. British campaigns in the nearer East, 1914-1918. r. They were,however, not approved. It was unfortunate, becauseat this time and for some time afterwards the enemysdefences on the west side of the river were incomplete. It was unfortunate also that though the relievingcolumn reached Ali-el-Gharbi about Christmas Day,attack upon the enemy there had to be delayed owingto transport difficulties for more than a week. In thesematters celerity is everything. To Khalil Pasha, theTurkish commander, the interval was beyond the course of it more Turkish reinforcements arrived,and one of
. British campaigns in the nearer East, 1914-1918. r. They were,however, not approved. It was unfortunate, becauseat this time and for some time afterwards the enemysdefences on the west side of the river were incomplete. It was unfortunate also that though the relievingcolumn reached Ali-el-Gharbi about Christmas Day,attack upon the enemy there had to be delayed owingto transport difficulties for more than a week. In thesematters celerity is everything. To Khalil Pasha, theTurkish commander, the interval was beyond the course of it more Turkish reinforcements arrived,and one of the Turkish proceedings was to form atShumran, where the line of redoubts joined the Tigris,an entrenched camp from which troops might citherbe ferried over the river, or used to stiffen the defenceof the Es Sinn line as the case might be. The winter rains too had now set in, so that the vastswamps which diversify the arid spaces of the countrybecame shallow lakes. This weather was all againstthe relieving operations. Nevertheless, the Turks, 138. [To lace page 138. BRITISH CAMPAIGNS IN THE NEARER EAST attacked and beaten at Ali-el-Gharbi, were obliged tofall back upon Sheik Saad, twenty miles farther upstream and as the crow flies the same distance belowKut. If they had to contend against a complicationof impediments the troops of the Relieving Force madeup for them to no small extent in military , had they not done so the whole enterprisewould have been on the very face of it hopeless. Theday after the fight at Ali-el-Gharbi the enemy wasfollowed up, and again, on January 6, attacked atSheik Saad, and again defeated with a loss of 4,500men. He fell back this time upon the Wadi, a tributaryof the Tigris, not very wide, but defensible because,Hke the main river, its banks are slightly raised abovethe level of the surrounding country, these low ridges,or bunds, forming traces of ancient embankments. Thepassage of the Wadi having been forced (January 9),the next r
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