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Osprey Campaign #165
Iraq 1941: The battles for Basra, Habbaniya, Fallujah and Baghdad
The events in Iraq in 1941 had crucial strategic consequences. The country's oil reserves were a highly coveted prize for the Axis powers, and its location provided a corridor in the defence of Palestine and the Suez Canal. Had Iraq fallen to the Axis powers, Britain could have lost its foothold in the Middle East and the Mediterranean and risked losing World War II (1939-1945). This book examines the strategy and tactics of the Iraq campaign, the role of the Indian Army and the Arab Legion, the nature of expeditionary warfare and the complementary roles of air and land power.
96 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 2006
73 people want to read
About the author
Robert Lyman
46 books53 followersBy birth a New Zealander, I was educated in Australia and at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. After a 20-year career in the British Army I turned my hand to writing, my PhD being published in 2004 as 'Slim, Master of War, a military biography of arguably Britain's greatest field commander of WW2.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
I am a trustee of the Kohima Educational Trust, which seeks to provide educational opportunities for young learners in Nagaland.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
I am a trustee of the Kohima Educational Trust, which seeks to provide educational opportunities for young learners in Nagaland.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 13, 2018
No frills, you say? While Robert Lyman confirms to Osprey's workhorse standards, you cannot deny the sympathy he brings to the subject and the RAF Habbaniya Association, who keeps alive the memory of the now derelict airfield that once bested the Luftwaffe's Irak detachment at a game of attrition and chased off on overwhelming Iraqi force, poised to storm the thinly-held ramparts from higher ground.... with a mere 39 pilots and Lewis guns in blockhouses.
"Bluff" is the operative word of the entire campaign to preserve Britain's only source of oil, the true blood of modern war - aside from the scant U.S. imports that reached through the Wolfpacks. "Habforce", a few battalions' worth of infantry supplemented with a few batteries of field artillery, vintage WWI armoured cars & that scatchy airforce fought their way across the iron bridge at Fallujah and through Baghdad, in a poor man's Blitzkrieg to frighten off a pro-German usurper. It was a campaign in the best tradition of the British Army: come as you are, make do with what you got. May 1941 saw the Empire fighting in Egypt, Greece and braced for an invasion. India was the only command that had anything to spare.
Notice the steadiness of loyal Iraqi levies and the virtual absence of the Germans. A humorous endnote; the armistice obliged the British to return any confiscated heavy weapons... which made up a good part of Habforce's firepower. Some veterans did a hasty disobedient paint job and took their machine-guns with them to face the Afrika Corps.
https://www.habbaniya.org/
"Bluff" is the operative word of the entire campaign to preserve Britain's only source of oil, the true blood of modern war - aside from the scant U.S. imports that reached through the Wolfpacks. "Habforce", a few battalions' worth of infantry supplemented with a few batteries of field artillery, vintage WWI armoured cars & that scatchy airforce fought their way across the iron bridge at Fallujah and through Baghdad, in a poor man's Blitzkrieg to frighten off a pro-German usurper. It was a campaign in the best tradition of the British Army: come as you are, make do with what you got. May 1941 saw the Empire fighting in Egypt, Greece and braced for an invasion. India was the only command that had anything to spare.
Notice the steadiness of loyal Iraqi levies and the virtual absence of the Germans. A humorous endnote; the armistice obliged the British to return any confiscated heavy weapons... which made up a good part of Habforce's firepower. Some veterans did a hasty disobedient paint job and took their machine-guns with them to face the Afrika Corps.
https://www.habbaniya.org/
October 27, 2024
A short account of the invasion of Iraq by British forces in 1941. This theatre of WW2 is often overlooked due to the relatively small number of troops involved and the more important campaign in Greece, as well as the fact that Operation Barbarossa would commence the following month. I have always found this to be an interesting part of WW2, especially given the British reliance on Iraq for oil and its use as a staging ground for an invasion of Vichy-controlled Syria. This book is a good overview of the key events of the campaign, which lasted a little over a month from April to May and also discusses the Golden Square coup and pre-1941 tensions which led to war. the various battles are covered well, and the use of maps helps a great deal in understanding the movements of troops.
November 15, 2007
Fascinating account of a forgotten campaign, conducted by a heavily outnumbered British army against an admittedly defeatist foe.
July 17, 2018
Good, clear, straightforward account of a little-discussed WWII campaign. This is a research book for me, so I focused on the Habbaniya, Fallujah, and Baghdad portion of the campaign as opposed to the Basra portion, because my research is following Kingcol from Haifa to Baghdad, rather than the Indian divisions from the port.
The fact that this campaign could have failed so spectacularly, so many different times, and in so many different ways (British troops were extremely outnumbered, and Rashid Ali's troops had strong defensive positions, and a bit of Luftwaffe support which just managed to not show up, or not show up well, at a couple crucial moments) is really astonishing. The British completely bluffed and bulldozed their way through this one, practically by sleight of hand, and it worked, somehow. The fact that Rashid 'Ali's troops were so ready to believe they were outnumbered, and that Rashid 'Ali himself bolted from Baghdad very preemptively, helped.
The fact that this campaign could have failed so spectacularly, so many different times, and in so many different ways (British troops were extremely outnumbered, and Rashid Ali's troops had strong defensive positions, and a bit of Luftwaffe support which just managed to not show up, or not show up well, at a couple crucial moments) is really astonishing. The British completely bluffed and bulldozed their way through this one, practically by sleight of hand, and it worked, somehow. The fact that Rashid 'Ali's troops were so ready to believe they were outnumbered, and that Rashid 'Ali himself bolted from Baghdad very preemptively, helped.
November 1, 2024
OK overview, but the structure is somewhat confused
November 10, 2017
In the first half of 1941, the Allies had seen many calls on their limited military forces in the Mediterranean theatre. They had been forced back by the Axis in Libya, seen Tobruk besieged, been kicked out of Greece and Crete, had two unsuccessful counterattacks against the Axis in Egypt, and seen hostile stirrings by the Vichy French in Syria. If that wasn’t enough, Rashid Ali, a pro-Axis Anglophobe, had seized power in Iraq a strategically important source of oil for the Allies and a back door to Egypt.
Lyman introduces the reader to the events in Iraq in 1941, an often neglected aspect of the Mediterranean theatre in World War 2 in which the Allies prevailed despite, on paper, overwhelming odds against them. The Iraqi army totalled some 60,000 troops and faced an Allied force initially of just 1200, growing to some 25,000 with the addition of the 10th Indian Infantry Division and then the 1st Cavalry Division (Habforce).
Lyman explains the origin of the campaign but, perhaps because of space limitations, not the choices on strategic priorities faced by Wavell, the Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, arising from other demands on the Allies limited military resources. He outlines the competing views of Churchill, and Generals Auchinleck and Wavell on the appropriate actions to take but, given the competing priorities and significant difference in the size of the two forces, is too quick to criticise Wavell’s advocacy for resolving the Iraq crisis through diplomatic rather than military measures.
Lyman continues with a description of the landing at Basra, the plucky and determined actions of the pilots of the training school at the RAF base in Habbaniya, the relief column from Palestine, and the subsequent drive against Falluja and Baghdad. At times however the timeline is disjointed and hard to follow, exacerbated by references to ‘the next day’.
Where possible, Lyman seeks to provide the Iraqi, as well as the Allied perspective, but never really answers the questions of why the Iraqis failed to deploy their overwhelming superiority in troop numbers against the pitifully small Allied force, nor why the Germans were slow to supply air and unwilling to supply ground forces. Had the Germans acted more quickly they could have, as Churchill noted, denied “Britain her precious oil” dominated “the whole of the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean threaten[ed] Palestine and Egypt from the east, cut off the aerial line of communication to India, and menace[d] India herself.’ (Lyman p90)
There are also some editing errors which result in geographical errors (eg Notch Falls is north east of Falluja and sits across the road to Baghdad, not west of Falluja on the road from Falluja to Ramada (p74). The confusion arises as it was the same Arab Levy / Gurkha battalion which occupied both positions.) Lyman helps the reader with informative maps throughout the book, albeit the map for the occupation of Basra at the start of the campaign incorrectly placed with the narrative on the drive to Baghdad at the end of the campaign.
Overall, within the framework of the Osprey Campaign series, Iraq 1941 is an informative, interesting and engaging insight into an aft overlooked campaign in World War 2.
Lyman introduces the reader to the events in Iraq in 1941, an often neglected aspect of the Mediterranean theatre in World War 2 in which the Allies prevailed despite, on paper, overwhelming odds against them. The Iraqi army totalled some 60,000 troops and faced an Allied force initially of just 1200, growing to some 25,000 with the addition of the 10th Indian Infantry Division and then the 1st Cavalry Division (Habforce).
Lyman explains the origin of the campaign but, perhaps because of space limitations, not the choices on strategic priorities faced by Wavell, the Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, arising from other demands on the Allies limited military resources. He outlines the competing views of Churchill, and Generals Auchinleck and Wavell on the appropriate actions to take but, given the competing priorities and significant difference in the size of the two forces, is too quick to criticise Wavell’s advocacy for resolving the Iraq crisis through diplomatic rather than military measures.
Lyman continues with a description of the landing at Basra, the plucky and determined actions of the pilots of the training school at the RAF base in Habbaniya, the relief column from Palestine, and the subsequent drive against Falluja and Baghdad. At times however the timeline is disjointed and hard to follow, exacerbated by references to ‘the next day’.
Where possible, Lyman seeks to provide the Iraqi, as well as the Allied perspective, but never really answers the questions of why the Iraqis failed to deploy their overwhelming superiority in troop numbers against the pitifully small Allied force, nor why the Germans were slow to supply air and unwilling to supply ground forces. Had the Germans acted more quickly they could have, as Churchill noted, denied “Britain her precious oil” dominated “the whole of the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean threaten[ed] Palestine and Egypt from the east, cut off the aerial line of communication to India, and menace[d] India herself.’ (Lyman p90)
There are also some editing errors which result in geographical errors (eg Notch Falls is north east of Falluja and sits across the road to Baghdad, not west of Falluja on the road from Falluja to Ramada (p74). The confusion arises as it was the same Arab Levy / Gurkha battalion which occupied both positions.) Lyman helps the reader with informative maps throughout the book, albeit the map for the occupation of Basra at the start of the campaign incorrectly placed with the narrative on the drive to Baghdad at the end of the campaign.
Overall, within the framework of the Osprey Campaign series, Iraq 1941 is an informative, interesting and engaging insight into an aft overlooked campaign in World War 2.
May 3, 2016
The covers an unusual and unknown campaign during WWII. It does it well, to the usual Osprey standard. There is enough detail to game it out, though I suspect a solitaire game would be the only way to do this. Nobody would fight as poorly as the Iraqi's with the usual level of information provided in most games.
December 8, 2013
Another fine mess created by The Brits and Germans that we Americans are stuck with.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews