This Day in World War 1 History: APRIL 30, 1917 : BATTLE OF THE BOOT

On this day in 1917, the so-called Battle of the Boot marks the end of the British army’s Samarra Offensive, launched the previous month by Anglo-Indian forces under the regional commander in chief, Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, against the important Turkish railroad at Samarra, some 130 kilometers north of Baghdad, in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).

Fresh from the triumphant capture of Baghdad, Maude decided not to hesitate before moving to consolidate the Allied positions to the north, where Turkish commander Khalil Pasha’s forces had retreated from Baghdad to await reinforcements sent from Persia. In the Samarra Offensive, begun on March 13, 1917, some 45,000 Anglo-Indian frontline troops were sent up the Tigris River towards the railway at Samarra; on March 19, Maude’s forces seized Falluja, preventing the Turks from flooding the Euphrates River onto the plains and hampering the British advance. Though an attempt on March 25 to intercept the Turkish reinforcement troops, led by Ali Ishan Bey, met with failure, the British were able to capture another city, Dogameh, by the end of March.

As the Samarra Offensive continued into April, the Turks had backed up to positions between the Tigris and the Al Jali Canal; the Samarra railway itself lay in between. Heavy fighting beginning on April 21 resulted in a Turkish defeat two days later and they were forced to cede Samarra to the British. Less than a week later, Ishan suddenly reappeared with the majority of his troops at Dahubu in an attempt to surprise the British forces; they were aware of his movements, however, and the Turks were met by several infantry brigades, commanded by General William Marshall, and forced to retreat to prepared positions in the foothills that spanned the river at Band-i-Adhaim. The subsequent action that took place, beginning early the morning of April 30, became known as the Battle of the Boot, for the boot-shaped peninsula of high ground on which it was fought.

Marshall began his infantry attack early in the morning of April 30; his forces advanced quickly, taking 300 Turkish prisoners and two lines of trenches within a short time. A sandstorm subsequently halted British operations, and the Turks were able to call on reserve forces for a successful counter-attack. By the time the sandstorm cleared, in the late afternoon, Isha and his men had taken 350 British prisoners and begun a retreat into the mountains; the punishing heat prevented Marshall’s troops from pursuing them.

The Battle of the Boot effectively ended the Samarra Offensive, as Maude decided to pause in order to regroup and give his forces the chance to recover their strength. Casualties in the offensive numbered some 18,000, with losses due to illness running more than twice that number. Ishan and his Turkish forces remained in the mountains, preparing for the renewal of hostilities on the Mesopotamian front that would begin that fall.

Article Details:

April 30, 1917 : Battle of the Boot

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  History.com Staff

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  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  April 30, 1917 : Battle of the Boot

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  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/battle-of-the-boot

• Access Date

  April 30, 2015

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  A+E Networks

This Day in World War 1 History: APRIL 29, 1916 : BRITISH FORCES SURRENDER AT KUT, MESOPOTAMIA

In the single largest surrender of troops in British history to that time, some 13,000 soldiers under the command of Sir Charles Townshend give in on April 29, 1916, after withstanding nearly five months under siege by Turkish and German forces at the town of Kut-al-Amara, on the Tigris River in the Basra province of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).

Under the command of Sir John Nixon, British troops had enjoyed early success in their invasion of Mesopotamia. Forces led by Nixon’s forward divisional commander, Sir Charles Townshend, reached and occupied the Mesopotamian province of Basra, including the town of Kut al-Amara, by late September 1915. From there, they attempted to move up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers toward Baghdad, but were rebuffed by Turkish troops at Ctesiphon (or Selman Pak) in late November. Despite outnumbering the Turks two-to-one, Townshend’s troops, made up partially of soldiers dispatched from India, were forced to retreat to Kut, where on December 5 Turkish and German troops began to lay siege to the city.

Problems with illness plagued Townshend’s forces, as morale sank precipitously along with dwindling supplies and a lack of relief due to the heavy winter rains, which had swollen the Tigris River and made it difficult to maneuver troops along its banks. The British attempted four times over the course of the winter to confront and surround their Turkish opponents only to suffer 23,000 casualties, almost twice the strength of the entire remaining Kut regiment, without success. Kut finally fell on April 29, 1916, and Townshend and his 13,000 men were taken prisoner.

Article Details:

April 29, 1916 : British forces surrender at Kut, Mesopotamia

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  April 29, 1916 : British forces surrender at Kut, Mesopotamia

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  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/british-forces-surrender-at-kut-mesopotamia

• Access Date

  April 29, 2015

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This Day in World War 1 History: APRIL 28, 1915 : INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF WOMEN OPENS AT THE HAGUE

The International Congress of Women convenes on this day in 1915 at The Hague, Netherlands, with more than 1,200 delegates from 12 countries—including Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Poland, Belgium and the United States—all dedicated to the cause of peace and a resolution of the great international conflict that was World War I.

Often referred to as the Women’s Peace Congress, the meeting was the result of an invitation by a Dutch women’s suffrage organization, led by Aletta Jacobs, to women’s rights activists around the world, on the basis of the belief that a peaceful international assemblage of women would have its moral effect upon the belligerent countries, as Jacobs put it during her opening address to the conference on April 28, 1915.

With mourning hearts we stand united here, Jacobs told the assembled delegates. We grieve for many brave young men who have lost their lives on the battlefield before attaining their full manhood; we mourn with the poor mothers bereft of their sons; with the thousands of young widows and fatherless children, and we feel that we can no longer endure in this twentieth century of civilization that government should tolerate brute force as the only solution of international disputes. Over the course of the next three days, the congress worked out what they considered an alternative, non-violent form of conflict resolution, calling for a process of continuous mediation to be implemented, without armistice, until peace could be restored among the warring nations. This policy was set forward explicitly in a set of resolutions on May 1. The congress also marked the foundation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), an organization that still exists today.

The American delegation to the congress in April 1915 included two future recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize: Jane Addams, the co-founder of Hull House, a social settlement that served as a welfare agency for needy families in Chicago, and Emily G. Balch, a sociologist who taught at Wellesley College. Another American delegate, Alice Hamilton, was a pathology professor and medical investigator who became the first female faculty member of Harvard University in 1919.

Other prominent international women who gathered at the Hague included Lida Gustava Heymann, one of 28 delegates from Germany; Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Emily Hobhouse and Chrystal Macmillan from Great Britain; and Rosika Schwimmer from Hungary. Notably absent from the International Women’s Congress were the French, whose government refused to allow delegates to attend the conference, although, as Balch later pointed out, the French women have been the earliest to actually form their national organization in support of the program worked out at the congress. Of the other belligerent nations, Russia, Serbia and Japan also failed to send any delegates to the conference. The British government, for its part, prevented most of its planned 180-member delegation from traveling to Holland by suspending regular commercial ferry service between the British port of Folkestone and the Dutch port of Flushing.

Article Details:

April 28, 1915 : International Congress of Women opens at The Hague

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  April 28, 1915 : International Congress of Women opens at The Hague

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  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/international-congress-of-women-opens-at-the-hague

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  April 28, 2015

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  A+E Networks