John Nixon (British general)
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Lieutenant-General Sir John Nixon (1857–1921) was senior commander of the British Indian Army. He gave the orders for the ultimately disastrous first British Expedition against Baghdad during World War I.
Educated at Rossall and then the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He then joined the British Army in India and moved up the ranks steadily. By 1914, he was the commander of the Southern Army in India, in overall command of 4 divisions and two units deployed outside of India (the 4th - Quetta Division, the 5th - Mhow Division, the 6th - Poona Division, the 9th - Secunderabad Division, the Burma Division, and the Aden Brigade).
[edit] WWI
Once the Ottoman Empire joined the war at the start of November 1914, the British Army in India figured they could contribute to the war effort by taking Basra. They had already sent troops to control the oil field at Abadan so the move to Basra made sense. Ottoman resistance was weak and the area around Basra was rapidly taken.
Nixon was sent to take control of the area early in 1915 and he chose to embark on an aggressive plan to take as much of Mesopotamia as he could. The British Army in India for nearly a century had operated with little or no direction from London. Following in this tradition, Nixon's aggressive stance in Mesopotamia was not submitted for approval from London. It was approved in New Delhi and that was enough.
The advance into Mesopotamia met with initial success. The Ottoman forces, under the overall command of Khalil Pasha in Baghdad and more locally under Nur-Ud Din Pasha were not very well equipped and not well supplied. As far as the Ottoman leader Enver Pasha was concerned, Mesopotamia was the least important campaign in the theatre, so the Caucasus, the Sinai, and the Dardanelles campaigns had priority when men and materiel were being allocated.
From January 1915 until November, the British advanced up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The furthest advance was by General Townshend's 6th Poona division which captured Kut on September 26, 1915. At this point, Townshend's forces were just about halfway between Basra and Baghdad and he wanted to halt. But Nixon ordered a continuation of the expedition and so the 6th Poona division headed up river. By this time the Ottoman Army had brought a retired military expert into command - Baron von der Goltz - and sent additional troops to defend Baghdad.
General Nixon was sufficiently confident to embark with his headquarters company and proceed upriver, hoping to be in Baghdad by Christmas. However, in late November, when news reached him that Townshend's forces had fought an inconclusive battle at Ctesiphon and, too weak to continue, were retreating back to Kut, he turned back. His paddle steamer then came under attack from both sides of the river and ran aground. A sitting target, casualties mounted until the Commander in Chief of Mesopotamia ran up a white flag and invited his attackers to parley. They turned out to be Arabs who had changed sides as the tide of war had turned the Turks' way. Nixon had to pay over a huge sum before he was allowed to continue to Basra. Everyone on board the steamer was sworn to secrecy on pain of death.
Baron von der Goltz with his Ottoman army reached Kut a week behind the British. At this point, Townshend asked for permission to withdraw from Kut and, in another mistake, General Nixon refused. While Townshend's cavalry and some Royal Flying Corps assets were sent down the river, the vast majority of the 6th Poona division stayed and dug in at Kut.
The issue of supplies for the defenders at Kut became critical. Once withdrawal became impossible, General Townshend reported that he only had enough supplies for a month. In fact, his garrison held out for five months, though at reduced rations. The supply problem caused Nixon to rapidly gather his remaining divisions and launch a hasty effort to break the siege.
The relief force, under the local command of General Aylmer began its efforts in early January, 1916. They forced the Ottomans out of two fortified positions (Sheikh Sa'ad and Wadi) while suffering significant casualties. However, the Battle of Hanna was a complete failure. The British troops never even reached the Ottoman defensive positions at a loss of 2,700 casualties.
Nixon had to take the blame for the looming disaster at Kut and the inability of his army to rectify the situation and so he was removed from command (officially it was due to ill-health). He was replaced by General Sir Percy Lake (who would also fail to rescue the garrison at Kut and also be removed from command for his failure).
In 1917, an official commission reported on the failure at Kut. Nixon was blamed in the document for failure to provide adequate medical services for the troops. This ended Nixon's military career and he died just four years later.
[edit] Further reading
- Britain, India, and the Arabs 1914-1921 by Briton Cooper Busch, University of California Press, 1971.
