A map of the Russian-Turkish front from Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918, a 1930s German history of the war illustrated with hand-pasted cigarette cards, showing the Turkish Empire in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf. To the west is Egypt, a British dominion; to the east Persia. Erzerum in Turkey and Kars in Russia were the great fortresses on the frontier.
Mittelmeer: Mediterranean SeaSchwarzes M: Black SeaKasp. M.: Caspian SeaKleinasien: Asia MinorTürkei: TurkeyRussland: RussiaMesopot.: MesopotamiaPersien: PersiaAgypten: EgyptKairo: CairoStellungen der: Positions of theTürken Jan. 1915. . .August 1916Russen Mai 1915 . . . Frühjahr 1916Engländer: November 1914 . . . Ende 1917Herbst 1918Positions of theTurks Jan. 1915 . . . August 1916Russians May 1915 . . . spring 1916English: November 1914 . . . the end of 1917autumn 1918
"Early in April [1915], 30,000 British troops had been dispatched from India, under command of Lieut.-Gen. Sir J. E. Nixon, and the entire British forces were placed at three points — Kurna, Ahwas, and Shaiba. An army of Turks, 40,000 strong, led by German officers, attacked these positions on April 11th.For two days the Turks bombarded Kurna, but besides battering the bridge across the Tigris River, the shell-fire had little effect. The British gunboat Odin, and the fire of the shore batteries, succeeded in dispersing the Turkish boats on the river. At Ahwas, large bodies of Turkish cavalry appeared, but did not attack."
British and Indian troops defeated the Turks in the November 11 to 21, 1914 Battle of Basra in Mesopotamia, part of the Ottoman Empire. The forces retreated up the Shat el-Arab to Qurna (Kornah or Kurna) at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers which the British took on December 9, 1914. An oil pipe line ran from Ahwaz and the oil fields in Persia to Basra, a commercial and communications center, and the Persian Gulf. On April 12, an army of Turks, Kurds, and Arabs attacked British forces at Shaiba, four miles west of Basra. Turkish forces broke of the attack after three days, reportedly because of a mirage: an approaching British train appeared to be a large body of reinforcements.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 198, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
1915-04-11, 1915, April, Mesopotamia
