William Henry Beach
William Henry Beach CB CMG DSO (1871 – 22 July 1952) was a senior British Army officer who played an important role in the campaign in Mesopotamia 1915 to 1918.
[2] In April and May 1908 the British mounted a punitive expedition against the Mohmand tribes on the North West Frontier where he saw his first active service as Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General to the 3rd Brigade.
In 1912 he joined the staff of Lieutenant-General Sir John Nixon (Commanding the Southern Army) as Assistant Military Secretary.
In April 1915 Nixon took command of Indian Expeditionary Force D, whose task was to invade Mesopotamia (now Iraq), then part of the Ottoman Empire.
The Mesopotamian campaign began well, with the rapid advance of a division under Major General Townshend up the Tigris River, with a view to capturing Baghdad.
During this battle Beach received a gunshot wound, the bullet going through his arm and narrowly missing his heart after being deflected by his cigarette case.
[4] Ostensibly seeking to arrange exchanges of wounded and prisoners, Beach had secret permission from London to offer Khalil a bribe.
Nixon, in a despatch, had written of him: ‘As head of the Intelligence Branch he has shown exceptional powers of insight and organisation.’[5] T E Lawrence, in a report dated May 1916, while deploring that the Intelligence Branch contained no Turkish speakers and only one who knew Arabic, commented that ‘(Beach) is very excellent.’[6] The remainder of 1916 was spent in reinforcing the British forces and setting up much improved lines of supply.
When the Ottoman Empire capitulated to the Allies in October 1918, they agreed to withdraw all their troops from the Caucasus, leaving Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia as three emergent states, independent of both Russia and Turkey.
They were to secure the withdrawal of the Turkish army, and safeguard the railway and the oil pipeline from Baku on the Caspian to Batum on the Black Sea, so becoming the predominant foreign power there.
Beach was posted as head of intelligence to this Mission and wrote reports on several controversial issues including the status of Nagorno Karabakh[8] and the location of the border between Georgia and Russia.
The British had no clear policy for the region and, by the late summer of 1919, faced with a resurgent Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Red Army looming on the horizon and general lack of resources, Whitehall decided upon withdrawal.
[12] On 26 December 1914 Beach married Constance Maud, only daughter of the late Captain Archibald A Cammell, 14th Hussars, of Brookfield Manor Derbyshire in St Stephen's Church Ootacamund (Ooty).
