“But I don’t think Selby can cover the Faisal Bridge, or for that matter, the Al Jisir Bridge either. If the Germans take them, then we’ll have no way to get back over the river.”
That’s your bloody problem, Arderne. We aren’t supposed to get back over the river. I’ve no orders to that effect. We’re to hold the bloody palaces! Now get your brigade to the Washash Camp, and you’d better damn well hold it!”
There were men who threw themselves into the thick of things in this war, and there were those that found places to hide, and ways to blame others when things went wrong. Blaxland hung up the phone, shaking his head and determined to convene a Court-Martial for Arderne when this was all over. He would, in fact, later go on to become the Chairman of the Indian National Army Courts-Martial in New Delhi, and become the bane of many a man like Arderne. With that, he finally ordered MacGregor to extend his lines east of the Al Hartiyah settlement just north of the two palaces, determined to cover and defend them as best he could. If Arderne couldn’t follow orders, Blaxland bloody well could.
Far to the northwest, Westhoven’s envelopment attack was breaking through the seam between Langran’s 9th Indian Brigade, and Kingforce. Jumbo Wilson’s warning to Kingstone had come true. While there was no cause and effect in play here, Kingstone had pushed on that flank when he ordered his Warwickshire battalion to get after the 78th Division. Now he got back a storm of mechanized panzer troops, backed up by a good many tanks.
KG Kufner and a part of Westhoven’s Division were storming into the small hamlet of Kharisan, and the Warwickshire Battalion was only half a kilometer to the right. Now Kingstone could see the dark, squat shapes of tanks lumbering his way, and he cursed under his breath. He could see that Langran’s men were already in retreat, falling back through the marshy ground through the few good gaps and reforming just north of the Slaughterhouse on the main rail line to Basra. Kingstone knew his position on the outer bund would soon be compromised, and he called Wilson’s HQ on the radio to confer, but could not reach the General. Wilson was too busy trying to get set up at the Hotel Sinbad, so Kingstone had to act on his own.
It’s no good here, he thought, and to hell with these bloody flies. “Staff Sergeant!”
“Sir!”
“Get word to all the battalions out on the Bund. We’re moving out. They’re to fall back to the Kayam Quarter. Map Grid 46 by 89.5. There’s good ground there for defense. We’ll cover the East Barracks and Rail Station with this move. Smartly now.”
Arderne held on until dusk on the 25th to pull out of his sticky situation under cover of dark. Schmidt was only too glad to let him go, because the Brandenburg 3rd Regiment was only now crossing the airfield under cover of that same cloak of darkness, and 4th Regiment was mopping up the last of Barker’s 27th Brigade. Poor Barker’s guns were overrun on the field, long ago abandoned by the gunners. The last of his men were holed up in the hovels of Sulaymaniyah, and he, himself had fled to the Isolation Hospital just north of the airfield, where he was soon found by elements of the Lehr Regiment. When Arderne got to the Washash Camp, he found the Germans trying to infiltrate there with a company from their recon battalion, and promptly set his men on them. He would get his brigade into that camp, and then he was determined to follow his latest order from Blaxland, and hold it.
Selby saw what he was doing, and needed no further encouragement to fall back on his right. Most of his men got back, though one company got trapped in the Museum and would be lost. He did not have enough men to extend his line all the way east to the river, so that flank would still be hanging in the air, where only a few companies of railyard workers and supply service troops were milling about.
In effect, Blaxland’s whole 10th Indian Division, plus Selby’s Brigade from the 6th Indian, were now cut off in the south. Behind them, the wide sweep of the Tigris turned west in a big hairpin loop and the river was very wide there, with no more bridges. The Germans had the west end of all the main bridges entering central Baghdad, and even managed to get two more companies across the southernmost Al Jisir Bridge.
There, the 4th Brigade of the British 2nd Infantry Division was finally arriving under McLennan. They would reach the bridge just in time to stop the Germans, where they immediately organized a counterattack with two battalions backed by the armored cars of the recon battalion. So the Germans would hold the west end of all those bridges, but they could not exploit to the east bank over any of them.
Yet the day had seen dramatic developments that delivered the whole railyard area and Al Muthana Airfield into German hands. They had seized the British Embassy, sending Wilson packing, and the Abwehr was already there, rifling through the place to scrutinize anything of potential value they could find. They also had the radio station, and the parliament building complex, a key political objective. There they hoped to invite Rashid Ali back to begin setting up a new Iraqi government in opposition to the British he hated so deeply. He was already on a plane, bound for the newly captured airfield.
As for the remaining British troops west of the Tigris, if the Germans continued to press Arderne and Selby the following day, the only way those brigades could reach safe ground now would be at a few ferry sites on the big hairpin bend of the river. Blaxland could pull out MacGregor and his last brigade at the Royal Palace under Finlay if he wished. They could still move along the rail line south around that big hairpin, where they would eventually follow in the footsteps of Glubb Pasha.
All the rest of Wilson’s army was still deployed in an arc defending central Baghdad, bounded by the Tigris on the left, and the inner bund and marsh line on the right. Westhoven’s maneuver had attempted to flank that line, and now he was only 600 meters from the slaughterhouse he had been told to take, facing off against Langran’s 9th Brigade of 5th Indian Division. Now Guderian would meet with Hube to assess their prospects for the following day. (Battle Map 6)
“We might reach that slaughterhouse tonight if I continue to attack,” said Hube. But the men need some rest, and it will take more time to get supplies down there, over all those little canals.”
“But it was a good move,” said Guderian. “It forced them to abandon the outer bund line. We’ve cut off the last of their men west of the river, and for all intents and purposes, we’ve got the rest of their army penned up in central Baghdad. The only question now is whether or not we can kill it.”
“That won’t be easy,” said Hube, “and it will take time. It’s taken these four days of hard fighting just to clear out most of the west bank.”
“True,” said Guderian, but now we have the rail yards and airfield, and I can move supply into both places. I was hoping to get over one of the river bridges, but they got up a fresh infantry division last night, this time British regulars. We’ve taken all the crossing points on this side of the river, but thus far they have been bridges to nowhere. We haven’t been able to get a strong force into the central city on any of them. They’ve found reserves just when they needed them most.
“What else do they have coming?” asked Hube.
“The Luftwaffe says there doesn’t seem to be anything more heading north from Basra, but it would be good if we cut that rail line soon. What are your prospects with Westhoven’s division?”
“That whole flank will not be easily turned. There’s a lot of marshland, with only a few places where the armor can get through, and those will be easily defended. Then there’s another bigger canal system to the south, screening off the rail line to Basra. That one will need pontoon bridging, and we’ve used a lot of what we had to get over the little canals. What we really need now is another couple infantry divisions.”