7th Gurkha Rifles escorting Turkish prisoners captured at the Battle of Shaiba, 1915

Photograph, World War One, Mesopotamia (1914-1918), 1915.

The British victory at Shaiba (12-14 April 1915) saw Major-General Charles Mellis's British-Indian defensive lines thwart an Ottoman attempt to re-take Basra. The Turks sustained around 2,400 casualties and the British around 1,000.

From an album of 210 photographs compiled by Lieutenant Henry Curtis Gallup during his service with the 5th Hampshire Howitzer Battery (Territorial Force) in Mesopotamia during World War One (1914-1918), 1915-1916.

Gallup was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Territorial Force on 28 August 1914 and served in India and Mesopotamia with 1/5th Hampshire Howitzer Battery. He fought in the Battle of Shaiba in April 1915 and took part in the advance towards Baghdad, including the Battle of Es Sinn and capture of Kut in September. Gallup was subsequently held as a prisoner of war in Turkey after his capture at Kut in April 1916.