Less than two weeks after retaking the strategic city of Kut Amara on the Tigris River in Mesopotamia, British forces under the command of Sir Frederick Stanley mod launched an attack on Baghdad, causing their Turkish rivals to begin a full-scale evacuation of the city on the night of March 10, 1917.
German soldiers in Jerusalem in 1914
In the summer of 1916, shortly after gaining control of operations in Mesopotamia, Maud began to reorganize and resupply his forces in preparation for a new offensive. The central objective of the operation would be the city of Coote, which was occupied by the Turks in April 1916 along with 10,000 British and Indian soldiers under the command of Sir Charles Townsend, which caused a devastating defeat to the Allied operations in the area.
On 11 March 1917, General Maud entered Baghdad
In January 1917, Maude's 150,000 soldiers set out from the Basra Regional Command, south of Coote, near the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to launch an offensive that eventually recaptured Coote on 24 February. After Coote's success, Maude's forces paused briefly while waiting for confirmation from the London headquarters to continue the offensive. It wasn't until March 5 that the operation resumed — a pause that gave the Turkish commander-in-chief Khalil Pasha some time to consider whether he could choose to strengthen his defenses against Baghdad, the southern capital of the Ottoman Empire.
On March 11, 1917, Indian troops marched into Baghdad
Finally, Pasha hesitated—after beginning to prepare for an offensive forward attack on the approaching Allies, he decided to retreat instead, concentrating his forces near Baghdad. So he stationed the Turkish Sixth Army about 35 miles south of the city, near the junction of the Tigris and Diyala rivers.
At 18:00 on November 16, 1917
In the absence of a large number of reserves, the Turks were greatly outnumbered, with only 9,500 soldiers facing 45,000 Anglo-Indian troops. Maud's forces arrived in Diarra on 8 March and the next morning launched their first attack on the Turkish positions, which Pasha and his men successfully repelled. After struggling to cross the fast-moving Diyala River, Maud decided to move his troops across the river further north. German reconnaissance aircraft sounded the alarm for enemy action, and the Pasha reflected his actions, sending most of his troops to meet with Allied soldiers.
On December 9, 1917, Jerusalem surrendered to the British
He left a regiment to hold its original defensive position in Diarra, and on 10 March the surprise attack was quickly and decisively defeated by the British and Indian forces. Pasha was stunned and ordered his troops to retreat. At the end of the day, after marching more than 100 miles in 15 days, Maud's troops entered Baghdad effortlessly on March 11, taking 9,000 prisoners from the retreating Ottoman army amid the cheers of the city's 140,000 residents. The Allied victory in Baghdad was only the beginning of a struggle over who would control the oil-rich regions of Mesopotamia (the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, now eastern Iraq and Syria).
General Allenby walks into Jerusalem, December 11, 1917
The British government had earlier promised a number of Arab leaders that their people would gain independence if they rebelled against Turkish rule; the subsequent June 1916 uprising was led by Faisal Hussein and partly orchestrated by the British, including Colonel Te Lawrence (later known as Lawrence of Arabia).
The 94th Heavy Artillery Battalion helped occupy the camp after Jerusalem at Mount Scopus
However, after the end of World War I in November 1918, the Treaty of Versailles and the newly formed League of Nations granted Britain the mandate to govern in Mesopotamia, and the British and French governments issued a joint statement expressing their intention to work towards an independent Arab government in the former Ottoman Empire.
Fill the fantasies and load them onto camels near Jaffa
However, this was not enough for the Arabs of Mesopotamia, who in 1920 began an armed uprising against the British occupation forces in Baghdad and elsewhere. After suppressing the rebellion at a huge cost of £40 million, the British government decided to abandon its mandate to form an interim government for Iraq, which included the Council of Arab Ministers under the supervision of the British High Commissioner.