Battle of Sharqat

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Battle of Sharqat

Part of Mesopotamian Campaign
(World War I)

Date	October 23—30, 1918
Location	North of Baghdad, present-day Iraq
Result	Decisive British victory.

Combatants

British Empire

Ottoman Empire

Commanders

Sir William Raine Marshall,
Sir Alexander Cobbe

Ismail Hakki Bey

Strength

Ottoman 6^th Army

Casualties

1,800

18,000 POW

Mesopotamian Campaign
Fao Landing – Basra – Qurna – Es Sinn – Ctesiphon – Umm-at-Tubal –1st Kut –Shiekh Sa'ad – Wadi – Hanna – Dujaila – 2nd Kut – Baghdad – Samarrah Offensive – Jebel Hamlin – Istabulat – Ramadi – Sharqat

The Battle of Sharqat was the final action between the British and the Ottomans during the Mesopotamian Campaign in World War I. It took place in October 1918.

Anticipating a Turkish armistice, British Premier David Lloyd George ordered Sir William Marshall, Commander-in-Chief on the Mesopotamian front, to remove any residual Ottoman presence from that theater and capture the oil fields near Mosul.

So an Anglo-Indian expeditionary force, led by Sir Alexander Cobbe, left Baghdad on October 23, 1918 and in just 39 hours covered 120 kilometers (77 miles) to the Little Zab River, where the Ottoman 6^th Army, led by Ismail Hakki Bey was awaiting them.

But, seeing his army's rear threatened, Hakki Bey withdrew another 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the north to Sharqat, where Cobbe attacked him on October 29. On the following day the Ottomans surrendered.

On November 14, 1918, Mosul was peacefully occupied by a British Indian cavalry division.