Battles of Ctesiphon (Kûtü'l-Amara) at the Iraqi Front in World War I According to the French Press

Abstract

The Iraqi Front, which opened in the First World War in 1914 because of the motives like the search for raw material and market arising from industrialization in European countries such as England, France, Germany and Italy, the acceleration of colonialism, the rivalry between the German and the British, and the rivalry between the German and theFrench, becamea front line where very serious battles took place between the Ottoman Empire and Britain. Britain landed troops to Basra to prevent threats to the colonial India, to unite with the Russians in the north and to capture Iraqi oil. The skirmish between the British under the command of General Townshend (1861-1924) and the Ottoman soldiers under the command of Mirliva Halil Pasha (1882-1957) took place in Medayin which was one of the most important cities of ancient Mesopotamia. This place was the most important front line that opened in the south in the war . These battles, which prevented the British from approaching Baghdad and even forced them to withdraw towards the Kûtü’l-Amâre, put on the records as the Battles of the Medayin. Examining the war reports in the French press about the Iraqi front, which became a scene for intense battles between the Turks and the British, it is understood that these writings did not reflect the truth and were usually based on British sources. These reports, which tended to misleadand manipulatethe French public opinion, were found to praise the English, but despised the Ottoman army and Turks. Upon the capture of Nasriye by the British, the newspapers used expressions stating that the Turks were jammed in the Black Sea, they were expulsed from the Caucasus, they lost in the Euphrates constantly, and they fought back hopelessly in Gallipoli. Instead of recording the Kûtü'l-Amâre victory of the Turkish army as a success of the Turks, they considered it as a result of the delay of the arrival of the reinforcements in due time for the British Army under siege, and they showed this as an excuse for their defeat. In addition, the resistance of the British soldiers during the siege was exalted and reported as an honourable defeat. In this article, we have studied in detail the news of this front which were published in the French press. Official documents of the French Ministry of War related to this front were also included in the study.

Keywords

• Osmanlı Devleti
• İngiltere
• Fransız Matbuatı
• Irak Cephesi
• Kûtü’l-Amâre