Mesopotamia

[Jonathan_NW]

Hi all

Could anyone recommend a really good book that is widely available that covers the Mesopotamian campaign please?

Regards

Jonathan

[River97]

Jonathan,

There are quite a few out there. Have a look at the Naval and Military Press website. There are those generic to the campaign and also unit histories. There is a book available on the net called 'Hell in the Holy Land'. It contains diary extracts from those who were there, which makes it a personal account.

Hope this provides some useful info.

Cheers Andy.

[Gibbo]

Battles on the Tigris: The Mesopotamian Campaign of the First World War by Ron Wilcox, who posts on this site under the name Ron, was published by Pen & Sword in 2006 and is the most recent book on the Mesopotamian campaign. The other famous work on it, A. J. Barker's The Neglected War. Mesopotamia 1914-1918, is long out of print. The National Army Book of the Turkish Front 1914-18 by Lord Carver covers Mesopotamia, Gallipoli and Palestine in a single volume.

[Gibbo]

PS: There are also some memoirs and older histories available for free download from this link.

[Gibbo]

A new paperback edition of A. J. Barker's The Neglected War has been published under the title The First Iraq War. A short introduction from Jpseph Morrison Skelly, an American academic and Army reserve officer, drawing parallels with more recent events has been added. As far as I can tell from a browse in a bookshop, it is otherwise the original.

[paulgranger]

Gibbo

Thanks very much for the heads up re the reprint of Barker's book - I've been trying to find a reasonably priced second-hand copy for ages with no luck, good job I didn't pay the eye-watering sums that have been quoted!

[Steven Broomfield]

Out of interest, I have an old paperback copy of Russell Braddon's The Siege, which I have had for years and never read.

Is it worth reading?

[kenf48]

have you seen this thread?

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...howtopic=139169

Ken

[MartinWills]

I've always found Candler "The Long Road to Baghdad" - 2 volumes - a fascinating text to dip into, though I 've not read it from one end to another.

Martin Swayne's "In Mesopotamia" dropped onto my "to read" pile only today.

[James A Pratt III]

Believe it or not Barker's book was printed in the US during the 1960s under the title "The ******* War". I think this title may be too un-PC for today so the new title. Please note about "The Siege" the author goes overboard to demonize Townsend.

[usa2uk]

A new paperback edition of A. J. Barker's The Neglected War has been published under the title The First Iraq War.

I've just finished reading this one.

Negatives:

The book that I have has some terrible editing errors throughout - which became very annoying after a while. It actually got to the stage where I had to re-read the sentences to figure out what was trying to be said! For example: "In tins battle casualties again amounted to about 1,600 men..."

And for me, the maps weren't very good. I went onto the web and downloaded maps from other sources to use when reading the book.

Overall, Mr. Barker doesn't spend too much time "with the troops" like a lot of other authors do. The book is written from an overall view-point with sometimes only a few paragraphs being spent on battles. For example, he says that 5 VC were won during the battles of Fallahiyeh and Sannaiyat, but that's it. He doesn't tell you by whom or for what. So you have to use a lot of imagination and knowledge as to what fighting in the Great War was like.

Positives:

Despite the criticisms above, it is a great book with a wealth of information on the entire Campaign from start to finish, with detail from both the Turkish and British side (from Mesopotamia to India to London). It does cover pretty much every aspect of the entire Campaign, and gives you a very sobering experience of what the soldiers on both sides went through. If you think the Western Front was tough....

Certainly a very well-rounded introduction into the Campaign and gets you interested in wanting to learn & read more!

I was actually going to post a question about Mesopotamia, which I how I found this thread:

Does anyone know of any book about this Campaign which do actually go into more detail on the troops on the ground and the battles they fought??

[kloughnane]

Does anyone know of any book about this Campaign which do actually go into more detail on the troops on the ground and the battles they fought??

usa2uk,

Diary Of An Old Contemptible (Edited by Peter Downham)is the diary of Pte Edward Roe of the East Lancashire Regt. He served in Northern France, Gallipoli and Mesopotamia. Most of the book covers his time in Mesopotamia and I found it to be a very interesting insight in to the conditions that the average soldier had to endure. It is a book that I will certainly read again.

Regards,

Kev Loughnane

[usa2uk]

Diary Of An Old Contemptible (Edited by Peter Downham)is the diary of Pte Edward Roe of the East Lancashire Regt.

Kev Loughnane

Thanks Kev.