8-11 March 1917: The Fall of Baghdad—British & Imperial forces smashed the Ottoman defenses at the confluence of the Tigris & Diyala Rivers, south of Baghdad; the city itself was taken without a shot & 9,000 Turks were taken prisoner; General Sir Frederick Maude's famous proclamation read, in part, "Our armies do not come into your cities & lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators."
Lest we forget.
Commentary: Such are my times & experiences that I cannot read about Baghdad, no matter the historical period, without reflecting, at least passingly, upon the Anglo-American-Australian toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the subsequent bloody years of occupation & insurgency, & subsequent bloody years of chaos that followed the precipitous American withdrawal, which continue still, now fanned into a regional conflagration. We, too, thought we came not as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.
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