f»iaicli I, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
and with tliat communication M'hich alone permits ol 
such a concent lation of both. 
The final operation which decided the event filled 
I'hursday, Friday and Saturday last, by the close of 
which latter day, Saturday the 24th, the whole enemy 
position was turned, and the whole enemy force in full 
retreat. 
Before turning to the details of this victory, let us 
brietiy recapitulate the stages of the British advance. 
It was upon December 13th that Sir Stanley Maude 
delivered the first of what was to be a continuous series 
of operations against what I have called, with perhaps 
some exaggeration in language, the defile of Kut, a defile 
being a passage created by obstacles upon either side, 
and forming, as I have said, a " door." This first blow 
was struck upon the obstacle to the left of the British 
front, that is upon the right bank of the Tigris, with an 
offensive against the watercourse called theShatt-al-Hai. 
In somewhat more than a month the \\hole of the right 
bank of the Tigris from this obstacle downwards had 
been cleared of the enemy, and by February loth a 
strong point formed by the old liquorice factory, which 
stands in the angle between the Shatt-al-Hai and the 
Tigris, opposite Kut, was in the hands of the attacking 
force. As will be seen from the accompanying map 
the river above Kut makes t«.'o great bends, the first 
running northwards known as the Dahra bend, the next 
running southward known as the Shumran. Immediately 
following upon the capture of the liquorice factoiy the 
Turkish forces in the Dahra bend were pressed back 
against the ri\er. They formed the left of the enemy's 
body and were cut off from the main body, of course, by the 
Tigris itself. This stream they had bridged with pontoons 
or boats and proposed to cross under the pressure of the 
]:}ritish advance. They were unable to complete this 
movement in security, being kept constantly xmder tlieir 
opponents' fire, and a great number, as will be rcmem- 
bcredjfrom the desj)atch of three weeks ago, were captured 
in the bend, and the whole of this bank of the Tigris was 
cleared up to the point of the Shunuan salient bend beyond. 
It was upon February 15th that that operation was 
completed. Some 2,000 prisoners fell into the hands of 
Sir Stanley Maude's command, including, if I remember 
right, part of a divisional staff. What followed was a 
very interesting piece of tactical work, which we shall 
do well to examine in detail. 
Of two obstacles which formed the walls, as it were, 
upon either side of the door of Kut, the one, the. southern 
obstacle upon the British left — Shatt-al-Hai — had been 
forced, as we have seen, in the fir.st part of February, 
and the enemy driven beyond the river Tigris. But the 
river Tigris itself formed a subsidiary obstacle. The 
crossing of the Shatt-al-Hai only half opened the door. 
The main Turkish forces still lay protected from the 
British upon one flank by the works which defend the 
passage between the marsh and the river below Kut, 
and the other by the river itself above Kut. The defile 
would not be completely forced, the door would not be 
completely opened, until the force had been compelled 
to retire into the open country beyond, that is to abandon 
the peninsula of Kut. 
In order to observe in detail what followed, I must 
ask my readers to look' at Sketch VI. appended below. 
1MB i i^ 
6''^fiZes JO 
mrveateti^ lure 
With the object ol compellmg tins retirement Sir 
Stanley Maude first attacked the strong lines w hich run 
from the Suwaika March to the river, which have been 
organised for more than a year and which arc kpown as 
the Sanna-i-Yat position. The attack was prolonged 
and to a superficial observer might have seemed doubtful. 
It was first delivered in force upon February 17th, 
that is last Saturday week, without apparent success, 
and though by the following Thursday, the 22nd, the 
first and the second lines had been occupied, it still 
afforded a very heavy task. In the absence of a direct 
statement we may surmise that the enemy was deceived 
into believing that the main effort, or at any- rate the 
decisive one, would be made here, and that he con- 
centrated special strength for the defence of the 
Sanna-i-Yatt entrenchments. But it is sufficiently clear 
to anyone examining Sketch VI. that the Sanna-i-Yat en- 
trenchments were not the sole keys to the position. The 
whole of the Turkish force lay upon a right angle menaced 
upon two flanks, and while the direct fire upon the Sanna- 
i-Yat entrenchments was of the nature of a frontal 
effort against the left flank, the right flank was only safe 
so long as the Tigris obstacle was intact. The con- 
centration of British over against the Sanna-i-Yat positions 
was in reality subsidiary to the plan which had been 
formed to turn the right flank of the enemy by crossing 
the Tigris at the Shumran bend. Under a superiority of 
fire the point of the Shumran bend was bridged some- 
where (apparently near its uttermost point, which would, 
of course, be subject to a converging lire from three sides 
(jf the British guns to cover the operation). This was 
completed upon the Friday, the 2.5rd. The neck of 
the Shimiran bend is covered by a sandy ridge stretching 
from one side of the river to the other. The enemy, 
abandoning the interior of the Shunuan bend when the 
bridge had been thrown across on the Friday and when 
the British forces had begun to pass over to the other 
side, was thrown oft' that defensive position of the ridge 
in the early morning of Saturday, the 24th, and obviously 
from that moment onwards the whole of the Turkish 
position was turned by the right. The continued defence 
of the Sanna-i-Yat entrenchment, against which the 
enemy had been lured to concentrate an excessive 
strength, was no longer of any service to him, and ho 
was already in full retreat. By 8 o'clock a.m. the 
same day the cavalry had passed the river and were 
the first to strike upon the flank of the retreating force. 
And throughout the whole of that Saturday the pursuit 
and harassing of the Turkish retreat continued — with 
what loss to the enemy we are not at the present moment 
of writing (Tuesday afternoon) informed. 
. The General-in-Command, however, tells us that the 
harassing took the form, among other attacks, of machine 
gun fire from aircraft flying low and bombs from the 
same, and in general the retirement was pressed very 
strongly. The enemy left a rearguard on the far bank 
of the Tigris below Kut, which on the same day abandoned 
the last trenches of the Sanna-i-Yat position ana re- 
tired, first to opposite Magasis, which the British reached 
by Saturday evening, and then back at full speed along 
their direct line of retreat. Part of the retiring force 
was caught in the peninsula of Kut and left in the hands 
of the victorious force 1,730 prisoners, counted up to 
Saturday evening, including five regimental commanders, 
of whom four were German, four field guns, ten machine 
guns and a considerable amoimt of rifles and material. 
The immediate eft'ect of this victory is, as we ha\e 
said, to force the Kut defile and to restore the operations 
in this neighbourhood to a war of movement. There is 
no similar opportunity for defence up river equal to the 
opportunities given by Kut and the enemy can only rely 
for further resistance on rapid reinforcement in numbers. 
While attention will naturally be directed chiefly 
tt)wards this advance towards Bagdad with the very con- 
siderable political consequences involved in our success 
in this region should it be obtained, we must not forget 
that quite apart from the main objective at Bagdad, 
a strong advance up the Tigris produces as a necessary 
conse(]uence tlie relief of ])ressure towards Persia. It is a 
point whicji need not be laboured and which it might 
be imprudent to develop too far. But everybody is 
acquainted with the importance of preventing the enemy 
forces from excrci.sing political pressure upon any portion 
of Persian territory, and an advance up the Mesopotamian 
