Tigris Gunboats - Wildred Nunn

The British gunboat operations in Mesopotamia were one of those things I really wanted Halpern to spend more time on in Naval History of World War I. But no, he had to talk about totally ineffective German surface raider efforts off the American coast. So this is the recounting from the Senior Naval Officer in charge of operations during much of it, Wilfred Nunn. As such, it isn’t the most eloquent thing you’ll ever read – there are more than a couple of sentences where he uses the same adjective twice in the one sentence, like picturesque, or gradual – but he’s very precise and thorough.

He covers the Army operations in the area as well as the Navy, because the two had to work in concert so much. The gunboats were the primary method of moving men and supplies up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers for the first couple of years, because there wasn’t a railroad finished yet. He mentions that when the operations were first being planned, this issue was brought up, but they were only supposed to go as far Basra, so it didn’t seem necessary. But once they had Basra, they needed Kurna to establish a protective position. Then they needed to get up the Tigris and Euphrates as far as the ships could manage, to establish positions to protect Kurna. And before too long they were trying for Baghdad, only to find themselves badly overextended and put into retreat. It was only after that, the higher-ups agreed they needed to actually work on things like improving lines of supply, and building wharves and docks to repair and unload ships. Sending some gunboats that had a shallow enough draft they could actually make it up the river wouldn’t hurt, either.

There are a lot of interesting bits in there. The field artillery giving the gunboats lessons on indirect firing. The early use of airplanes for observation, directing fire, and even trying to drop supplies to encircled forces. Both sides of the conflict capturing the others’ vessels and using them themselves. The British lost the Firefly, but had earlier captured a Turkish patrol boat which the British renamed Flycatcher (as all the gunboats sent later were given names with “fly” at the end). That floods were often not helpful, because they made it too deep around the river for the armies, but it was still too shallow for the navies. The need to send ships and crews to Ceylon every six months or so to recover from the heat.

There are some unnecessary and out of line comments, conveying Nunn’s opinion of British racial superiority compared to their opponents. Stuff about the ‘Turk’s habitual lethargy and lack of enterprise.’ Or their tendency not to bathe (he basically says the Turks stunk up the Firefly for the year they had it), but I don’t know, maybe bathing wasn’t common in the region at that time? Might have seemed a waste of water in a desert, but I don’t think that’s the direction Nunn was approaching it from. He also made some disparaging remarks about the sanitary conditions in Arab towns along the river, and all I could think was that Britain wasn’t far removed from people just throwing their filth out on the cobblestones. I don’t even think he’s doing it to be snide, it’s just him speaking from his secure position.

I did wonder, when he talks about how some of the Arabic tribes in the region would throw in with whoever was doing better and making a good show of force, could the British have tried just making friends? He makes a point they often steam up with the gunboats as a show of force, and the village will show a white flag, and then there are greetings and many assurances from the villagers that they are friends. Is the show really necessary? Maybe by that point those folks had seen so many outsiders barge through and take what they wanted, they wouldn’t have trusted a display of friendship, I don’t know. When I was reading Far China Station, Johnson mentioned that on the U.S.’s first attempt to get Japan to open ports, Commodore Biddle made mistakes because he talked to officials of too low a rank, and went to their ship, rather than making them come to him, and that Perry did much better by showing off the force he had, and by refusing to speak to any envoys he felt weren’t of sufficiently high title (also he had a letter of treaty direct from the President, something Biddle didn’t have). Johnson wasn’t criticizing Biddle, who as he noted, had no way of knowing what the Japanese would consider proper procedure and was not under orders to force the ports open, just acknowledging it was the wrong approach. My inclination would be to try for friendly and not pushy, but apparently in some cultures that would make me look like a weakling chump.

‘We had come to Mesopotamia to safeguard the head of the Persian Gulf and the oilfields. It had then been found necessary to hold Basra, to protect which we were led to capture Kurna and to occupy Ahwaz. Now, in order to ensure the security of these holdings, the little force was led farther into the hostile country, to Amara and Nasiriya. The will-o’-the-wisp was to lead it still further.’