The Engineer Role in the Defense -- A Comparison between the Mesopotamia Campaign and the Persian Gulf War

Abstract : The British and the Turkish army fought a bloody war in the Persian Gulf in 1914. There are numerous comparisons between the tactics used in the Mesopotamia Campaign of 1914 and the most recent Persian Gulf War. The lessons learned in the two wars separated by almost eighty years are strikingly similar. The focus of this study is on the comparison of how engineers were used in the defense. The principal viewpoint is based on British written accounts. The Iraqis used a combination of old Turkish and British tactics combined with Soviet military doctrine. They failed to apply the impact that modern technology has on battlefields. The coalition forces used a form of siege similar to what the Turkish used against the British in 1914. The role of the engineer in the defense has not changed greatly over the years.