Background
John Nixon was born in Brentford on August 16, 1857, the son of an army captain.
John Nixon was born in Brentford on August 16, 1857, the son of an army captain.
Educated at Rossall School and then the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Nixon was commissioned into the 75th Regiment of Foot in 1875.
Nixon saw duty in the Afghanistan War 1879/1880, was promoted captain in 1888, and major seven years later. At the end of 1901 he was dispatched to South Africa where he fought to the conclusion of the Boer War; thereafter came service in India, and in 1912 he was given command of the Southern Army of India. Nixon had been promoted major general in 1904, lieutenant general five years later, and general in 1914. The following year he was entrusted with the Northern Army of India.
On April 9, 1915, Nixon received command of all British forces in Mesopotamia. His instructions were to secure the oil fields and the pipeline to the east, to control the Basra vilayet, or administrative district, and to develop a plan for an eventual advance on Baghdad. London cautioned: "In Mesopotamia a safe game must be played." Nixon at first proved successful: on June 3, 1915, the British took Amara in what is known as General Charles Townshend's "regatta" up the Tigris; Townshend quickly exploited this success by pushing almost 200 miles further into the interior, taking Kut el Amara on September 29, 1915.
This brilliant little victory was viewed in London as "the one bright spot on the military horizon," and, in order to overcome the loss of prestige in the eyes of the empire's Moslem subjects over Gallipoli, Nixon was permitted on October 23 to march on Baghdad, provided that it could be held. London promised two divisions of Indian troops from France. Townshend, however, did not wait for these reinforcements, and on November 22 began the march on Baghdad. Checked by the Turks near the ancient arch of Ctesiphon, Townshend fell back on Kut el Amara, which the Turks besieged on December 8, 1915. The imminent starvation of his force compelled Townshend to surrender on April 29, 1916; the two divisions promised him from France still had not arrived. Baghdad was finally taken by Sir Frederick Stanley Maude with a numerical superiority of four-to-one over the Turks in March 1917.
Nixon laid down his command ostensibly owing to ill health in January 1916, but in August was summoned home to testify before the Mesopotamia Commission of Inquiry. The latter's verdict was damning: "The weightiest share of responsibility lies with Sir John Nixon, whose confident optimism was the main cause of the decision to advance." For-tunately for Nixon, plans to haul him before a special army court of inquiry were dropped by October 1918, but Nixon’s career by then had been utterly dashed. He died in St. Raphael, France, on December 15, 1921.