The Mesopotamia Campaign is one of those little known ‘sideshows’ but with a ‘ration strength’ peaking at 440,000 men, it was far from a small undertaking. Most people will have heard of the disastrous Siege of Kut, but less well known is that before and after were extremely successful campaigns. Most of the troops serving in Mesopotamia were Indian who unfortunately have left no published memoires. Despite that, we can reconstruct the experiences of a campaign against the dogged Ottoman Army, marauding Arab raiders and extremes of climate which made Mesopotamia one of the worst theatres of the war.
Dr Paul Knight is a major in the British Army working in Historical Analysis at the Land Warfare Centre. His interest in the Mesopotamia Campaign comes from serving two operational tours there, in 2005 and 2007 and learning Arabic in 2006 - the hardest experience of his life! Paul is the author of The British Army in Mesopotamia and is currently writing a book for Helion on the Second Battle of Ramadi, 1917, which he believes is the most perfectly fought battle of the First World War.