"تاريخ الحرب الكبرى استنادًا إلى وثائق رسمية. الحملة في بلاد الرافدين ١٩١٤-١٩١٨. المجلد IV". [و‎‎٢‎١] (٥٤٠/٤٦)

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BRITISH REINFORCEMENTS 17
General Maude concluded by giving his opinion that the true
course to adopt was a vigorous and carefully concerted offensive
by the Russians and by his own force. It should be undertaken
with the least possible delay, so as to break up the enemy’s
concentration before he was ready and to obviate the chances
of the Russians being stopped by snow before they could make
sufficient progress. Owing to the numerical superiority of their
left wing as compared with the enemy, the Russians, if they
acted with vigour and determination, should be able to ensure
the occupation of Kifri and Kirkuk before the enemy could
bring up reinforcements.
On the 22nd July, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff
repeated to General Maude a telegram from the British Mission
with Russian General Headquarters which gave a plan for an
offensive against Mosul on a considerable scale to begin at the
end of October. General Pavloff had been relieved by General
Baratoff, whose troops numbering 14,000 men and 6,000 horses
were to re-occupy the line of the Diyala as soon as the climate
permitted and were to come under General Maude for operations
and supply. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff asked if
General Maude could supply them and also said that he had
made clear to the Russians the conditions under which General
Maude could advance up the Tigris and the extent of such an
advance. Here the question of Russian co-operation can be
left for a time.
At the beginning of June the War Office agreed to send to
Mesopotamia by August another squadron (No. 63) of aeroplanes
and twelve additional batteries* ; and on the 26th June the
Chief of the Imperial General Staff asked, in view of the Russian
withdrawal from the Diyala and a probable Turkish attempt to
retake Baghdad, what battalions India could spare to reinforce
General Maude early in August. Replying on the 28th, the
Commander-in-Chief in India said he could despatch six
battalions! (some only partly trained) by that date. The
formation of nineteen of the twenty-four new battalions! had
begun, but progress was retarded by the lack of British officers
with experience of Indian troops and he asked the Chief of the
Imperial General Staff to hasten the return to India of some then
serving under the War Office whose services had already been
applied for. The operations against the Mahsuds had been
* Nine 6-gun 18-pounder batteries, one 4-gun 60-pounder battery and two
4-gun motor drawn 6-inch howitzer batteries.
t 13th Rajputs, 49th Bengalis, 83rd Infantry, 85th Burma Infantry, 104th
Rifles and 126th Baluchistan Infantry. They all reached Basra in August.
I See Volume III, Chapter XXXV.