In the meantime the infantry soon after daybreak had taken up the attack again and in face of well-directed fire and against repeated counterattacks, had carried the last outlying defenses of the Turks on the British left, until 8 o'clock, September 29, 1917, they had seized and were holding the bridgehead of the Azizie Canal. After this new repulse an intense bombardment was opened on the Turkish trenches. The British line of cavalry, far away west, soon saw the dark masses of the enemy approaching and apparently prepared for bloody battle. They watched this advance, as they thought, for over an hour, but there came a moment when, to their astonishment, they saw the Turks turn and walk in mass formation toward the British. The Turkish guns were silent and white flags went up all along the line.
It was a general surrender. Ahmed Bey, the Turkish commander, who had been on the Euphrates all through the campaign from the battle of Shaiba, March, 1915, came out and surrendered with his whole force.
The British captured 3,455 prisoners, thirteen guns, ten machine guns, 1,061 rifles, a quantity of ammunition, some railway material, two steam launches and a large quantity of miscellaneous engineering material, equipment, and military stores. When the British entered Ramadie they found that such Turkish forces as had not surrendered had hurriedly fled.
To the north and east of Bagdad the British forces, too, succeeded in advancing in the direction of the Persian border. In this undertaking they had for some time the cooperation of Russian troops still fighting in this region.
On August 19, 1917, British columns attacked the Turks near Shahroban on the left bank of the Dialah, about fifty miles northeast from Bagdad. The Turks made little resistance and retreated hastily to the Hamrin Hills, and British troops remained in possession of Shahroban.
In an action fought on October 20, 1917, the British occupied Deli Abbas, about ten miles northwest from Shahroban, and established themselves on the Jebel Hamrin range on the left bank of the river Dialah. The Turks retreated across the Dialah River in the vicinity of Kizil Robat, burning the bridge behind them, and continued to hold a position in the hills on the right bank of that river, north of Deli Abbas, which is on the Bagdad-Kifri road.