OCR Text |
Show BRITISH FORCES 7 ARE DRIVEN BACK London. Nov. 23. 7:5." p m. The official press bureau tonight made public the following communication issued is-sued by the Marquis of Crewe, secretary secre-tary for India, dealing with the Rrit- j ish military operations at the head of the Persian gulf and in East Africa: Af-rica: "The recent operations in the Persian Per-sian gulf have been crowned with even greater and more rapid success than was anticipated after the signal defeat Inflicted upon the Turkish forces for-ces on No ember 15 and 17. The latter, abandoning all further resistance resist-ance here. fled. leaving eight guns and many wounded in our hands. The Yalis of Basra and Bagdad accompanied accompan-ied the defeated Turkish forces in their flight up tho Tigeris river. "Basra (a river port on the Shat-El-Arab sixty miles from the Persian Per-sian gulf) WBJ occupied on the 21 -t instant by our naval and land forces AH the British in Basra are safe "In East Africa it appears from the latest information that an important German railway terminus was reported report-ed weakly held and that a force was sent from British East Africa to seize it. On the evening of November Novem-ber 2 one and a half battalions landed land-ed within two miles of the place and became heavily engaged just outside the town. But as the enemy were in much superior strength this force was compelled to fall back and await reinforcements "At 11 a, m on the 4th the attack was renewed. When within 800 ards of the position the troops engaged en-gaged came under a very heavy fire on their left flank In spite of heavy casualties the 101st grenadiers actually actu-ally entered the town and crossed bayonets bay-onets with the enemy. The North Lancashire regiment and the Cash mlr rifles on the right pushed on in support under a very' heavy fire and also reached the town. Thc found themsehes opposed by tiers of firing from the houses and wore eventually compelled to fall hack to cover. 500 yards from the enemy's position. "The losses were so heavy and the position so strong that it was considered consid-ered useless to renew the attack, and the force re-embarked to return to its base to prepare for future operations "From recent reports Just received the total casualties in this unsuccess ful operation were 795, Including 141 British officers and men. The wounded wound-ed mostly are doing well. Many are convalescent " The official press buieau adds that the above casualties were included in the statement recently made by Lord Crewe in the house of lords. torpedo boats attempted to tow her 1 to Sweden, though she was in a sink- ing condition, but thero Is no report 1 of her arrival there I Other reports state that she was j badly injured as the result of the K collision that she sank almost Immediately, Imme-diately, f |