On Secret Service East of Constantinople by Peter Hopkirk

Author:Peter Hopkirk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton

14

The Million-Pound Bribe

It was the melting of the heavy winter snows in the mountains of eastern Turkey, hundreds of miles away to the north, which finally sealed the fate of the British garrison at Kut. Every year, since the very beginning of time, this has caused the mighty snow-fed Tigris to overflow its banks and flood vast areas of the low-lying Mesopotamian plain on either side. In biblical times it was this deluge which very likely gave rise to the story of the Flood and of Noah’s Ark, which legend insists still lies somewhere beneath the snow and ice on the slopes of Mount Ararat. But in the spring of 1916, these same floods greatly hampered the progress of the 20,000-strong British relief force which was then desperately trying to reach the starving garrison in time. For as well as fighting off repeated Turkish attacks, the troops were having to contend with the steadily rising floodwaters. Soon it became all but impossible for the British commander, General Sir Fenton Aylmer, VC, to employ enveloping tactics against the enemy, or bring up his artillery, so restricted were his movements by the all-encircling waters. Nonetheless, Aylmer pressed on, determined to try to save the garrison, and with it the honour of the British Army.

During the first month of the siege, which had begun the previous December, morale among the British and Indian troops holed up in the small, mud-built Arab town had remained high. Despite heavy Turkish shelling, and repeated infantry assaults on his forward positions, General Charles Townshend, Kut’s commander, was confident that he could hold out for another month at least, long enough, it was assumed, for the relief expedition to reach the beleaguered garrison. Both Townshend and Aylmer, as it happened, knew all about sieges from their earlier Great Game years. In 1895, Townshend had been the hero of the siege of Chitral, in northern India, where he had successfully held off attacking tribesmen for six weeks until the arrival of a relief force. Aylmer had served with distinction in the relief force, after winning the Victoria Cross by blowing open the gates of a native fortress which the British were besieging, thereby enabling it to be stormed. Ever since, the two officers had been close friends, making Aylmer more determined than ever to reach Kut while there was still time.

But as the days passed, and the relief party seemed to get no closer, the situation in Kut was becoming more desperate. Hopes of being relieved were fading by the day, as food supplies began to run out. Before long the defenders were forced to supplement their remaining rations by eating their transport animals, not to mention the town’s skinny cats and dogs. At first, for religious reasons, many of the Indian troops refused to touch such meat. But in the end most agreed to do so after a special dispensation, obtained from their religious authorities in India, had been wirelessed to General Townshend. Even so, some of them

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