'HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR BASED ON OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS. THE CAMPAIGN IN MESOPOTAMIA 1914-1918. VOLUME I.' [‎92r] (188/454)

VIEWS ON FURTHER ADVANCE
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appeared to allow of a reduction of the Indian garrison in
Hong Kong, and it was decided to ask the War Office to let
any troops that could be spared return to India * In con
sequence of these potential reserves, the Viceroy agreed, on the
15th January, to a brigade of infantry being mobilized in
readiness to proceed to Basra. In a letter to Sir T. Holderness at
the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. of the 20th January, Lord Hardinge stated how
unwillingly he had done this in view of the situation in India,
on the frontier, and in Persia. If Persia joined the Turks
in the Jahad it would be very difficult, the Viceroy said, for
the Amir to keep the Afghans quiet.
On the 15th January, Sir Percy Cox telegraphed that the
political situation in Mesopotamia had taken an unsatisfactory
turn. This he attributed to our standing fast at Qurna instead
of advancing to Nasiriya and Amara as expected and desired
by the local Shaikhs. In consequence some of them, abandon
ing their overtures to us, had joined the Turks, who were thus
able to utilise the factor of Jahad with more effect. At Basra,
Amara, and in Arabistan this factor was producing some
results and the Shaikh of Mohammerah was becoming per
turbed. Sir P. Cox gathered that H.M. Government contem
plated Qurna as the final limit of our advance. He urged
strongly, on political, administrative and commercial grounds,
a reconsideration of any such idea in favour of an advance to
Nasiriya and Amara. Our occupation of these two places
would not in any way oblige us, he said, to advance farther.
The Government of India gave this telegram careful con
sideration. Sir Beauchamp Duff considered that Force “ D ”
was too weak and lacked sufficient river craft to carry out
an advance to Nasiriya or Amara and to hold the line of
communication. Sir Percy Cox was, therefore, informed by
the Government of India that our policy for the time being
was to consolidate our positions at Basra and Qurna and to
await developments ; that it had not been finally determined
that Qurna should be the limit of our advance ; but that any
further advance was not yet desirable. These instructions
received the approval of the Secretary of State.
On the 16th, Sir P. Cox received a letter from Major
Shakespear, dated the 4th, reporting his arrival at the head
quarters of Ibn Saudf and describing the situation there. Ibn
Saud had some time previously assured Sir P. Cox that he was
* In this way a mountain battery and two Indian infantry battalions were
added to the strength in India two months later.
f Amir Abdul Aziz ibn Abdur Rahman ibn Faisal (ibn Saud).