Fao Landing

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Fao Landing
Part of the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War I
Map showing the initial British attack and capture of Basra, 1914.
Date 6–8 November 1914 Location Al-Faw, Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) 29°55′41″N 48°27′58″E / 29.928041°N 48.466148°E / 29.928041; 48.466148 Result British victory
Belligerents
British Empire  United Kingdom	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Brigadier General W.S. Delamain	Javid Pasha
Units involved
1 Brigade Landing party of Royal Marines	Elements of 38th Division, Iraq Area Command
Casualties and losses
Light, including one officer	300 captured 135 dead

The Fao Landing occurred from 6 November to 8 November 1914 with British forces attacking the Ottoman stronghold of Fao and its fortress. The landing was met with little resistance from the Turkish defenders who fled after intense shelling. It was the first military operation of the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War I which was carried out to protect the British Empire's oil supplies in the Persian Gulf.

When the Ottoman Empire entered into World War I, the British feared for the safety of the Persian Gulf oil facilities. To protect their facilities, the British decided to capture the Ottoman-controlled section of the Persian Gulf coast. The Fortress of Fao was the main Ottoman fortress on the Persian Gulf coast and to Anglo commanders seemed like the logical jumping off point for any Ottoman attack on British oil facilities.^[1] The British assigned Indian Expeditionary Force D (IEF D) which consisted of the 6th (Poona) Division led by Lieutenant General Arthur Barrett, with Sir Percy Cox as Political Officer.

The initial landing force was a contingent of Royal Marines from HMS Ocean and British Indian troops of the 16th (Poona) Brigade under Walter Sinclair Delamain.^[2] The British sloop HMS Odin shelled the Turkish positions near the old fortress of Fao, silencing the enemy batteries and clearing the way for the landing force. A six-hundred strong force came ashore in the shallow, muddy waters with two mountain guns in tow and faced little resistance.^[3] The combined British and Indian force captured the poorly prepared Ottoman positions swiftly, seizing a large amount of largely undamaged material including several artillery guns, many of them still in position and loaded. Evidently, the weak Ottoman garrison was abandoned by its soldiers when the fort commander known as the "Bimbashi of Fao Fort" was killed by a shell.^[4][5]

The landing and capture of Fao was a strategic blunder for the Ottomans from which they would never truly recover as evidenced by the subsequent string of defeats suffered by the Empire at the hands of the British in the following year. The Ottomans also no longer controlled a key access point to the Persian Gulf, and the British facilities were largely safe. However, the British felt that their facilities would not be truly safe until they managed to capture Baghdad. This led to several campaigns against Baghdad that would result in the capture of that city by the British in 1917.^[5]

• The Fao Landing and the subsequent battle for the fortress are featured in the video game Battlefield 1.

• Wilson, Sir Arnold. Loyalties Mesopotamia 1914-1917. London: Oxford University Press, 1930.
• Barker A.J. The Iraq War. Enigma Books, 2009.