Enemy on the Euphrates (55 page)

Mid-October 1920 was also ‘the beginning of the end’ for Leslie’s command of the 17th Division. Haldane, continuing to brood on the shambles which had led to the Manchester Column disaster, had finally decided to act. On 16 October Leslie received an ‘official’ communication from GHQ objecting to the statement in one of Leslie’s dispatches to the effect that the Manchester Column had set out from Hilla ‘with the approval of the C-in-C’. It was stated in the GHQ ‘official’ that the C-in-C ‘knew nothing about the move until it was made’. In response, a furious Leslie informed Brigadier Stewart, Haldane’s chief of the general staff, that ‘unless his “official” was cancelled I would reply to it officially’.
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Stewart promptly telegrammed Leslie cancelling the ‘official’. But Haldane had no intention of backing down: a few days later he relieved Leslie of his command, informing the War Office that he had ’lost confidence in Major General Leslie’.
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At the end of August 1920 Haldane had been facing around 131,000 armed insurgents, of whom nearly half had rifles of one sort or another.
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Churchill’s telegram of 26 August, promising to provide him with every battalion that could be mustered to crush the rebellion, had therefore been of great relief to the general and his reply, two days later, expressed his ‘deep gratitude’. ‘You can depend on me to my utmost,’ he assured the war minister.

However, there was one statement in Churchill’s telegram which caused him some unease. It seems he was being asked to couple his military campaign with ‘the policy of setting up an Arab Government’. Haldane was vaguely aware that the politicos had a plan to install some kind of puppet Arab regime after the insurrection had been put down; indeed, even Wilson had now apparently accommodated himself to that idea; but the suggestion that he, the GOC-in-chief, should be somehow involved in that process was not one he welcomed – especially since he had already heard that Wilson’s replacement, Sir Percy Cox, had ideas about conciliating the insurgents as part of a broad, political settlement. Consequently, the gratitude which Haldane expressed to Churchill in his own telegram of 30 August was coupled with a forthright statement about how Haldane saw his duty.

From recent extracts of Times in Reuters it appears that Sir P. Cox is coming out here as High Commissioner in supreme control of the administration, with intention of securing peace by negotiation. I am convinced that the rising is anarchical and religious though initiated on
political basis, and peace can come only by the sword. The coexistence of a High Commissioner on these lines and a G.O.C.-in-Chief trying to carry out wishes of the Cabinet as expressed by you is quite incompatible. I request that my position may be clearly defined.
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Churchill was on holiday in France at the time and Haldane, receiving no reply, decided that although he would behave towards Sir Percy with as much civility as he could summon, he would continue to pursue the campaign against the insurgents as he had always intended.

By now the only British stronghold seriously threatened by the rebels was Kufa, seven miles north-east of Najaf, which had been under siege since 21 July. The last time the British had begun an advance south in the direction of Kufa it had ended in the Manchester Column disaster; this time Haldane would make sure there would be no mistakes.

Two brigade-strength columns were assembled at Hilla. The 53rd Brigade column, under Brigadier General G.A.F. Sanders, was composed of two British infantry battalions – 1st Battalion the Rifle Brigade and 2nd Battalion the East Yorks Regiment – and three Indian battalions; in addition, the column had three artillery batteries and an escort of the 5th Cavalry, and a company of sappers and miners completed the column’s strength. The 55th Brigade column, under Brigadier General H.A. Walker, was somewhat larger. It consisted of two British infantry battalions – the 2nd Manchesters (now replenished with new recruits) and the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles – and six Indian battalions, including one of pioneers. In addition there were three field artillery batteries, one pack artillery battery, cavalry squadrons from the Scinde Horse and the 37th Lancers and two companies of sappers and miners.

In addition to the ascendancy conferred by this formidable assembly of military might, this second advance south from Hilla into enemy territory enjoyed another advantage over the ill-fated Manchester Column: the climate – although still hot during the daytime – was now considerably cooler than suffered by the Manchesters, and at night it was becoming positively chilly.

In fact, the objective of the operation was not just to relieve Kufa but also to isolate and subdue Karbela’, and with this in mind the 53rd
Brigade column was ordered to do a detour towards Tuwairij – strategically, the ‘gateway’ to Karbela’ – while the 55th Brigade column headed directly south towards Kufa. Moreover, along their respective routes the columns were also charged with the task of ‘punishing’ all the Arab villages through which they passed.

On 7 October, infantry and artillery from the 55th Brigade fought a major action along the Hindiyya south of Hilla, defeating a force of around 3,500 insurgents after which a line of blockhouses was swiftly constructed to protect the communications of the planned advance. By 11 October Haldane considered it safe to launch his main offensive. The 55th Brigade continued south, burning villages of the al-Fatla tribe on their way, and by 13 October had reached the scene of the Manchester Column’s camp on the Rustumiyya canal without incident, although according to the commander of the Scinde Horse, ‘The mournful relics of the disaster strewed the whole route.’
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The following day the column reached and captured Kifl, the railway station whose seizure by the Arabs back in late July had been the principal cause of the ill-fated Manchester Column operation.

Meanwhile, the 53rd Brigade pushed on against strong opposition towards Tuwairij, constructing blockhouses as they advanced. The road to Tuwairij was currently defended by men of the Bani Hasan while Tuwairij itself was held by the al-Fatla commanded by Sheikh ‘Abd al-Wahid al-Sikar, one of the earliest adherents to the uprising. According to Muhsin Abu Tabikh, at this point the sheikhs of the Bani Hasan treacherously withdrew their men in the night, having been bribed to do so by the British.
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Whether or not there is any truth in this account – and it seems equally possible that the Bani Hasan tribesmen simply became demoralised and fled – the full weight of the British attack now fell on the al-Fatla, whose bravery was insufficient to withstand bombardment by both artillery and aircraft. On 12 October the insurgents were prevented from burning the bridge of boats over the Hindiyya as they retreated and the subsequent capture of Tuwairij on the right bank of the Hindiyya effectively sealed the fate of the neighbouring city of Karbela’.

On 14 October the revolutionary government in the city was ordered
to make its submission and its leaders to present themselves at the British lines, from where they would be taken to Baghdad in captivity. They were given forty-eight hours’ grace to do so, otherwise the canal supplying the city with water would be cut off. Among the individuals specifically singled out for arrest were the mutasarrif, Muhsin Abu Tabikh, along with the Baghdad nationalists Ja‘far Abu al-Timman, Yusuf Suwaydi and ‘Ali Bazirgan, who were believed to be in the city.
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Ten other prominent citizens duly surrendered, but with the fall of Tuwairij, Abu al-Timman, Suwaydi and Bazirgan had already decided to leave Karbela’ and head south to Najaf. As for Abu Tabikh, by now, he too had retreated south with a force composed mainly of Ka’ab and Zayd tribesmen, hoping to unite with the insurgent forces still besieging Kufa.
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At Kufa the garrison was perilously close to exhausting its food and ammunition. However, by 17 October, the advanced units of the 55th Brigade column reached the northern outskirts of the town which the insurgents were holding in strength. A wide cavalry flanking movement was then ordered by the column commander in which the Scinde Horse turned the enemy line, forcing the insurgents to flee along the old horse tramway leading to Najaf, and sabring and lancing the retreating rebels as they fled; by 9.30 a.m. Kufa was finally relieved.
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For the last three weeks of the siege the garrison had survived on rice and horse meat, although casualties during the ninety-day siege had been relatively light – only twenty-five killed (including the PO, Captain Mann) and twenty-seven wounded.

Meanwhile, with the fall of Kufa, Abu Tabikh and his remaining forces had no choice but to continue to flee south. In his memoirs the mutasarrif of the insurgents recalls:

I gave the order to withdraw under cover of darkness and at the break of day I divided all the men into small groups to avoid the attacks of the aircraft. I myself then headed for Abu Sukhair to join up with those remaining leaders who had sworn oaths of allegiance upon our Sayyid Husayn and our Sayyid ‘Abbas (peace be upon them) before the outbreak of the revolt …
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But these ‘remaining leaders’ no longer included the sheikh of the al-Fatla, ‘Abd al-Wahid Sikar. By now, he had decided that the cause to which he had originally committed himself and his tribe was lost, and he ‘came in’ – as the British liked to put it – sometime around this time.
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The Baghdad nationalists had also headed south, hoping that the front could be stabilised around Kufa. Having acquired mules from an uncle of Ja‘far Abu al-Timman who traded between Karbela’ and Najaf, Abu al-Timman and his fellow Istiqlal leaders left Karbela’ by night, heading for Najaf.
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However, as they journeyed south they learned of the insurgents’ defeat around Kufa; clearly, Najaf itself was no longer safe and, like Abu Tabikh, they now fled to Abu Sukhair – only to find that that town was also under fierce attack by British aircraft.

Nevertheless the Baghdad nationalists were correct in their decision to leave Najaf. In the same way that the capture of Tuwairij made the position of Karbela’ untenable, so the capture of Kufa determined the fate of Najaf. Indeed, the editor of the Najaf newspaper
Istiqlal
had already acknowledged the deteriorating military situation facing the city and the insurrection as a whole. On 6 October he described the brutal onslaught of the British who had ‘attacked the houses of the sheikhs, burned them and their contents. They killed many men, horses and livestock … the officers had no other interest but in exterminating us.’ When the rebels agreed to a truce the British had violated it, and on these occassions, when they allowed the British to withdraw from liberated territory they had treacherously returned to attack them. ‘In recent days there has been bloodshed and the destruction of populous towns; places of worship have been violated enough to make humanity weep.’
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So on 18 October, representatives of Najaf’s revolutionary government arrived at the headquarters of the 55th Brigade column to offer its surrender. They were informed that the first condition would be the handing over of the British and Indians who had been incarcerated there. The following day, seventy-nine British and eighty-nine Indian prisoners were released.

All things considered, the prisoners had been well treated.
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Those of
the Manchester Column had initially been stripped of all their clothes except their shorts and forced to walk to Najaf; on the way they had received considerable abuse from Arab villagers and ominous handsigns that they would soon have their throats cut. But after some miles they were allowed to rest and given food – boiled rice and tomatoes, which the British had found difficulty in eating. On arriving at Najaf they had been given clothes, housed in reasonable conditions and fed regularly – mainly Arabic flatbread (which the British called ‘chapatis’) and tea. They had even been given cigarettes. In spite of this, Haldane would later claim that British troops who fell into Arab hands were routinely tortured – a claim which no less an enemy of the insurgents, Arnold Wilson, would later strenuously deny.
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For the time being Haldane took no further action against Najaf. At this point in the campaign he apparently thought it unnecessary – or perhaps impractical – to actually enter and occupy the great walled city. This, in turn, seems to have led many among the population of not only Najaf but also Karbela’ to believe that it was still possible that the military situation might turn again in their favour. So when Haldane once more focused his attention on the two cities three weeks later, demanding onerous fines of both rifles and cash, they refused. Consequently, Haldane resorted to tougher measures.

For Karbela’ the supply of water was cut off while British troops made a very visible demonstration of ravaging the countryside around the city. This had the desired effect and on 8 November the fines were duly paid. Najaf proved a tougher nut to crack, and it was decided to repeat the tactics adopted against the city in 1918. At 10.00 a.m. on 16 November, five British and Indian battalions were drawn up in full battle equipment facing the walled city from the east. Alongside them were ranged three batteries of field artillery while ten aircraft circled over the town. It was made clear to the inhabitants that unless they handed over the rifles and cash which had been demanded they would be subjected to a full-scale bombardment and attack.

Shortly afterwards, a troop of cavalry from the 37th Lancers forced its way into the city and formed up against the serai in which the remaining
heads of the revolutionary government were closeted, and the British demands were once more read out to them. Later that day the Najafis agreed to pay the fines and the remainder of the British troops then entered the city and marched through it in a show of force.
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But there were insufficient troops available to occupy the town permanently, and some weeks later the Najafis had still only handed over one-third of the number of rifles demanded. Given the continuing armed resistance and guerrilla warfare in other parts of the country, for the time being Haldane was in no position to push his demands on Najaf any further.