Like the 2003 Iraq War, the British Mesopotamia campaign in the same region was based on the southern town of Basra. This History of Engineer units, the 17th and 22nd Field Companies, Third Sappers and Miners, recounts their exploits in the theatre throughout the Great War. The Sappers were deployed in territory that would become familiar in the 21st century, and were engaged in a variety of tasks from bridge-building to road laying and constructing flood defences in the marshy terrain. They also took part in the ill-starred march to Kut-Al-Amara - an operation that ended disastrously with the capitulation of General Townsend's army to the besieging Turks in 1915.