Townshend had learned from aerial reconnaissance that Nureddin Pasha had dug in with about 8,000 Turkish infantrymen from Anatolia and about 3,000 Arabs recruited locally. Townshend's plans called for the Minimum Force (Column B) to attack the strongest Ottoman position, while the Principle Mass (Column A) was to encircle the Ottoman position and attack from the rear. At Kut, he sent his "Principle Mass" at a weak point in the Ottoman lines, only for General Hoghton, who was commanding the "Principle Mass", to get lost in the desert during a night advance. Townshend's diversionary force of the Dorset Regiment and the 117th Mahrattas, which was supposed to distract the Ottoman forces, instead ended taking the entire weight on the Ottoman counter-attack, which at times came close to crushing the Anglo-Indian force. Townshend later wrote that, "The whole point of the Mass on the enemy's weakest point was thus lost and it went near to costing us the battle".