Mesopotamian Campaign

In World War I, British campaign to secure the oil installations along the Tigris and the Euphrates and safeguard the route to India. A small force from the Indian Army was sent to the area in November 1914 and quickly took Basra in modern-day Iraq but then made slow progress. In the aftermath of the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign of 1915, a counterattack was authorized on Baghdad but this failed and the army retreated to Kūt-al-Imāra, where 10,000 prisoners were taken. The War Office in London took charge of the campaign directly, and a further force of 120,000 troops was sent. The British made steady progress, taking Baghdad in March 1917 and then moved swiftly through the rest of the region until the Turks in Mesopotamia surrendered in October 1918. The cost to Britain and India was about 16,000 dead, and almost 100,000 casualties and it was criticized as having little military basis or control.