MESOPOTAMIA FORCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 March 1916, Page 3

MESOPOTAMIA FORCE.

BRAVE FIGHT AT CTESIPHON. ODDS OF THREE TO ONE. One of the wounded members of the British Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia describes the fighting at Ctesiphon, the nearest point to Bagdad gained by General Towiifihend's force before it was forced to retire upon Kut-el-Amara. He says: "I suppose I must not say much about Ctesiphon, bub it was magnificent. Never liavc troops put up a more heroic stand. It was all three days of it one epic of pluck and courage. The Turks were three times our strength and strongly entrenched. Their artillery quite outmatched ours and was excellently handled. In spite of all this, the division stormed the position, with heavy losses, on the 22nd across an absolutely open desert, without a particle of cover whatever—as open as a billiard-table. On the night of the 23rd-2+th the Tsrks flung two fresh divisions brought from Bagdad at the position. The attack was beaten off all nigbt long by our exhausted and thirsty troops—they were 3(1 hours without refilling water-bottles —and on the 24th we re-attacked from the captured positions a nd drove off the Turks. There was nothing to do afterwards but to retire—a retirement almost unmolested—on to a stronger position, as the enemy were too numerous to take on again. "On the 24th the wounded were removed to the river. Another journey of agony; my leg was horribly septic by this time. I got on board the among old friends, and to luxurious bed, a wash and some hot soup. We reached Kut on November 30 and were transferred for safety to the bottom of a dirty old iron barge below the waterlevel, tied up to a river steamer. At the bottom of the old barge we led a wretched existence, scarcely ever seeing the sun for nine days. Thence to the Basra base;' hospital sheets, electric fans and light: nursing sisters, books and all sorts of unheard-of luxuries."