Reading suggestions for Mesopotamia

[Aaron]

A pal and I have been bitten by the bug to game the Mesopotamian campaign of WW1. it is the perfect excuse to build some gunboats! Does anyone have recommended reading on the campaign in general and the gunboats?

Aaron

[dadlamassu]

Battles on the Tigris by Ron Wilcox

Tigris Gunboats by Wilfred Nunn

The Neglected War by AJ Barker - now VERY expensive - I got mine in a library book sale for 20pence.  BARGAIN!!!

There were some articles in (I think) Wargames Illustrated with sceanios and gunboat details.

[Aaron]

Thanks. Those sound like good starting points. I have access to excellent university and public libraries within a block of my office so if anything is too expensive I'll just borrow it.

I did keyword searches on Amazon, but I always like to ask other gamers for suggestions rather than grabbing at random!

[Helen]

Hi,

Depending on your budget or if available from your library you can also look at:

The Campaign in Mesopotamia (4 vols) by Brigadier FJ Moberly

OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE WAR. NAVAL OPERATIONS - VOLUME III
Covers naval operations from Spring 1915 to Jutland, May 31st/1st June 1916. Describes events in Home Waters, the Dardanelles, Salonika, Mesopotamia (to November 1915), the destruction of the Koenigsberg, and the Battle of Jutland

OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE WAR. NAVAL OPERATIONS - VOLUME IV
Covers the period from Jutland to February 1917: Home Waters, East Africa, Cameroons, Mesopotamia, the Baltic, Salonika campaign January to June 1916, operations in the Mediterranean between June 1916 and January 1917. German introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare.

INLAND WATER TRANSPORT IN MESOPOTAMIA
Topical history of water transport tol the British army along the rivers Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia (Iraq) during the Great War. The problems sound very familiar.

[carlos marighela]

A very good little book to dig out is Col. Keough's 'A River in the Desert', originally published as a staff college study of the campaign in Australia. Good maps, OB and lots of detail. Not easy to find outside of OZ I would think but Abe might be a good start.

Braddon's book on Kut. The Siege has some discussion of the campaign up to the encirclement and capyrure of Kut.

[Aaron]

Thanks again all. That should keep me busy for a while. I have found enough pictures to start planning my river boat!

[odd duck]

I've toyed with the idea of doing messpot as they referred to it back then, for a few years but never got past the reading phaseI started with -Death of an army(the siege of Kut)1915-1916 by Ronald Millar1970 a good account of the disastorous start of the campaign also picked upTHE SIEGE by Russel Braddon have'nt read it as it covered the same subject as millar's book but it's a paperback by mayflower books and only cost me $2 cdn and if you can find it ,it shoud'nt  affect  your budget!"A history of the british cavalry"volume 6 mesopotamia by The marquess of anglesey gives a lot of info  on some of the patrol actions as well as the bigger actions but only from the cavalrymans point of view and a little pricey too! Gunboats of the royal navy by Paul J. Kemp is a collection of photos on gunboats mostly the Insect class but includes the Fly class and china gunboats. Hope this helps and before I forget I don't know where you live  but the Imperial war museum in london  has an excelent model of an Insectclass gunboat on display if you can get there Good luck

[Chuckaroobob]

It might be the same book by a different name, but I really enjoyed "The Bastard War" by A J Barker.  This could be the same book as the previously mentioned "The Neglected War, I just don't know.  I bought a used copy for US$ 5.00 here in the USA.

[Sendak]

I've thought about sources of information on the Middle East in WWI. I have to get more familar with the subject.

I haven't found a good OOB for Mesopotamia 1914-1918 at present.

Perhaps histories / diaries from Indian units, Regular Army, and Territorials for the British Empire.

Turks and Germans for the Central Powers might be another avenue to explore.

Back to topic. Here's an interesting book with a relatively recent (reprinted edition date):

Wilfred Nunn (Vice-Admiral Royal Navy). Tigris Gunboats. Naval Institute Press, 2007.

[trev]

The Long Long Trail web site is a good starting point.  Here's the OOB for the 6th Poona Division. 

http://www.1914-1918.net/Poona_div.htm

I'm reading Ron Wilcox' book now and that has OOBs and quite a bit of detail too.  Ron is a member of the LLT forum too, so can probably help with specifics if you want anything particularly.

Trev