Enemy on the Euphrates (35 page)

The following morning the local APO, Major J.E. Barlow, contacted his superior, Lieutenant Colonel Nalder, by telephone, informing him that a large Arab raiding party was in the vicinity and that he intended make a reconnaissance towards the suspected location of this force later that night. In the event, while making this brave but perhaps rather foolhardy patrol, Barlow was taken prisoner by some of the Shammar tribesmen on the outskirts of the town. The next day the telegraph line between Tel ‘Afar and Mosul was cut.

Meanwhile, two Rolls-Royce armoured cars of the Mosul LAMB had been sent out on a routine patrol heading towards the town. So the officer commanding the Mosul garrison dispatched an elderly two-seater RE8 of 30 Squadron RAF to fly over the armoured cars and drop a message informing their commanding officer that the telegraph to Tal ‘Afar had been cut and therefore to proceed with great care. The pilot of the RE8 was also ordered to make a reconnaissance flight over the town. Early on the morning of 4 June the armoured cars were spotted six miles from the town and the RE8 flew over them and dropped the message. It then continued to fly over the town and at first noticed nothing of an unusual nature. A little later, the aircraft’s observer spotted a large body of mounted men approaching Tal ‘Afar from the west and the pilot flew back over the armoured cars which by now had begun to enter the south-east corner of the town. Another message was dropped to the vehicles warning them of the approaching enemy forces, after which the RE8 flew back over the Arabs intending to machine-gun them.

As the British aircraft made its first pass over the Arab attackers it received a rifle shot which penetrated its fuel tank. The engine cut out but somehow the pilot managed to make a forced landing without either of the crew being injured. Luckily they were able to escape capture and eventually got back to Mosul.

Meanwhile, on the morning of 4 June 1920, Midfa‘i’s troops entered Tel ‘Afar in force and the townspeople, led by Agha ‘Abdul Rahman ibn ‘Usman, rose up in support.
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At the time, the officer in command of the levies, Captain Stuart, was conducting a routine patrol of the town accompanied by an Arab mulazim. Unbeknown to the British, their
own gendarmes had also joined the conspiracy and Stuart was shot in the back by the mulazim. Midfa’i’s men then surrounded the APO’s office, which was defended by his chief clerk and the British sergeant of the levies together with one machine gunner. After an exchange of fire during which Salih, son of Sheikh Ahmad of the Juhaish, was killed, the British defenders were wiped out by a hand grenade tossed onto the roof of the building from which they had been engaging the rebels.

By now the two armoured cars were well inside the town and were heading for the levies’ barracks. As they did so, it seems they were spotted by Major Barlow, who was being led back into the town by the tribesmen who had captured him. Barlow broke away from his captors and made a dash for the armoured cars but before he could reach them he was shot down.
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The armoured car had proved a useful weapon during the latter stages of the war in Iraq. The Rolls-Royce 1920 version weighed 4.7 tonnes, was powered by a six-cylinder 80hp petrol engine and on the flat level surface of the desert it could comfortably reach 45mph. It had 12mm thick armour and its revolving turret carried a .303 Vickers machine gun. It was normally manned by a crew of three, although some photographs show a crew of four, as appears to have been the case at Tel ‘Afar. It was not, however, particularly well suited to the type of hilly terrain found at Tal ‘Afar. Moreover, during the war, the Turks and their Arab allies had learned that it was possible to disable an armoured car by shooting at its tyres.

The approach to the levies’ barracks from the gulley traversed a narrow lane between houses and so steep was the ascent that only a vehicle in perfect running order would be able to negotiate it. As the two cars struggled up this narrow twisting track they came under a hail of fire from the roofs of neighbouring houses. Whether the vehicles stalled, or whether their tyres were shot through, their crews were trapped and all eight officers and men were killed.
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News of the raid on Tel ‘Afar reached Mosul within the day and many in the city exulted. Rumours abounded that the British were about to depart. British officers and men were jeered at in the street. It was therefore essential that swift retribution was meted out to the inhabitants of
Tal ‘Afar to prevent this
coup de main
emboldening potential insurgents in Mosul itself.

The British garrison in Mosul was part of the 18th Divisional Area which also included Tikrit, Baiji and as far north as Zakho. The division’s GOC, Major General T. Fraser, had under his command three infantry brigades, the 53rd, 54th and 55th, each mainly composed of Indian troops with a stiffening of one British battalion per brigade. In addition the division had a number of supporting units, field artillery, pack artillery, machine gunners, signals and cavalry. But in Mosul itself General Fraser had just one brigade, some cavalry and a few aircraft. However, it had already been arranged that at Mosul and other localities mobile punitive columns would be established, ready to take action in the event of serious disturbances. So on the afternoon of 5 June General Fraser dispatched Lieutenant Colonel G.B.M. Sarel of the 11th Lancers with 150 cavalry, 500 infantry and a section of 18-pounder field guns with air support to deal with the situation at Tel ‘Afar.

As the column advanced along the Tigris in a curving north-westerly sweep towards the rebel town they systematically burned and destroyed all the crops of the Turkoman and Arab farms through which they passed. By the evening the column had reached a point ten miles above Mosul on the Tigris, where they surprised Midfa‘i and around 1,200 rebel horsemen who had been raiding in the area. After a skirmish in which the Arab horsemen were bombarded by the light artillery and aircraft, they were put to flight, Jamil Midfa‘i retreating to the rebel-held zone at Dayr az-Zawr. Continuing his advance, Sarel reached Tel ‘Afar on 9 June and the punitive column entered the insurgent town. But by now the local leaders of the rebellion had learned of Midfa‘i’s defeat and had also fled, Agha ‘Abdul Rahman ibn ‘Usman escaping over the armistice line into Turkish territory.

The decision had already been taken to inflict a collective punishment on the rebel townspeople. Two days earlier Gertrude Bell had written to her father recounting the recent events and declaring, ‘The inhabitants of Tel ‘Afar are going to be turned out … and every house is to be destroyed. Nor shall we allow the town to be rebuilt. I fully agree with the decision.’
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Subsequently, the whole population, men, women and children were
forced out of their homes at bayonet point and driven into the desert while many of the houses were burned, looted and destroyed.
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The incidents at Dayr az-Zawr, Tal ‘Afar and Enzeli convinced Wilson that the principal threat to British rule in Iraq came from outside. Even before the raid on Tel ‘Afar and the Enzeli débâcle he was urging the War Office to increase the number of aircraft ‘to the three squadrons which were promised by middle of April’ and replace the obsolete RE8s, because ‘there are persistent reports that Abdallah (or Zayd) will shortly reach Abu Kemal.’

Seizure of Dayr az-Zawr was first step in campaign of penetration from Syria to Mesopotamia. Occupation of Albu Kemal, following on recent agreement is second step. Local representatives of Arab Government have given us verbally and in writing to understand that there will be no cessation of hostilities on this front until we have withdrawn to Wadi Hauran south of Ana … Occupation of Ana, third step and if made effectively by Arab Government would imperil our position at Mosul.
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The telegram then continued in an almost hysterical vein as Wilson poured out his loathing of the ‘extremists’ infiltrating from across the border:

There are indications that in future we may be faced with a recrudescence of fanatical pan-Arab activity with aims and methods closely similar to those of their colleagues in Syria and Egypt … The fact that complete anarchy is imminent is nothing to them. They have grown fat on anarchy in Syria; Syria is exhausted and they seek to revitalize their parasitical existence by fastening themselves on this country.

The telegram ended by warning the War Office that ‘unless His Majesty’s Government and Parliament are prepared to find and support forces to maintain order in this country … the coming autumn is bound to usher in a wave of anarchic energy which will swamp us, and with us Persia’, to which Wilson added, characteristically, ‘Further concession in a constitutional direction will not affect this issue.’

On the other hand, Wilson believed that he had seen off the madhbata episode in Baghdad without too much trouble. To Wilson,
Haldane and even Bell, it still appeared that the main threat came from outside. It could not be denied that the occupation was becoming unpopular among some sectors of the populace; and a few days before the attack on Tal ‘Afar, the judicial secretary in Baghdad, Edgar Bonham Carter, had warned Wilson that according to his information, ‘the extreme party is gaining ground’ and that there was ‘distrust of our intentions’ and ‘a strong desire for the immediate appointment of an Emir’.
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But as yet, it seemed that the only disturbances likely to threaten British rule in Iraq during the coming months would be those emanating from Damascus and its scheming former Ottoman officers or from Bolshevik agents infiltrating from Persia. However, within six weeks all that would change.

PART TWO

Revolution and Suppression

On 9 June 1920 Wilson flew back to Baghdad from Mosul in the observer’s seat of an RE8. He had been conferring with the civil and military authorities as to the state of security on the northern border in the aftermath of the Tel ‘Afar attack. Usually he enjoyed flying – the feeling of freedom and ascendancy: the desert stretched out below him dotted with tiny mud-walled villages; the chequerboard of criss-crossing canals in the cultivated areas; and here and there the turquoise-tiled roof of a Shi‘i shrine – but on this particular day these anticipated pleasures escaped him. Wilson was morose and angry: and the object of that anger was the British Army of Occupation and its commander-in-chief.

So far, Wilson had lost six of his political officers. APO Captain Marshall had been murdered at Najaf in 1918, In April 1919 APO Captain Pearson had been ambushed and killed by pro-Turkish tribesmen in the north of Mosul Division followed by the deaths of PO Mr Bill and APO Captain Scott in October 1919 at the hands of rebel Kurds. And now APO Captain Barlow had been murdered at Tel ‘Afar. Wilson felt all these deaths keenly. Many of the POs and APOs under his command were in their twenties; they were ‘A.T.’s Young Men’ and he felt a deep affection for them. ‘They are practically all my nominees,’ he informed Hirtzel at the India Office, adding touchingly, ‘Almost all the friends I have in the world are included in their ranks and I regard Political Officers and Assistant Political Officers as being with the same family as my own brothers.’ And what was the army doing to protect these brave
young men as they carried out their onerous duties in faraway isolated districts guarded by a handful of regular troops and unreliable Arab levies? Absolutely nothing!

A few weeks earlier he had already complained to Hirtzel that ‘the army is growing steadily weaker’, that ‘it exists apparently almost entirely for the purpose of taking in its own washing’ and that at some stations ‘all available troops are needed for guarding the married families’. He also complained that, in Baghdad,

the streets are still crowded at all times of the day with motor vehicles containing officers and wives … We have an effective strength of about one and half divisions, divided up into two divisions … all of which have large Staffs and an enormous GHQ on top. It is this which is spoiling my Budget, for it keeps up prices without being of the slightest assistance to us. Any single branch of the army contains more officers than the whole of my HQ.

And now, to cap it all, the GHQ had gone off on holiday to the Persian highlands.

So on his arrival back in Baghdad he fired off a long, rambling and bitter telegram to the India Office. ‘Recent developments’, Wilson declared, had caused him to ‘review the whole situation in Mesopotamia arising out of the grant of the Mandate’. The army, he complained, was incapable of defending the frontier divisions of Mosul and Dulaym and reductions of the garrison had meant it had been forced to abandon areas previously held. Any further abandonment of areas previously controlled would ‘eventually involve the evacuation of the whole excepting Basra’. Indeed, in his opinion it was essential to regain possession of Dayr az-Zawr and the surrounding area, but this would require more troops and transport than currently available. Further, ‘If His Majesty’s Government regard such a policy as impracticable, or beyond our strength (as well they may be) I submit that they would do better to face the alternative, formidable and from local point of view terrible as it is, and evacuate Mesopotamia.’
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