Schematic plan · World War I (Turkish Fronts 1915)

Battle of Ctesiphon (1915)

22 November 1915
Mesopotamia
Victory for Ottoman Empire

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

Great Britain (Br Mesopotamian Field Force, 13,756 men under Mg Townshend) attacked Ottoman Empire (Tk Army, 20,400 men under Nur-Ud-Din Pasha) in Mesopotamia. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 12.1 km, a single envelopment, left flank against fortified defense and prepared defense, and that Ottoman Empire held. Losses: Great Britain 4,593 (33%), Ottoman Empire 6,188 (30%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Great Britain

Mg Townshend

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	3,193
Great Britain centre	Infantry	4,258
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	3,193
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	2,661
Great Britain artillery (30 guns)	Artillery	450
Mg Townshend	Commander	—
In this plan		13,755

Ottoman Empire

Nur-Ud-Din Pasha

Unit	Arm	Men
Ottoman Empire left wing	Infantry	4,709
Ottoman Empire centre	Infantry	6,278
Ottoman Empire right wing	Infantry	4,709
Ottoman Empire reserve	Infantry	3,924
Ottoman Empire artillery (52 guns)	Artillery	780
Nur-Ud-Din Pasha	Commander	—
In this plan		20,400

What the sources report

	Great Britain	Ottoman Empire
Strength, this plan	13,756	20,400
Losses, this plan	4,593	6,188

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 303, “Ctesiphon”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 48 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 12.1 km (attacker), 16 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	13,756	4,593	0	30	Single envelopment; Left flank; Repulse; Withdrew
Ottoman Empiredefender	20,400	6,188	0	52	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack

Attacker’s advantages air superiority +1 · combat effectiveness +1

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 303 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Ctesiphon (1915) · CC-BY-SA-4.0

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.