Battle of Shaiba The Battle of Shaiba , 12 – 14 April 1915 was between British forces and Ottoman forces that were trying to retake the city of Basra from the British . Background . By capturing Basra , the British had taken an important communications and industrial centre . The British had consolidated their hold on the city and brought in reinforcements . The Ottomans gathered their forces and launched a counteroffensive to retake the city and push the British out of Mesopotamia . The battle . The Ottoman commander Suleiman Askeri had about 4 , 000 regular soldiers , including the Istanbul Fire Brigade Regiment and a large number of irregular Arabs and Kurds , numbering maybe 14 , 000 , for a total of 18 , 000 personnel . He chose to attack the British positions around Shaiba , southwest of Basra . Travel between Basra and Shaiba was difficult because seasonal floods had turned the area into a lake , and movement went via boat . The British garrison at Shaiba consisted of about 7 , 000 men in a fortified camp including a trench and barbed wire . At 5 AM on the 12th , the Ottoman troops started with a bombardment . That evening starting at dusk they tried to crawl through gaps in the British barbed wire , but were repulsed . By morning of the 13th the Ottoman troops had withdrawn to their positions at Barjisiyeh Wood . Later the next day it was apparent that some Ottomans and Arab irregulars were trying to slip around Shaiba , and maybe get to Basra by bypassing the town . The British , under General Melliss , sent the 7th Hariana Lancers and later the 104th Wellesley ' s Rifles to attack the Arabs , but those attacks were failures . Mellis then attacked with the 2nd Dorsets and the 24th Punjabis , backed by artillery fire , and they routed the Arab irregulars , capturing 400 and dispersing the rest . The Arab irregular forces would not take part in the rest of the battle . Sulaimann Askari had his Ottoman regular troops fall back on Barjisiyeh Wood . On April 14 , the British left Shaiba to look for the remaining Ottoman forces . They found them at Barjisiyeh Wood . Fighting started at about 10 : 30 AM and lasted until 5 PM . Mellis had to adjust his forces on the battlefield under fire to bring them to bear on the Ottoman positions . Ottoman fire was intense and by 4 PM the British attack had bogged down . Men were thirsty and running low on ammunition , and the Ottoman regular troops showed no indication they were going to give up . The Dorsets then launched a bayonet charge on the Ottoman lines that caused the rest of the Indian troops to follow , and the Ottomans were overwhelmed . They retreated from the battlefield . The British , worn out from the day ' s fighting with little transportation and with their cavalry tied down elsewhere , did not pursue . Sulaimann Askari would end up committing suicide over the loss , which he blamed on the Arab irregulars and their failure to support him . On the British side the battle was described as a " soldier ' s battle " meaning a hard fought infantry fight , where they , especially the British troops , decided the day . Aftermath . The battle was important as it was the last time the Ottomans would threaten Basra . After the battle it would be the British who generally held the initiative in Mesopotamia . It also changed Arab attitudes . They began to distance themselves from the Ottomans , and later revolts broke out in Najaf and Karbala up river . Major George Wheeler of the 7th Hariana Lancers was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his actions during the battle .