Armenia, Teheran and Baghdad

In late 1915, Germany was looking triumphant and irresistible. The exhausted Russian armies were being pushed back on the eastern front; the western front was secure; Mackensen had stormed through Serbia, and German advice and support to Turkey had helped defeat the Allies at Gallipoli, seriously embarrassing Britain. The way through to Baghdad, Persia and beyond was open, although Turkish weakness in these parts of the old Ottoman empire would need further support.

Apart from the Gallipoli campaign, the majority of Turkey’s military efforts had been directed to the Caucasus and the ongoing front against the Russian army there. The Ottoman Empire was responsible for the worst instances of genocide in history - until eclipsed by the Nazis' Holocaust of WW2 -  and their repeated pogroms and massacres of Armenians were the largest, peaking in 1915.

Following the springtime losses on the Eastern Front, the Tsar had re-assigned his uncle, Grand Duke Nicholas, to lead the Russians in the Caucasus. Here, his military leadership and skills had proved too much for the Turks, who were forced through the summer of 1915 to retreat gradually into eastern Anatolia home to the majority of the Armenian population in that region. This accelerated the terrible Armenian massacre of 1915, which had started gradually several months earlier. It was not the first time. Armenia, as described by Buchan “That unhappy race, industrious and pacific, had long been the whipping boy on which Constantinople had taken revenge for its defeats and fears”, had repeatedly suffered ethnic cleansing long before the term was officially coined. From 1895-7 the Ottoman leader Abdul Hamid had sanctioned the slaughter of up to half a million Christians, predominantly Armenians, and in 1909 under the Young Turks leadership up to 50,000 Armenians had been killed in the Adana massacres.

Pre-war proportions of Armenians
(red) in the vilayets of Eastern Anatolia

From the beginning of indiscriminate killings in April, brutal slaughter of Armenians was carried out by government police and mobs all over eastern Anatolia. Around 250,000 found safety in Russian held areas of the Caucasus. Others were driven south and west towards Mesopotamia, Syria and Persia. In all, probably nearly half a million victims perished. As the year passed, and the successes in Serbia and Gallipoli brought greater German presence in Turkey, it suited both parties to move eastwards with the aim of gaining influence, power and territory in northern Persia. Their provocative acts against Russian and British civilians and properties brought strong reactions from Russia, and some support from British forces, anxious to protect their interests. By late November, Russians were in Teheran pursuing Turkish backed rebels southwards. By Christmas a pro-Allied leader was installed in Teheran, but Persia remained unstable – precisely as the Germans had intended. Britain’s priority was the security of Egypt and the Suez Canal – what Bismarck had once called “the neck of the British Empire” – rather than reinforcing Nixon’s forces on the Tigris on their progress to Kut and Baghdad. Germany, on the other hand, was more than willing to direct resources through Syria towards

The Kaiser's Dream - the Berlin to Baghdad Railway
looked more feasible than ever in late 1915

Baghdad to support Turkish forces there.

Baghdad. There were good military and practical reasons for the British to hold their advance up the Tigris at Kut, but in political and prestige terms, capture of Baghdad would be some compensation for Germany’s triumphant presence in Constantinople and the region. In this whole process we can see strong parallels with Gallipoli, with political imperatives trumping military challenges, and disallowing cool and rational appraisal of the difficulties. For instance the necessity of rapid transportation of reinforcements, even if Baghdad was taken successfully, was considered inadequately, if at all. The influence and relative autonomy of the British Government in India was a strong factor in pushing for further advances on Baghdad.

In mid November Townshend’s forces began the advance to Baghdad. With cooler seasonal temperatures they were able to take the direct overland approach – approximately 100 miles – rather than follow the much longer and tortuous course of the Tigris. By 21^st November they were thirty miles from their objective at the ancient city of Ctesiphan where Turkish resistance, stiffened by German know-how, awaited. Late that afternoon Townshend’s 6^th Division, with three columns of infantry and cavalry, attacked the Turkish lines. With spirited fighting that had initial success and broke through the first Turkish lines. However, as a Loos in France, they found even stronger German style 2^nd and 3^rd lines of defence, and found themselves overwhelmed by numbers. By mid-afternoon the next day, Townshend had been forced into a painful and difficult retreat. He had sustained 800 dead and heavy casualties, with approximately one third of his Division having to be evacuated down the river and back to Kut. By 2^nd December the remnants of the exhausted Division had made it all the way back to Kut. Four days later the Turks closed in from north, east and west, and the siege of Kut had begun.