The Mesopotamian Campaign was a grueling theater of the First World War, fought primarily against the Ottoman Empire in the unforgiving terrain of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys (in modern-day Iraq). By early 1916, Allied efforts were desperately focused on a single objective: relieving a large British and Indian garrison besieged by Turkish forces at the town of Kut-al-Amara.
Relief forces included the 4th Battalion South Wales Borderers who faced hardships of extreme heat, rampant disease, and torrential rains that turned the desert into deep, impassable quagmires. The Ottoman defenders were heavily entrenched in strategic choke points, most notably at Sannaiyat. ► Read more...
All attempts to break through exacted a terrible toll on the men from South Wales. Acting Corporal Frank Herbert Howard fell during a bloody frontal assault across open ground at Sannaiyat on 9 April 1916. Weeks later, on 22 April, Pte. Richard Henry Harvey was likewise killed in action during another desperate assault of Sannaiyat. Sadly, just days after these failed attacks, the starving garrison at Kut was forced to surrender.