Baldrick62
03-11-2012, 12:27
Submit a Book ReviewBook Title:
When God Made Hell Author:
Charles Townsend ISBN:
978-0-571-23719-7 Category:
History Format:
Hardback Summary:
Subtitled 'The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq 1914-1921', in 591pp Townsend charts the political and military events which saw the British enter Mesopotamia and then caused them to stay. It's a fascinating campaign fought over huge distances which caused logistic nightmares and much suffering for all involved; the scale of which I'd not realised, involving over 100,000 British and Imperial troops and huge amounts of materiel diverted from the Western Front. The Fall of Kut, with its missed opportunities, is well covered, as are less well-known events like the Battle of Ctesiphon and the capture of Baghdad. For the gamer there are lots of interesting actions involving some unusual land, air and riverine forces including the Australian Half-Flight. Written in 2010, it finishes with the fallout from the Sykes-Picot agreement (still pertinent today) and I wish that before I went to Basrah, I'd hear of the Arab proverb 'When God made Hell he did not think it bad enough, so he created Mesopotamia'.
36979
When God Made Hell Author:
Charles Townsend ISBN:
978-0-571-23719-7 Category:
History Format:
Hardback Summary:
Subtitled 'The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq 1914-1921', in 591pp Townsend charts the political and military events which saw the British enter Mesopotamia and then caused them to stay. It's a fascinating campaign fought over huge distances which caused logistic nightmares and much suffering for all involved; the scale of which I'd not realised, involving over 100,000 British and Imperial troops and huge amounts of materiel diverted from the Western Front. The Fall of Kut, with its missed opportunities, is well covered, as are less well-known events like the Battle of Ctesiphon and the capture of Baghdad. For the gamer there are lots of interesting actions involving some unusual land, air and riverine forces including the Australian Half-Flight. Written in 2010, it finishes with the fallout from the Sykes-Picot agreement (still pertinent today) and I wish that before I went to Basrah, I'd hear of the Arab proverb 'When God made Hell he did not think it bad enough, so he created Mesopotamia'.
36979