INLAND WATER TRANSPORT IN MESOPOTAMIA

An apparently obscure sidebar to the Great War that has suddenly acquired topical resonance is the struggle against the Turkish Ottoman forces in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Then, even more than today, control of the country depended on keeping the twin great rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates open. This book narrates the work undertaken by the officers and men of the Inland Water Transport (IWT) assigned to deliver supplies to the large British army in Mesopotamia by water. So successful were they that, by the end of the war, the river system, backed up by railways, was taking nearly 3,000 tons a day in a fleet of 2,000 craft up to 500 miles upriver from the port of Basra – then as now the main British base in the region. As a result of this miracle of organisation, the enemy was driven from Kut to Baghdad to Mosul. If only it was like that today! Illustrated with maps, sketches and photos and seven appendices on the IWT’s work.