'Critical Study of the Campaign in Mesopotamia up to April 1917: Part I - Report' [‎177r] (358/424)

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Before going into the details of the crossing it is as well to review
the change that had come over the Turkish Army, the possibilities of
their defending Baghdad and the Eussian situation.
The left bank of the Tigris was littered with the debris of a routed
army. Since February 22nd the Turk XVIII Corps had lost 63 of their
91 guns. We captured 33, the remainder had been thrown into the river.
They had lost 4,300 prisoners, all their bridging train, 3 supply steamers,
the old H .M.S. Firefly and a quantity of rifles, M. Gs. ; ammunition, S,
A. A. and equipment.
G. H. Q. estimated that only 5,000 men and 28 guns at most had got
back to the Diyala and they looked on the road as practically open.
They realized that Khalil had made desperate efforts to concen
trate troops at the last moment. They knew that the rest of the 1 ^ th
Division and the 37th Eegiment were arriving.
The 6th Division of the XIII Corps might arrive and the ISoth Regi
ment from the Euphrates together with the garrisons of Falluja and
JBaghdad would be available.
From Turkish sources, available after the war, it appears that on
Khalil's arrival at Baghdad he could dispose of about 10,000 men and
46 guns in the neighbourhood of that city.
From the Turkish point of view Khalil was guilty of two main faults.
The first was his failure to withdraw the XIII Corps in time to defend
Baghdad. It seems doubtful if this could have been accomplished
easily, because that Corps was in touch with the Russians, and snowed
up in the Persian Hills by the exceptionally heavy snowfall that winter.
The second was his failure to make positions in rear for the XVIII
Corps to fall back on and his neglect to maintain even the five positions
originally constructed for that purpose by Nur-ed-Din.
Apart from these two main errors, there seems no doubt that Khalil
lost his head when he might have made better use of the time and forcefe
still left him.
Three days after we crossed the Tigris, Khalil withdrew his Head
quarters to Baghdad informing the XVIII Corps Commander that he
did not intend to stop this side of Samarra. Next day he repented and
ordered Karabekir to halt at Aziziya and fight it out. This order was
impossible, so Karabekir Bey disregarded it and continued his retire
ment to Lajj and Ctesiphon where he halted for several days preparing
a position, while the Army Commander decided what to do next.
Khalil had no plan and it was only as an after-thought, due probably
to our inability to continue the pursuit, that he determined to defend
Baghdad. His indecision wasted several valuable days.
According to the Turkish account, if Khalil had made judicious use
of the short respite given him and co-ordinated a system of defence on
the line of the Diyala with orgarized inundation of the surrounding