'Mesopotamia Commission. Report of the Commission Appointed by Act of Parliament to Enquire into the Operations of War in Mesopotamia, together with a Special Report by Commander J Wedgwood, DSO, MP, and Appendices. London: HMSO, 1917.' [‎55r] (109/248)

' PART XT.—CAUSES . CONTRIBUTING TO THE ERRORS OF 107
JUDGMENT AND SHORTCOMINGS OF RESPONSIBLE AUTHORITIES.
(C 48—176) 0 2
D. Atmosphere of Economy up to Date of War and Effect upon Military
Preparations in India.
resources should have been adopted some time past. Much of the bitterness feit by the
Expeditionary Force against their inadequate supply and equipment can, we belie
traced to the idea that the Indian Government did not early enough realise their res; .nu
bilities, or the strain which the climate and country of Mesopotamia imposed upon a!]
those sent there to fight.
42. So long as the expedition’s advance was confined to the Shatt-el-Arab its operations
were neither difficult nor costly. Every advance increased the difficulties and cost,
and both centred around the transport. We can quite understand that officers, bred up
to resist fresh and new expenditure, would hesitate, when an advance was suggested, to
insist at once upon the outlay necessary to ensure success and diminish risk. “ Risk
and economy ” rather than “ safety and expenditure would be the natural bent of
their past training and orders. It is quite true that no evidence has been produced !
to show that any urgent demand put forward by the Military Authorities was definitely
refused by the Finance Department. The blame for inadequate attention to the special I
wants of the expedition must be attached to the Military Authorities rather than to the
Finance Department.
43. Pertinacity in pressing or multiplying the requisitions from Mesopotamia upon the
Simla authorities was, however, resented, and of this we will give a remarkable illustration.
General Cowper was Adjutant-General and Assistant Quartermaster-General of the
Mesopotamia Force. In January, 1916, he, being the officer responsible for the transport,
became seriously alarmed at the increasing difficulties, which the shortage of transport
created in the employment of troops for the relief of Kut. In consultation with General
Money, Chief of the General Staff, he drafted a telegram in which they stated plainly that
unless they got adequate shipping transport, and personnel to man such transport, Sir
Percy Lake, who had recently assumed command of the force, would have to abandon the
idea of relieving Kut. They purposely had recourse to this language as they considered
the position—to use General Cowper’s own words—•“ So frightfully serious.” Sir Pen v
Lake carefully considered the telegram, and transmitted it after some alterations,
reply Sir Percy Lake received a personal telegram from the Commander-in-Chief at Sim , j
severely rebuking him for the wording of the telegram, and the Commander-in-Chief add i
these words : “ Please warn General Cowper that if anything of this sort again occurs, or
I receive any more querulous or petulant demands for shipping, I shall at once ren^ e j
him from the force, and will refuse him any further employment of any kind.
Sir Beauchamp Duff subsequently stated to us that this reply to Sir Percy Lake’s
telegram was founded upon a paraphrase, which distorted both the purport and language
of the telegram, and that as soon as he became aware of this, he cancelled his censure.
We asked General Duff for a copy of this paraphrase, but he told us it had been destroyed.
The warning conveyed in General Cowper’s telegram was, as our narrative shows,
unfortunately realised, for the failure to break through to Kut was largely due to insuffi
ciency of numbers and of guns, there being, at the critical times of the attempted relief,
large numbers of troops and guns at Basra which could not be moved to the front for
want of transport.
In justice to General Cowper, we must add that it was with great difficulty that we
extracted the above information from him. The incident was referred to in a letter from
Lord Hardinge to the Secretary of State for India and it was in consequence of this allusion
that we obtained the clue to the transaction.
It seems from this letter that Lord Hardinge had complained to Sir Beauchamp Duff ^
of the tone of several recent telegrams from Mesopotamia to Simla. And doubtless this
complaint partly accounts for Sir Beauchamp Duff’s annoyance. But in our judgment
Lord Hardinge’s complaint was altogether unwarranted, and the reprimand which it led
Sir Beauchamp Duff to address to General Cowper was both intemperate and ill-advised.
We fear, however, that it must be regarded as an extreme but characteristic illustration
of the attitude of the authorities at Simla towards demands which they did not like or
did not consider necessary.
E. Sir John Nixon’s Appointment, Instructions and Staff.
44. It is obvious from Lord Hardinge’s evidence that, during his official visit to Meso
potamia, he was struck by the necessity of the offensive being assumed by our forces round