From Iraq, 1916, to the end of the road, in Ras al-‘Ain, Syria, 1917
ChrestomatherAfter the defeat and surrender of General Tonwshend’s Indo-British forces at Kut al-Amara, Capt Kalyan Mukherji was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp at Ras al-‘Ain. This town is…
Iraq 1915-16: The Siege of Kut al-Amara
After their defeat at Ctesiphon, on November 22, 1915, General Tonwshend's troops (consisting principally of the 6th Poona Division) were driven back to the town of Kut…
Iraq 1915: The Battle of Ctesiphon
The British campaign in Mesopotamia proceeded at a brisk pace through most of 1915. British and Indian troops swept northwards, brushing aside Turkish resistance and advancing confidently…
‘I spit in the face of patriotism’
Within a few months of arriving in Iraq, Captain Kalyan Mukherji had arrived at a devastatingly clear summation of the war. On October 20, 1915, in al-Aziziya, he…
Iraq 1915: ‘A river of blood… why this bloodshed?’
All of Kalyan Mukherji’s letters from Mesopotamia are reproduced in Kalyan-Pradeep. For the most part they are short, hurried and matter of fact. But some of them,…
At Home and the World in Iraq 1915-17: part 2
The tension between the voices of the grandmother and the military historian runs through the length of Mokkhoda-debi’s Kalyan-Pradeep. It is reflected even in the form of the…
The ‘Home and the World’ in Iraq 1915-17: Part 1
Mokkhoda (Mokshada) Debi’s Kalyan Pradeep, (published 1928)is, in essence, the author's tribute, as a grandmother, to her daughter’s son, Kalyan, who was a casualty of the…