Book Review - When God Made Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq 1914–1921

Journal Edition

When God Made Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq 1914–1921,

Written by: Charles Townshend,

Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 2010,

ISBN: 9780571237197, 320 pp

Reviewed by: David Goyne, Strategic Policy Division, Department of Defence

The British campaign in Mesopotamia in the First World War, climaxing with the siege and surrender of the British Imperial force at Kut, is generally held to be the nadir of generalship and the military art. The British commander at Kut, Major General Charles Townshend (coincidentally no relation of the author) is used in Norman Dixon’s On the Psychology of Military Incompetence as an object lesson in military blundering and ego mania. The real story as told in this book is more complex and tragic.

When God Made Hell is an interesting admixture of military and political history, with the military side dominating until the end of the war. The political side then becomes paramount as the former Turkish provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul are merged into a new nation, Iraq, under a British mandate. This was not the object that Britain sent forces to Mesopotamia to achieve, indeed right to the end the British (more accurately Imperial) leadership could not settle on one objective, but allowed events to not just shape, but create policy.

In part this followed naturally from a confused command structure. At various stages the cast of actors vying to set policy included the British War Cabinet and its sub-committees; the British government in India, given most of the troops came from India and that the British role in the Persian Gulf by tradition was managed from India; the India Office, the London-based British department of state responsible for India; the British military administration in Cairo, which thought it best understood the Middle East, especially the Arab ‘mind’; the British military commanders on the ground in Mesopotamia; and the British political administration in Mesopotamia, initially largely drawn from those members of the Indian Political Service with long experience in the Persian Gulf. This confusion was exacerbated by the fact that the ultimate decision-makers in London in the War Cabinet could only devote limited attention to the Mesopotamia theatre when confronted with appalling choices elsewhere, particularly initially at Gallipoli and throughout the war in the main and critical theatre on the Western Front.

No clear objective for Mesopotamia policy was ever set definitively or maintained. What had initially been intended to be a limited commitment to protect British interests in the Gulf and the Persian oilfields, through initial success was drawn into an advance into Mesopotamia. What the limits of this advance was to be were never fully defined, with Baghdad acting as a lure for yet further advances. This is a case study in the classic symptoms of ‘victory disease’.

This book makes clear the overriding importance of logistics. The debilitating climate, alternatively too hot or too wet; the paucity of local infrastructure; the inadequate logistic resources committed to the theatre; and an considerable dose of sloppy, even incompetent, management of what was available, meant that the initial successes were achieved barely and at the end of a parlous and increasingly lengthy line of communications. What this meant particularly for the unfortunate casualties, who always exceeded optimistic planning estimates, is graphically described in the book.

This campaign is a proof of Clausewitz’s concept of the ‘culminating point’. Initial victories led the British commanders and policy-makers onwards towards Baghdad, until the point where although Townshend won the battle at Ctesiphon, virtually at the gates of Baghdad, he had run out of troops and logistic support and was burdened with large numbers of casualties at the end of a long, tenuous line of communications. Poor tactical direction by subordinate formation commanders had ruined this last chance. None of this should have been a great surprise, as the British force, basically the 6th Indian Division, was always recognised as too weak for the task at hand, but it was all that was available and all that could be supported so far forward.

Townshend recognised his victory at Ctesiphon was pyrrhic and retreated to Kut, where he was besieged by the Turks. Many promises were made to relieve his force in the limited time available before he was starved into surrender. Indeed, more troops (23,000) were lost in failed relief attempts than were under siege at Kut (13,000). However, available forces and logistics, especially when combined with poor operational leadership, could not make true these promises and Townshend was forced to surrender. The surrender led to a continuing nightmare for the captured troops, particularly the Indian forces and the camp followers. Separated from their officers, they were marched into the north of Mesopotamia to suffer in the careless brutality of Turkish captivity, a fate as much due to exiguous Turkish resources as any active cruelty.

In the classic way, following this failure, the British massively reinforced, including all the logistic infrastructure (ships, rail, trucks etc) missing earlier. With these resources and the highly competent military leadership of General Stanley Maude, the British Imperial forces were able to advance and take Baghdad and eventually Mosul by the end of active operations.

This led then to the question of how best to govern Mesopotamia. Here fractures opened between the approach of the military, who wanted a short-term military occupation for the purposes of the wider war, and the political service, largely military officers, who wanted Mesopotamia incorporated into the British Empire. In the end, the US President Woodrow Wilson acted as a deus ex machina with his Fourteen Points to force the British government along a third path it had never considered or wanted, that of consulting the will of the local people, or at least appearing to. It was impossible to reconcile earlier contradictory British promises to France and the Sherif of Mecca; attempts to conciliate local ‘notables’; the practical need to govern three former Ottoman provinces; and never clearly defined British Imperial aims. The interplay of these factors is well described by Townshend. It is a period of colourful and historic characters, including Winston Churchill, T E Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, Percy Cox, A T Wilson, the Hashemite princes Feisal and Abdullah, and the Arabian prince Ibn Saud. These all tried to influence events, normally in different directions, and modern Iraq and many of its problems are the result. It is a fascinating case study of how the lack of a clear, agreed aim consistently pursued rarely leads to good outcomes. David Fromkin’s magisterial A Peace to End All Peace¹ is a useful supplement to Charles Townshend’s book to put the Mesopotamian scene in its wider Middle East context.

In all, this is probably the best single book available on the Mesopotamian Campaign. It avoids the finger-pointing of earlier, less balanced books such as Russell Braddon’s The Siege,² although there is plenty of blame to go around. Much of this blame originates with the failure to decide on what was the aim of the Mesopotamian campaign, and then to resource it appropriately. If it was a sideshow, an ‘economy of force’ operation, then it should have been limited to securing Basra. If it was a wider one to take Baghdad and inflict a heavy blow on the Ottoman Empire, then it was never resourced sufficiently to do this until after the failure at Kut. Then it probably drew in resources that could have been more profitably used on more important fronts of the war. The sad reality is that this choice was never made. The ones who suffered for this were the regimental officers and men and the camp followers, especially if they were wounded, or surrendered at Kut. Success is rarely the result of unclear aims and strategy, and inadequate resources—a lesson that could still be learned by governments today.