Enemy on the Euphrates (40 page)

Following the war, the regiment remained in Iraq. So we can picture Har Chand in July 1920 – his parade-ground red tunic having being swapped for campaign khaki – as the HQ and five platoons of his unit form up in a small mixed column with cavalry, infantry and gunners to try to relieve his comrades and others of the besieged Rumaytha garrison. Precisely what he would have thought about having to return to the same region he fought over three years earlier, we shall never know. Nor do we have any specific details of how he conducted himself during this and
succeeding actions during 1920. We do know, however, that at the end of these operations Jemadar Har Chand was awarded the Indian Order of Merit, second class, for gallantry in the field.

The loyalty of such men to the British Empire was largely due to the personal and family security which soldiering provided. It was a much sought-after occupation for a peasant farmer and his family who might otherwise fall into utter destitution as a result of the vagaries of weather, crop diseases and ill health. The Indian soldier also enjoyed a certain respect and social status, not only within his own community but even among British soldiers and civilians. For while the former or the latter might freely insult or even harm an Indian civilian with virtual impunity, they would have to answer to an Indian soldier’s British commanding officer for any similar acts of disrespect or violence.

And yet this image of absolute loyalty to the flag of the British Empire was beginning to fray a little. Opposition to Indian troops being employed to suppress their ‘colonial brothers’ in the Middle East was growing in India itself and some of the propaganda emanating from the subcontinent must have begun to percolate the ranks of Indian troops in Iraq. At the same time, it would soon become clear that among the Arab insurgents themselves, distinction was often made between British and Indian captives: whereas the treatment of the latter seems to have been generally favourable the same cannot always be said of the former, a few of whom were shot out of hand; this fate never seems to have befallen Indian captives. Indeed, this expectation of differential treatment may well have triggered a small but notorious mutiny at the height of the fighting against the insurgents, as we shall see.

And what of those British officers in the Indian Army? Consider, for example, Lieutenant Francis Gordon Andersson, of the 86th (Carnatic) Infantry Regiment – in July 1920 recently disembarked at Basra and now awaiting orders to move north. Francis Andersson was born on 1 March 1899 at Formby, a small, rather select seaside town in south Lancashire, the second son of an insurance manager.
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Between 1913 and 1917 he was educated at Oundle School, situated in the small market town of the same name, one of the smaller traditional public schools
to which less-affluent members of the middle classes sent their sons. At school, Andersson already showed an aptitude for military matters and he served in the Officers’ Training Corps as a lance-corporal, following which he attended Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, graduating on 24 April 1918. On 29 October 1918 he was admitted to the Indian Army and attached to the 86th Regiment. Subsequently, having studied and become qualified in colloquial Hindustani, Andersson was made a lieutenant in the regiment on 29 April 1919.

Unlike most of the other Indian battalions in Iraq in 1920, the 86th was seriously under-strength with only 554 Indian other ranks, six British officers (including Lieutenant Andersson), twelve Indian officers and sixty ‘followers’. However, in the coming months the 86th would see considerable action in both lines-of-communications duties and participation in several moveable columns. The unit would remain in Iraq until May 1921 and as result of his service, Lieutenant Andersson would, in due course, receive the 1918 General Service Medal with ‘Iraq’ clasp.

To what extent Lieutenant Andersson’s social background and route into the Indian Army was typical is difficult to say; but in general, it seems that, like Andersson, A. T. Wilson and Leachman, British officers in Indian Army service tended to be drawn from the ranks of the less affluent middle classes in comparison with those men who were commissioned in the British Army itself.
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There is also some evidence that British officers of the Indian Army tended to be less well educated in their profession than their British Army counterparts, although this would not seem to be true in the case of the three officers referred to above.
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While the majority of the Indian sepoys serving in Iraq in 1920 had some military experience, matters were very different among the roughly 25 per cent of each infantry brigade made up of British soldiers, as Haldane himself privately acknowledged. While a significant proportion of the officers of the five British battalions stationed in Iraq at the beginning of July 1920 had fought in the Great War, most of the rank and file had only been recruited after the end of the war and had never fired a shot in anger.

The 2nd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment, recently arrived at Tikrit on the northern Tigris, provides a not untypical example. Most of the surviving, battle-hardened other ranks, who had served with the battalion on the Western Front during 1914–18, were demobilised in early 1919 and left the regiment. However, in May and June 1919 the battalion recruited seventeen officers and 604 other ranks and on 5 November it was posted to Tipperary in Ireland, where it was involved in police-type actions ‘in support of the Civil Power’ until the end of the year, when orders were received for embarkation for Iraq.
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On 13 February 1920 the battalion commenced its month-long sea journey, arriving at Basra on 13 March before being carried by river steamer and barges up the Tigris to Baghdad. Then, on 16 March the troops were sent by rail to Tikrit, which was to be the battalion’s permanent station, as part of the 53rd Brigade.
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The battalion’s young, semi-trained infantrymen, drawn largely from the slums of Manchester, Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge, would have found their new posting very uncomfortable. On arrival there were no wash-houses, dining tents or recreation rooms, so that they had to spend a good deal of time on tedious fatigues.
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This also meant that further training had to be postponed. To make matters worse, by early June, Arab raids were being made on the railway stations and posts north of Tikrit and the 2nd Manchesters and other units in the 53rd Brigade had to be put to work constructing defences and barbed-wire perimeters.

In addition to the British and Indian infantry there were also artillery, cavalry, pioneers, signals and other divisional support troops in Haldane’s army in July 1920. The divisional artillery consisted of two brigades of Royal Field Artillery and two pack (mountain) artillery batteries. Three batteries of each Royal Field Artillery brigade were armed with the Mark IV version of the 18-pounder field gun, with a maximum range of 9,300 yards, an improved version of the weapon which had been in general use by the British Army during the Great War and had come into general service in 1919. A battery usually consisted of six guns, each one – and its limber – pulled by four horses and with a crew of six gunners. In addition, one battery
in each artillery brigade was armed with the 4.5-inch howitzer with a maximum range of 7,300 yards but a much higher elevation than the 18-pounder. Howitzers were also manned by six gunners. Unattached to either of the two divisions there was also a battery of Royal Garrison Artillery with 60-pounder heavy guns.

Each division also had a machine-gun battalion and four LAMBs with Rolls-Royce armoured cars; however, all these units were considerably under-strength. Indeed, with regard to the armoured cars, in July 1920 they were having to be manned by men borrowed from infantry units; the cars were old and much the worse for wear, a number always being out of service.

The main British cavalry force, the 7th Brigade, currently at Karind in Persia, was formed by the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards and the 7th Dragoon Guards equipped with lance, sabre and rifle. The brigade also contained a battery of the Royal Horse Artillery and was supported by a machine-gun squadron equipped with French-manufactured Hotchkiss guns. However, in July 1920 the two dragoon guards ‘regiments’ could only muster around a hundred men each.
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In addition there were a number of under-strength Indian cavalry regiments attached to each of the two divisions

Although it wasn’t immediately apparent, air power would come to have a crucial role in the ensuing struggle. By late 1919 two RAF squadrons were based in Iraq, the 6th and the 30th. Both were formed in April 1918 when the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service were merged to form the Royal Air Force. The 30th had arrived first and its three ‘flights’ were dispersed over a huge area, with one at Mosul, one at Qasvin in the Persian highlands and one at Bushire on the Persian coast.
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Its main function had originally been to protect the oil pipeline to Abadan. The 6th arrived at Basra with its aircraft in crates in July 1919 and they too were initially distributed over a vast area, between Dayr az-Zawr on the Euphrates, Mosul and Baghdad. Both squadrons were initially equipped with the antiquated RE8 two-seater light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. During the war it had been the most widely used two-seater British aircraft in service
but it had proved unable to defend itself against enemy single-seater aeroplanes. The RE8 had a 150hp air-cooled engine which gave it a maximum speed of 102mph and an operational ceiling of 13,500 feet. It was armed with one synchronised forward-firing 0.303-inch Vickers machine-gun and one, or sometimes two, flexible 0.303-inch Lewis guns carried on a ring over the observer’s seat. It could carry two 112lb bombs or an equivalent weight of smaller, 25lb bombs – the most common armament in Iraq in early 1920.

By April 1920 both squadrons had begun to receive more modern replacement aircraft – No. 6 with Bristol Fighters and No. 30 with DH9As. In spite of its name the Bristol Fighter was a two-seater light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, although during the war it had proved sufficiently manoeuvrable to successfully engage enemy single-seater fighters in combat. Its 275hp water-cooled engine gave it a maximum speed of 123mph and an operational ceiling of 18,000 feet. Like the RE8, it was armed with one synchronised forward-firing 0.303-inch Vickers machine gun and one, or sometimes two, flexible 0.303-inch Lewis guns used by the observer. As a bomber the Bristol Fighter could carry a load of 240lb. The two-seater DH9As had a water-cooled 400hp engine which gave it a speed equal to that of the Bristol Fighter and an operational ceiling of 16,750 feet. The DH9A was armed in the same manner as the Bristol Fighter and RE8, however its bomb load was considerably larger – two 230lb bombs or four of 112lb – and while the maximum operational endurance of the RE8 was four hours fifteen minutes, the DH9A’s was an hour longer.

While the replacement of older aircraft by newer and more appropriately equipped machines was very welcome, Haldane’s main problem was simply the number of aircraft available. Dust, general wear and tear and illness had rapidly reduced the number of effective aircraft and personnel. For example, by April 1920, No. 6 Squadron had only three serviceable aircraft and seven flying officers available. Matters had improved somewhat by June but at Baghdad, No. 6 still had only eight serviceable aircraft.
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The following month, Wilson was reporting that the garrison still had only sixteen planes to cover the whole of Iraq and
large areas of Persia, of which only six aircraft were fit for service at any one time.
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So, when General Haldane first received news of the attack on Rumaytha at the beginning of July he was in a quandary: on the one hand, in spite of his efforts to persuade Churchill to the contrary, his general orders remained broadly the same as when he had departed Britain in February – to reduce the garrison. On the other hand, given the general weakness and scattered disposition of the troops under his command, the intelligence he was now receiving concerning the recent events at Rumaytha was deeply worrying and dictated additions to – not reductions from – the Army of Occupation. In the end Haldane decided that some modest precautionary measures were called for.

On 8 July he began to shuffle his forces into positions nearer to the scene of the uprising, sending an Indian battalion (87th Punjabis) of the 18th Division which had been guarding Turkish prisoners at Baghdad, to Hilla, seventy-five miles north-west of Rumaytha; another Indian battalion (86th Carnatics), which had only recently arrived from India, was also dispatched to Hilla; two Indian battalions and an artillery battery of the 18th Division were sent south from Tikrit to Baghdad; and the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, resting at Karind, was also ordered to march to Baghdad, from where it too would be transported by rail to Hilla. On the same day he cabled the War Office that one infantry brigade and one field artillery battery (howitzers) should be made ready for dispatch from India to Basra.

Haldane must have been considerably relieved, therefore, when on 14 July he received a telegram from the War Office indicating that, following the attack on Rumaytha, all plans for troop reductions in Iraq had been abandoned. ‘Your difficulties are appreciated’, Churchill wrote to Haldane, ‘and every effort will be made to complete your force in personnel.’
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Haldane was now promised the additional men and equipment – signals, armoured cars, more modern aircraft and logistics – which he had requested in early May. In addition the C-in-C of the Indian Army had been asked to send infantry reinforcements to Iraq as soon as possible.

Indeed, news of this change in policy could not have come at a better time, because the very next day Haldane received intelligence that the uprising was no longer a local affair: three major tribal confederations in the Shamiyya Division of the mid-Euphrates – the al-Fatla, Khaza’il and Bani Hasan – were now in arms and had joined the revolt.