1914: THE LAST STAND OF THE THIN RED LINE 129
officer up behind on his own horse, under heavy fire at close range, and
galloped away to safety.^78
Hull’s citation is virtually identical to that of then Lieutenant-Colonel Redvers
Buller, earned in 1879 at Inhlobana. Captain Eustace Jotham also won a
Cross on the Frontier in 1915 for sacrificing his life while trying to rescue
one of his men stranded during a skirmish with Khostwal tribesmen.^79
This Victorian trend continued through 1916, with a special emphasis on
lifesaving VCs during the Mesopotamian campaign. The operations in the
Tigris-Euphrates basin that year generated 12 Crosses. Eight of them went
for rescuing the wounded, and interestingly, in light of later developments
on the Western Front, three of those went for recovering officers:
On 5 April 1916, during an attack, an officer was lying out in the open
severely wounded about one hundred fifty yards from cover. Two men
went out to his assistance and one of them was hit at once. Captain
Buchanan immediately went out and with the help of the other man,
carried the first casualty to cover under machine-gun fire. He then returned
and brought in the other wounded man, again under heavy fire.^80
The heroism recognized in the 1916 Mesopotamian campaign in general
indicates a very colonial, Victorian concept on the part of the recommending
officers. Fully 75 percent of the 1916 VCs earned in Mesopotamia went for
lifesaving. As will be shown in subsequent chapters, this was more than
twice the rate for lifesaving on the Western Front during 1915 and 1916.
Defensive actions accounted for 12.5 percent and another 12.5 percent were
won in an abortive attempt to resupply the garrison at Kut by river.^81 There
were no Crosses won for offensive actions.
This changed in 1917. The humiliating fall of Kut on 29 April 1916
prompted London to take control of the operation and reshuffle the Indian
command structure. In the process they promoted divisional commander
Major-General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude to overall command.^82 Maude
wanted to erase the stain of Kut and managed to convince Sir Charles Munro,
the new Commander-in-Chief, India, of the need for aggressive prosecution
of the Mesopotamian campaign.^83
The new standard of aggressive command is reflected in the tenor of the
heroism submitted for official endorsement. Ten VCs were won during the
1917 Mesopotamian operations. Seven of these went to war-winning acts.
The aggressiveness of the offensive actions could be quite impressive:
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