Battle of the wadi
| date | January 13, 1916 |
|---|---|
| place | a wadi east of Sheikh Saad in what is now Iraq |
| output | tactical victory of the Ottomans |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 10,000 soldiers | 20,000 soldiers |
| losses | |
|
1,600 dead and injured |
? |
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Landing at Fao - Basra - al-Qurna - Shaiba - Ktesiphon - Siege of Kut - Sheikh Saad - Wadi - Hanna - Dujaila - Kut II - Baghdad - Samarra - Ramadi - Sharqat
The battle between British-Indian and Ottoman soldiers on January 13, 1916 in Mesopotamia is called the Battle of the Wadi .
prehistory
The liberation expedition under Fenton Aylmer was dispatched to free the British trapped in Kut . After the battle of Sheikh Saad against the British, the Ottomans were forced to retreat to the wadi.
battle
On January 13, Aylmer let his troops attack the Ottomans, who had positioned themselves in the wadi 16 km away. Due to fog and the slow advancement of artillery , the British-Indian troops lost the element of surprise. While part of the British attacked the Ottoman troops from the front, the other part tried to fall into the flank of the Turks. But the lack of knowledge of the terrain made this movement difficult. The Ottoman commander Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz used this opportunity and turned his troops to the British on the flanks. So the Ottomans managed to repel the British with heavy losses.
As darkness fell, it became clear that the attempt to defeat the Ottomans had failed. An attempt to bypass the Ottoman positions also failed. Aylmer called off the attack and led most of his troops to the right bank of the Tigris . At this point Aylmer's troops had gained control of the wadi , but this was only a small step forward, as around 1,600 men (including 40 officers ) were killed or injured in the fighting and the situation in Kut had not improved.
swell