File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎27v] (63/834)

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the fall of
had barely
“ The operations on the Tigris which led to
Baghdad were so rapidly executed that the Turks j
time to withdraw the small body of troops which held the distant
post of Samawah on the lower reaches of the Euphrates. After
the capture of Kut, Ahmed Bey, who was in command at
Samawah, hurried northward. As he passed Diwaniyah lie left
behind him, under charge of the garrison, consisting of a single
gendarmerie battalion, a party of sick, together with their
gendarmerie escort, from Samawah. On the fall of Baghdad most
of the Ottoman officials at Diwaniyah evacuated the town, after
distributing arms among the inhabitants and the local Shabanah
to enable the place to protect itself if necessary against the tribes.
As for the gendarmerie battalion, a difference of opinion appears
to have arisen within its ranks as to the right course of action.
A second lieutenant, a Circassian, by name Mohammed Hachim
Farrukh, held,according to his own account, that they should remain
until tin 1 Turks could relieve them, and on the ground that those
who wished to withdraw were traitors, he caused the Commanding
Officer to be hanged and he shot with his own hand two other
officers. Nevertheless, the greater part of the battalion left
Diwaniyah and made its way north, and it is possible that
Mohammed Effendi might have done the same if he had been
aware that the British were already in occupation of Fallujah ;
but no authentic account of the military situation reached him and
he continued to expect the speedy return of the Turks. He was
left with about sixty men, some of them Turks, the rest Russian
Mohammedan subjects from the Caucasus who had been taken
prisoners early in the war and had accepted service in the Sultan’s
army. They occupied a warehouse and an adjoining caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers).
on the bank of the Euphrates. It was an advantageous position,
for the walls of the warehouse were stout and the rooms high,
enabling the garrison to dominate the low buildings of the town
which they could bomb at pleasure. A deep trench were cut by
them down to the river bank to enable them to obtain their water
supply. Apart from Mohammed Effendi’s force, there were a
Sanitary Corps not under his command and a few Turkish
wounded in the Serai, a building in the middle of the town.
I he wounded men gave themselves up to us in the middle of
duly and the Sanitary Corps in the beginning of August.
The townsfolk of Diwaniyah, fearing equally the tribes
beyond their gates and the Turkish garrison entrenched within
their limits, begged early in Mav that a representative of the
British (Tovernment might be appointed to them, and the
administration be taken over by us. In the middle of Ma V a
number of the principal tribal sheikhs of the district came in to
Baghdad to pay their respects, and being informed that a
Government representative could not be sent them until they
had expelled their guests, they undertook on their return to
Diwaniyah to put an end to Mohammed Effendi’s resistance
1 his, however, proved to be a more difficult matter than they
i
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