'Historical Summary of Events in Territories of the Ottoman Empire, Persia and Arabia affecting the British Position in the Persian Gulf, 1907-1928' [‎10r] (26/188)

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delta. And after Kut-el-Amara had fallen, exacting considerations of British
prestige in the East and serious and increasing Turco-German efforts from Bagdad
against Persia, and through Persia towards India, all combined to make the capture
of Bagdad more than ever worth a great British military effort. The Gallipoli
campaign, the thrust at the heart of the Ottoman Empire, having failed,
Mesopotamia now, in fact, became the battleground where the conflicting eastern
interests and aims of the belligerent Powers were brought to a settlement. On the
one hand were at stake, for Turkey, her sovereignty in Iraq and Pan-Turkish hopes
of expansion at the expense of Persia; and, for Germany, the whole great edifice of
ambition and domination reared upon the Bagdad Railway, together with immediate
opportunity for creating serious difficulties for Great Britain in Persia and India.
On the other hand, for Great Britain, were her prestige in the East and in Islam; her
position in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ; and ultimately the security of India.
While the British were being besieged in Kut-el-Amara the Russians struck yet
another blow against the designs of the Pan-Turks. A great Russian offensive on
the Caucasian front was expected for the spring of 1916; it began instead in the
depth of winter, before the considerable Turkish reinforcements released from
Gallipoli had yet arrived. On the 12th February, 1916, the Russians were assaulting
the outer defences of Erzerum; four days later they had gained possession of the
fortress, the headquarters of the Turkish eastern army. Meanwhile, another
offensive, on the southern sector of the same front, carried Russian arms to Bitlis and
Mush, west of Lake Van. In the north the westward advance continued till August
1916, when the Russian front reached a north to south line passing a hundred miles
west of Erzerum. But in the region of Lake Van, where Turkish territory marched
with Persian, they were less successful. For though after having been ejected from
Bitlis and Mush they had recovered these positions in August, and at Bitlis were only
150 miles from the Bagdad Railway—'the Turkish line of communication with
Mesopotamia and Western Persia—Turkish resistance had hardened and rendered
further progress impracticable.
After the fall of Kut-el-Amara at the end of April 1916, Bagdad seemed safe,
and German and Turkish prospects in Mesopotamia and Persia correspondingly
bright. Impelled by their obsession for expansion in Persia, and against German
advice, the Turks in June began an offensive in Western Persia, where for some
months they had maintained forces opposing the Russians. By the middle of August
they had reached Hamadan, expelled the Russians, and now had some 30,000 square
miles of Persian territory more or less under their occupation.
On the 16th May, 1916, the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement was concluded
between Great Britain and France, with Russia as a consenting party. It embodied
a settlement of the desiderata of the contracting Powers in Turkey-in-Asia. It calls
for mention here because it assigned to Great Britain, as her sphere of interest,
a broad belt of territory extending from the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. and the Persian frontier
to the Mediterranean, including Basra and Bagdad.
While Turkish hopes in Mesopotamia and Persia ran high, the Sherif of Mecca,
on the 5th June, 1916, began his revolt against the Ottoman Government. At first,
chiefly spiritual and political in effect, it became of considerable military importance;
and its later political results were such that in the regions between Persia and Egypt
they influence British policy to the present day.
The period of respite the Turks enjoyed in Mesopotamia after the fall of Kut-el-
Amara in April 1916, which they utilised for an offensive in Persia, ended in
January 1917. British preparations were then complete, and another advance on
Bagdad began on the 2nd of that month. The battle of Kut-el-Amara opened on
the 9th January; after prolonged fighting the town was reoccupied on the
23rd February; and Bagdad fell on the 11th March. In consequence of these
successes the position of the Turks in Western Persia was progressively endangered.
They withdrew their forces; and by the end of March the Russians had recovered
Persian territory almost up to the frontier of Mesopotamia. Turkish troops around
Lake Urmia in North-Western Persia remained unaffected, being served by other
lines of communication. Indeed, on the bitterly contested southern sector of the
Caucasian front, now held by the Ilnd Army under Mustafa Kemal Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , they
had, by the end of May 1917, turned the Russians out of the Bitlis and Mush districts
and removed the threat to Turkish lines of communication with Mesopotamia and
North-Western Persia.
By the summer of 1917 a new and incalculable factor had begun to make its
influence felt to the benefit of pan-Turkish political and military aims. Outwardly
and visibly the Russian revolution began on the 12th March, 1917 On the
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