Townshend and Kut

[withcall]

Every time there's another dreadful newsflash from Iraq, my mind always turns to the debacle at Kut al Imara in the Great War. I wonder how long it will be before one of the current literary lions of WW1 re-examines this, rehabilitates Townshend and turns the campaign into a stunning victory? Quick literary/historical Trivial Pursuit question: which classic English novel (about war) features a school named after the Mesopotamian town, who were the two principal characters, and what were they doing there? First prize - complete works of John Laffin (only joking..)

[PMHart]

Hi,

I truly enjoyed this splendidly satirical posting and the way it teases the reader - as truly no-one with half a brain could ever have though that any of the current crop of so-called revisionist historians would ever, ever defend the conduct of the Mesopotamia campaign.

It is, after all, the revisionists who point to the prime need to defeat the German Army on the Western Front, the revisionists that point out the futility of the Mesopotamia campaign once the oil had been secured - which it had been by very early 1915; the rvisionists who believe that every one of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers wasting their time in Mespot would have been far better off fighting the real enemy on the Western Front. Given the awful conditions and heavy casualties in Mespot it wouldn't have been much worse for the individuals and at least their sacrifice would have had a purpose.

It is the Easterners: the Lloyd Georges, the Winston Churchills, the John Laffins etc. etc of this world who think there is a soft underbelly, an easy option, a magic bullet, an easy way to win a World War. There isn't then or now!

I think the Mesopotamia Campaign is one of the most intriguing of the Great War, but that does not make it a worthwhile venture. I believe the same team of Simon Moody and Alan Wakefield who tackled the equally dire Easterner adventure at Salonika are now working on a book on Mespotamia. I'm sure it will be excellent!

Good gag! Now how about the rumour I heard from a similar source that Gary Sheffield's new biography on Haig will reveal that he was in fact a lesbian?

Pete

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Mates

Are there a group like the JW's selling revised history of Kut door to door or something in Britain?

Knock knock

1: G'day sir. We are the historical revisionists of Kut. I wonder if you have thought about Kut and how it has changed your life?

HH: Duh, what are you on about.

2: We're here to save you from wrong thinking about Kut. It will only take a few moments of your time.

1: We have this wonderful brochure that tells you how you can attain historical nirvana.

2: Do you want to explore its possiblities?

HH: Duh, well I have already given to the Red Cross this year. Try the house over there.

Door closes.

Cheers

Bill

[Andrew Hesketh]

Now how about the rumour I heard from a similar source that Gary Sheffield's new biography on Haig will reveal that he was in fact a lesbian?

Haig or Sheffield?

[PMHart]

Both! By the way in the spirit of the original question what is a lesbian?

Pete

[DaveBrigg]

This man is Lesbian. But since Lesbos is several hundred miles from Kut I can't see the relevance. Were the Greeks involved?

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Mates

On a more serious note, I was at my optomotrist to get my eyes examined when we got to talking about things. She asked me about the research I was doing and mentioned the Light Horse when she stated that her Grandfather was at Kut. Indeed, he escaped from Kut after it had been surrounded.

The story is quite simple and one characterised by dumb luck and the ability to recognise a good thing when it happened. He was a signaller with his troop. They were setting up a signals station - I think heliograph but not too sure. Anyway while they were working away they noticed a platoon of Turks moving in their direction. A couple of his mates scurried off to tell their officers the development. He remained behind with the equipment - he was hidden from the Turks. This was the enveloping movement that resulted in him being cut off from Kut. He took it upon himself to pack up and travel south to the nearest British forces and let them know the situation. The rest of the story is history. Kut was cut off but he was still free - well as free as anyone could be in the army.

It was a ripping yarn.

Cheers

Bill

[Eceabat]

Bill,

I take it that your optomotrist's grandfather was with the British forces. There were nine Australians in Kut when it was beseiged by the Turkish forces, all members of the Australian Half Flight, the country's first combat aviation unit. All the nine were ground crew and only two survived the two and a half years captivity, six dying on the march from Kut into what is now Turkey and another only a month or so before the end of the war.

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Eceabat

G'day mate

I take it that your optomotrist's grandfather was with the British forces.

Yeah, that's right. He was British.

Cheers

Bill

[bob lembke]

Every time there's another dreadful newsflash from Iraq, my mind always turns to the debacle at Kut al Imara in the Great War. I wonder how long it will be before one of the current literary lions of WW1 re-examines this, rehabilitates Townshend and turns the campaign into a stunning victory? Quick literary/historical Trivial Pursuit question: which classic English novel (about war) features a school named after the Mesopotamian town, who were the two principal characters, and what were they doing there? First prize - complete works of John Laffin (only joking..)

A few comments. I follow the present Iraq disaster carefully, also in the Guardian, and I think I remember some British troops being surprised to find a British military cemetary there, and doing some work putting it to rights. Do they "teach Kut" in the UK army? "Last time we lost a division, we ...... "

Haven't read much about this, but did not get a good impression of Townshend. Going quail shooting or something with the senior Turkish officers while his men died along the roadside. Complaining about the towels at his villa (Made that one up, I admit, but I think he did have a villa, as a very senior POW.)

Some British officers refused "first class passage" and insisted on marching with their men. Good for them.

I do not know the details, but I know the conditions, health, etc. for the British OR POWs was terrible, and many died. It is not a blanket excuse, but conditions generally in the Turkish Army of the period was possibly equally bad, especially in units/theatre of operations without a large German presence. (Let my quickly say that what the Germans brought in particular was not humanity, etc., but more what I would claim to be the world standard in staff work, which helps avoid troops starving or freezing to death, etc. At the beginning of the war, due to a lack of good staff work, an entire Turkish army did freeze to death in the north-east of the country.) My wife read a book by a Turkish officer and author, whose educated middle-class father was drafted when Gallipoli was invaded, given a massively incorrect size of boot, and marched off toward Gallipoli till he bled to death on the road from the wrong size of boot, and not being given any slack or opportunity to fall out, etc. My father fought as a volunteer pioneer at Gallipoli with the Turks, and he loved them, as wonderful soldiers. When my father's volunteer pioneer company first got there they had 80% casualties immediately, mostly from disease; he was a replacement, and he got malaria.

Bob Lembke

[Staffsyeoman]

Here's an idea. Some brave publisher gives Denis Winter a contract to write a new biography of Townshend rehabilitating him.. (they both need a break, after all..)

A brave man who tries to eke anything positive out of that man for his conduct after the surrender, methinks.

[zooloo]

Hmmm... can Townshend be fairly blamed for an operation he didn't think sound but followed because he was ordered to?

Kut was a failure but how can Townshend be blamed?

A tiny step to rwvision and rehabilitation, perhaps.

zoo

[PhilB]

One has to appreciate the problem for the revisonist historian. When all the reasonable, debatable things have been revised you`re left scraping the bottom of the history barrel. There are the unpleasant things that nobody saw as revisable and there at the very bottom is Townshend! Phil B

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Bob

G'day mate

but conditions generally in the Turkish Army of the period was possibly equally bad, especially in units/theatre of operations without a large German presence.

I am not sure I agree with this generalisation Bob. My thoughts turn to Beersheba - although a bit off topic, bear with me - where the town was held by 4,000 Turks facing some 40,000 British, Enzed and Australian troops. Germans had little to do with this action. The Yilderin Battalions were top grade as was the 3rd Cavalry Division. The one thing all the diarists say during this period is that the popular belief about the Turks - iterated in your post might I add - was nothing more than myth. They were well supplied, well led and as your GF has reported, extremely brave. Indeed some of the diarists are downright derisive about this notion.

Here is a quote from Ion Idriess "The Desert Column" at CHAPTER XVIII, p.91 which sums up this feeling:

"July 1916—Before daylight, we warily returned to the oasis and boiled our jackshays. How appetizing the bully-beef and biscuit tasted! It was late (how very lucky for us) when we mounted and rode out. Lieutenant Stanfield, the two artillery staff officers, and five plain Aussies. The staff officers we soon felt friendly towards. They found everything interesting, and were plainly expecting an exciting trip. Their bobtailed neddies were groomed to the last polish. They were smartly dressed themselves, a contrast to us unshaven, sunburned bushrangers in breeches and flannel, rifle and bandolier. No doubt if the Turks captured us the Constantinople papers would issue triumphant articles describing how raggedly clothed and poorly equipped the Australian troops are, exactly as we have erroneously supposed some of their regiments to be from similar prisoners we have taken."

These things are all two edged swords. First impressions in this case were always the wrong impressions.

Cheers

Bill

[FAAAEd]

It is, after all, the revisionists who point to the prime need to defeat the German Army on the Western Front, the revisionists that point out the futility of the Mesopotamia campaign once the oil had been secured - which it had been by very early 1915; the rvisionists who believe that every one of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers wasting their time in Mespot would have been far better off fighting the real enemy on the Western Front. Given the awful conditions and heavy casualties in Mespot it wouldn't have been much worse for the individuals and at least their sacrifice would have had a purpose.

Now I am not a revisionist on the Kut debacle, the use of that latter term re-enforcing my opinion, however there was more to the campaigns in that wider theatre than the oil of Mesopotamia.

Providing Russia with viable warm water ports whereby trade could be maintained for 12 months of a year was of vital importance in keeping Russia fit enough to continue the struggle. Unfortunately the genie was very much out of the bottle WRT the Ottoman Empire when the Goeben and Breslau made it through to Constantinople, carried out predatory raids on the Russian Black Seas Fleet and effectively cut off Russia from the import of food, raw materials and munitions for much of the year and also of the ability to export her goods in order to maintain her treasury.

The importance of these developments, which allowed the Bolsheviks to gain momentum and eventually power, resulting in a truce with Germany and thus allowing the latter to move huge numbers of troops to the Western Front, should not be overlooked.

[zooloo]

There are the unpleasant things that nobody saw as revisable and there at the very bottom is Townshend! Phil B

Why do you put Townshend here, what did he do to deserve that?

zoo

[PhilB]

Why do you put Townshend here, what did he do to deserve that?

zoo

I refer you back to post 10! Phil B

[zooloo]

I refer you back to post 10! Phil B

Aha! Thank you.

The reference to Townshend is his apparent behaviour as a POW. While true in spirit it is out of context and cannot in fairness put him at the bottom of the unpleasant heap.

What else could/should he have done?

On the that line... Do people think Townshend was responsible for the failure at Kut?

zoo

[bob lembke]

Bob

G'day mate

I am not sure I agree with this generalisation Bob. My thoughts turn to Beersheba - although a bit off topic, bear with me - where the town was held by 4,000 Turks facing some 40,000 British, Enzed and Australian troops. Germans had little to do with this action. The Yilderin Battalions were top grade as was the 3rd Cavalry Division. The one thing all the diarists say during this period is that the popular belief about the Turks - iterated in your post might I add - was nothing more than myth. They were well supplied, well led and as your GF has reported, extremely brave. Indeed some of the diarists are downright derisive about this notion.

Cheers

Bill

Hi, Bill;

First of all, it was my father that fought at Gallipoli, not my grand-father. I know that that is hard to believe, given what a youthful, mischevious lad I am.

You have pushed my thought to a further and broader generalization. The combat units of the Turkish Army, especially those composed of Anatolian peasants, were good units and grat fighters, generally, and the officer corps in the field were good and brave officers. But the combat units sometimes suffered badly from poor staff work, which sometimes (as in all armies), led to extreme suffering for the rank and file. The classic example was when Enver Pasha rushed an army of about 95,000 to the mountains in the north-east to counter the advancing Russians. Supposedly a German staff officer asked him about the preparations for logistical support, etc., in other words, good staff preparation, only to get an Alfred P. Newman "What, me worry?" sort of response. The result was that almost the entire army perished in the winter in the mountains, freezing and starving. Of course a lot of that was due to good old Enver Pasha himself. The fact remains that the Turkish Army, recently battered in the several Balkan wars, had serious problems that affected the welfare of the men, and certainly of any POWs that fell into their possession. Often, as in the mountains in 1914/15, and probably in Mesopitania (sp?), their transportation infrastructure was limited, causing misery to Johnny Turk and his prisoners alike. I am sure that they sometimes were very hard and/or indifferent to their prisoners, but I could be churlish and mention that I have also read a fair number of reports, some Australian, about Aussies harming, tormenting, or killing prisoners, seemingly especially if they captured German advisors or volunteer troops at Gallipoli. (Sorry about that; I generally have a very good feeling about the ANZACs, but I have read about several incidents along that line, all from Allied observers.)

Probably the best thing that the Germans brought to their Turkish allies was a good deal of help with the staff work; the Huns of course being as good at that as anyone in the war. After the losses in the Balkan Wars, and then the need for further expansion for WW I, the Turks certainly had a shortage of well-trained staff officers, as well as probably everything else.

I know little about the campaign in Palestine. With some logistics and munitions, the Turkish Army would usually be a good opponent, all the more if they were fighting closer to the homeland. The Arab units tended to be shakier, matching their shaky loyalty.

Best Regards,

Bob Lembke

[withcall]

OK, I know we live in a 'blame someone' society, but let's look at what happened at Kut. Townshend was the lower end of a chain of command: Duff C-in-C India, Nixon, Army Commander Basra, and then himself, I/C 6th Div. Nixon orders Townshend to capture Amarah. Understandably, I suppose, he does what he's told. The story goes, that anxious to impress, he then pushed on too far, in spite of sustaining casualties of 12% when the estimate had been 6%. He pushed on towards Baghdad, but was met by a large Turkish force. In spite of conducting the battle well, he sustained another 4000 casualties without inflicting terminal damage on the enemy. Choosing to retreat to Kut was his biggest error. Had he taken his force further back to Amarah, there was more chance of his being relieved from Basra. The relief force sent out towards Kut, led by General Aylmer was to suffer 23,000 casualties itself. It is also alleged that Townshend's reports of the strength of the Turkish forces nearby were hopelessly inaccurate, at best, thus completely confusing Aylmer about the strength of the enemy he was actually facing. The most unpleasant aspect of all this, if true, was that throughout the debacle, Townshend was constantly asking for promotion. Again, allegedly, when he heard of the promotion of Aylmer's successor, Townshend wept jealous tears on the shoulder of a startled subaltern. How much of this is a 'stitch-up' campaign designed to blacken the name of a gallant officer, I can't say, but one thing seems to pile up on another. The suggestion that Dennis Winter write a 'rehab' of Townshend is brilliant - anything Winter writes is instantly vilified by the Great And The Good, so it would have the effect of confirming most ordinary people's dim view of that particular General.

[zooloo]

I don'yt know details on some of your points but the follow occour to me:

Townshend was ordered forwards, further than he wanted to go. It was not his choice to over extend everything.

They stopped at Kut partly beause it was a bottle neck, for tactical reasons and there wasn't really a better 'ole.

Surley Townshend's vanities and defects don't realy come into it.

zoo

[withcall]

If Townshend's 'vanities and defects' were kept purely personal, then that's fine, but if they affect operational decisions, then they are relevant. Let's go with the 'only following orders' line for a moment. Surely you accept that mistakes were made; if so, whose were they? Where does the buck stop? Let's say, for the sake of discussion, that the mistakes were Nixon's. Does someone then leap to their feet and say,'Ah, well it wasn't his fault, because.....'? The thing that really irks me about the revisionist argument is that the inescapable logic of their case is that no-one is ever to blame, ever, ever. There's always an excuse. OK, so attributing blame doesn't bring one soldier back to life or regain one lost mile of ground, but it seems plain daft to elevate the Great War above any other human endeavour and decree that no-one above the rank of Colonel can ever be wrong. Fine, being wrong doesn't make someone a villain. Everyone (outside of WWI Staff) makes mistakes, and at some point everyone, in real life, should be accountable.

[zooloo]

Certainly I agree Kut was a cock-up. In fact the Mesop campaign in general was.

I wouldn't blame Townshend for it. It was poorly run from Parliament and badly manged by Nixon et al.

So I'm blaming Politicians and Senior Staff... hmmmm what a novel idea

zoo

[bob lembke]

Guys;

I have been walking about town doing errands and fretting about my recent post to this thread. In addition to being somewhat OT, something that I am a past master at, I am concerned that I have offended some Pals, especially Australians, who I feel, both on this forum and another that I haunt, to be really interesting, knowledgable, and quite generous with help.

I was addressing a question that is not the topic of the thread, but was touched on, I think; the sad fact that so many of the troops captured at Kut did not survive their captivity. They had to make long, brutal marches, and I am sure that the provisions, medical care, etc. was miserable. However, the Turkish troops marching with them also probably died in large numbers.

I then, inpolitically, mentioned that I have seen a number of accounts of Aussies also treating Turkish and German POWs badly in the Middle East theatre of operations. It probably was an unneccessary comment (although my actual observation). Again, I appologize if I have offended anyone. I really like the Turks (my father loved and really respected them), I have visited there three times recently, and I guess I was being protective or something, reacting to a charge that was not actually clearly uttered.

Some background: I was up most of the night doing an obscure tax return, so this morning I probably was in combat mode and mistook my Australian friends for the Internal Revenue Service (our Inland Revenue).

I have access to Bean, and have gone through a good deal of it, but I would be deeply grateful if anyone could guide me to another source with information about the German involvement at Gallipoli. I actually will be writing about it in 2-3-4 years, but it is a bear to research, and I am trying to get a head start.

Bob Lembke

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Zoo

G'day mate

The first part of the Mesopotanian Campaign was a raging success. Within weeks they secured all their original objectives and were safe in their zone.

This is when delusions of grandeur set in with the insane idea of knocking off the Turks on a shoestring in Iraq occurred. Sound familiar? Nothing has changed. It was one thing to secure the oil fields which in the main were unpopulated regions and easily defended but another to move troops up hostile country through heavily populated regions.

I have read different accounts of the siege at Kut and I still do not understand the decisions made by the commanders. I can only opine that I was not on the ground with them at the time so I am not in the command loop that led to these decisions. Most of them were gambles based upon a wing and a prayer - also the notion that Jacko was inferior to the Brits and thus would turn and run at any given opportunity - a la Corporal Jones: "Give them a bit o' cold steel! Them fuzzy wuzzies don't like that." - a notion that remained despite the Gallipoli experience.

Cheers

Bill