, and were in any case quite inadequate. There is no
doubt that many wounded not only died from exposure but were*
actually drowned in the mud. Even when a wounded man arrived
at the river bank his condition was little better. He was laid in a
crowded line on the bare iron deck of an iron barge with the rain and
hail driving down on him, lucky if he got a share of a blanket. The-
medical personnel was utterly insufficient to deal with the enormous
number of cases, and had this not been so, material supplies were quite
inadequate. Wounded often went many days without it being possible-
to change their first field dressings or splints hastily improvised on the-
battle-field from rifles or fragments of wood. Add to this that many
of them owing to climatic conditions were suffering from diarrhoea or
dysentery, and that sweepers were almost non-existent. The state-
of affairs utterly baffles description. Such conditions are bound to
react unfavourably on morale.
Troops coming from France found themselves dumped down on
the river bank in a sea ot mud, with little tentage and less transport,
with poor rations, no fuel, and medical arrangements of the most pri
mitive description.
Then there were the tactical difficulties. The difficulty of maintain
ing direction, the impossibility of self-location, the dependence on com-
" Tactical Diffi- passes of which very few were available. The
culties. 5 ' apparent impossibility of observation, the dis
heartening effect of moving forward to attack an unseen enemy
under a hail of small arms fire whose source was invisible, and the
baffled feeling of blindness induced by the above factors, all caused a
depressing sense of impotence. The difficulty of distinguishing friend
from foe, of locating one's own flanks, or judging the distance
gained all added to this feeling.
This country is par excellence a country of the defensive. Not only
do the water cuts form invisible ready-made trenches, but digging in
this soil is extremely easy, and earth w^orks which can hardly be dis
tinguished even at a hundred yards distance can be constructed very
rapidly. There is no obstacle to small arm fire which is £< grazing. 5 r
On the other hand everything is against the attacker. He is extremely
conspicuous against the sky to a man in a trench with his head on ground
level. Overhead supporting fire is particulariy difficult even apart
from the impossibility of accurate observation.
Something must be said about the Arabs. Their attitude was probab-
Arab. ^ not llostile to us in particular. They objected
to anyone coming into their country or attempt-