7th (under the command of General Younghusband) staged a direct assault on the Ottoman positions on 6 January (the Battle of Sheikh Sa'ad). After two days of fighting, the Ottoman army withdrew. The British sustained approximately 4,000 casualties - much more than the medical units could cope with. The Ottoman troops, under the generalship of Baron von der Goltz only withdrew some six miles up river and occupied another defensive position near the edge of the Suwaikiya Marshes. A British assault on this position on 13 January was partially successful, the position was carried but again with significant losses (some 1,600 casualties) (the Battle of Wadi). By now, a third division had been added to Aylmer's Tigris Corps, the 3rd (Lahore) Division. This new division, along with the weakened 7th Division, attacked Ottoman defensive works at Hanna on 21 January (the Battle of Hanna). This assault was a complete failure. The Ottoman troops held their trench lines while some 2,700 British soldiers were killed or wounded. General Aylmer was reinforced with another division, the 13th (Western) Division. The next month was spent resting the troops and probing the Ottoman defensive positions. With time running out on Major-General Townshend's garrison in Kut, Aylmer finally launched a two pronged attack on the Ottoman positions, one attack at the Sinn Abtar Redoubt, the other attack at the Dujaila Redoubt. The attacks were launched on 7 March 1916. Both attacks failed due to lack of initiative and an inability to coordinate the timing of the assaults: they ended up being sequential, not simultaneous as was intended. The British lost some 4,000 casualties. Fenton Aylmer was replaced by the former commander of the 12th Indian division, Major-General Gorringe. He did not command in battle again, but served as a divisional commander in India from 1915 to 1917 before retiring from the British Army in 1919. From 1922 till his death he was a Colonel Commandant of the Royal Engineers. Following his death in 1935 he was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, where his ashes remain. His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Royal Engineers Museum in Chatham, Kent, England. References Sources Irish Winners of the Victoria Cross (Richard Doherty & David Truesdale, 2000) Monuments to Courage (David Harvey, 1999) The Register of the Victoria Cross (This England, 1997) The Sapper VCs (Gerald Napier, 1998) External links Royal Engineers Museum Sappers VCs Burial location of