Page 193 - Life of Gertrude Bell

ORIENTAL SECRETARY 175
marching-past the line of block-houses into Kut, I thought of
what Jomini had said of retreats: Courage and firmness in adversity is
more honourable than enthusiasm in success,’ wrote their commander.
Now, after months of waiting for relief which never came, all
their food was gone. Every animal in the force had been slaught­
ered to feed the dying soldiers and civilians locked in the town,
despite Townshend’s assertion early in the siege that there was
food enough for the town’s population—five to six thousand
householders —and the army, for three months. As they faced
rain and cold and daily shelling by the enemy, the troops were
forced to go out into the fields to search for berries and some
chose poisonous fruit to hasten their deaths. The villagers too
turned to the berries for survival and the trees were soon practi­
cally bare. In December Townshend had tried to turn the villagers
from their homes but Cox interceded on their behalf and in the
end only 700 or so tribesmen and strangers were sent out to find
their way through the Turkish lines. Many of the soldiers, deter­
mined that the children should not die unnecessarily, gave them
the last of the berries. But the fears of Lord Hardinge began to be
realised. The Indian troops who had fought so bravely though
they had no quarrel with the enemy they were sent to fight,
starving and hardly able to walk, began to desert to the Turkish
lines. Others shot off their trigger fingers to avoid combat. Those
who were caught were brought back and shot on Townshend’s
order as an example to the others. Yet at another stage of the siege
an officer on watch saw General Von der Goltz inspecting his
troops and shot at him from his roof-top vantage point. ‘I was
angry,’ wrote Townshend, Tor he is one of the finest military
strategists in Europe.’ Aylmer had taken six weeks in preparing to
relieve the beleaguered army. In March he had suffered many
casualties, and Townshend told his men that the attempt to relieve
them had failed. The Turkish commander Khalil Pasha asked
them to surrender as they had no further chance of rescue. As
they were decimated by hunger and disease the men heard by field
radio a Reuter report of a debate in the House of Lords, initiated
by Lord Beresford, as to whether dieir commander had been con­
sulted before the disastrous advance on Ctesiphon.
In mid-April Townshend was conducting the last rites of his
command, writing to the Government of India an official note
that his Hindu troops had eaten horseflesh only after receiving
permission from the Pandits and their Maharaja and that ‘there-