The Siege of Kut occurred from 7 December 1915 to 29 April 1916 when a British and British Indian army under General Sir Charles Townshend was besieged by the Ottoman Turks at the Mesopotamian town of Kut during World War I. The British army was ultimately forced to surrender in humiliation, and many of the prisoners were killed on a death march to Syria.
Background[]
The Ottoman sultan's call for a Muslim holy war against the British Empire in November 1914 was a direct challenge to Britain's position in India and the Middle East. Turkish and German plans to carry the war through Persia to Afghanistan and Muslim areas of northern India came to nothing. Egypt also failed to rise against British rule, even when the Turks attacked the Suez Canal in February 1915. The situation inside Persia was precarious, with Russia, Britain, and Germany vying to extend their influence there. In November 1914, a force from British India occupied Basra in southern Mesopotamia to strengthen the British position in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
History[]
The operation launched in Mesopotamia was launched and controlled by the British government of India in Calcutta. Initially only a few thousand troops of the British Indian Army were landed at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway in southern Mesopotamia, and their mission was limited. They were to establish a defensible position and prevent any Turkish interference with British-owned oil fields across the border in southern Persia (now Iran).
The need for a "forward defense" led to the occupation first of the port of Basra and then of Qurna, farther north at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Unlike the British authorities in Cairo, the Government of India felt no inclination to encourage an Arab revolt against the Turks. Local Arab irregulars thus sided with Turkish forces in a vigorous counterattack in April 1915. This was repulsed by entrenched Anglo-Indian troops at Shaiba outside Basra.
A newly appointed commander of the expeditionary force, the ambitious General Sir John Nixon, took this defensive victory as a springboard for the occupation of the whole of southern Mesopotamia as far north as Nasiriya and Amara, expanding the campaign well beyond its original goals. Given the Allies' setbacks against the Turks in the Gallipoli campaign, the conquest of Mesopotamia was seen as a way for Britain to reassert its prestige in the eyes of its Muslim subject peoples.
The Anglo-Indian advance[]
Map of the Mesopotamian campaign
Despite doubts expressed by the War Office in London, Nixon was authorized by the Government of India to advance troops first to Kut al-Amara, reached in late September, and then onward toward the historic Muslim city of Baghdad. While Nixon stayed in Basra, the troops on the ground were commanded by General Sir Charles Townshend, an officer with an experience of colonial warfare in India, including holding the fort at Chitral against a rebel siege. However, Townshend was not confident in his mission. Every step toward Baghdad extended the overstretched supply line that linked him to the base at Basra. Moreover, men were decimated by disease and debilitated by the heat.
The Turkish forces[]
As Townshend's forces advanced up the Tigris, accompanied by river gunboats, Turkish forces prepared to defend Baghdad. Under the command of Ottoman general Khalil Pasha and German veteran Baron Colmar von der Goltz, the Turks dug into trenche sat Ctesiphon south of Baghdad. The commander on the ground was Nureddin Pasha.
Townshend attacked the Turkish position on 22 November. The frontline trench was taken and then held against Turkish counterattacks, but by 25 November Townshend had only 4,500 men fit enough to fight - less than half his original force. He decided to withdraw back down the Tigris to Kut al-Amara. The Anglo-Indian force reached Kut in poor condition. They had been harassed en route by Arab tribesmen. The many sick and wounded lacked adequate medical care. Townshend had only a hazy notion of the state of his food supplies, but decided to sit tight and await relief rather than continue the withdrawal to Basra. On 7 December, Nureddin's forces arrived, and after failing to take Kut by assault, settled into trenches for a siege.
In Basra, the British reorganized. Nixon was dismissed and a new Tigris Corps was created to mount a relief effort. Plagued by problems of transportation and logistics - there were no proper roads or railroads, and the river seemed always either too low or in flood - British relief forces pushed northward from Basra. They were repeatedly repelled by determined Turkish troops, who were dug into defensive positions south of Kut. Meanwhile, inside Kut conditions were quickly deteriorating. Disease and lack of food reduced the garrison to a pitiable condition. Mules and horses were slaughtered for meat. Morale collapsed and relations between the British officers and their Indian soldiers rapidly deteriorated. An attempt at breakout was out of the question; Townshend was unable even to mount harassing attacks against the Turkish siege trenches.
Forced to surrender[]
On 22 April, the last British relief expedition was brought to a halt 10 miles from Kut. Four days later, Townshend opened negotiations with Khalil Pasha, proposing to pay for his force to be paroled. This improbable offer was refused and on 29 April Townshend surrendered. Some 10,000 British and Indain troops passed into Turkish hands. Their treatment was harsh, with about 4,000 dying in captivity. Townshend, meanwhile, was allowed to live in a comfortable house near Istanbul for the rest of the war.
Aftermath[]
Viewing the surrender at Kut as a blow to its prestige, Britain devoted much time and many resources to the capture of Mesopotamia. In summer 1916, London took over control of the Mesopotamian campaign from the Indian government. Basra's port facilities were expanded, roads and railroads built, and modern weaponry supplied. Under General Sir Stanley Maude, British forces retook Kut al-Amara in February 1917 and occupied Baghdad in March. After Maude died of cholera in November, the British effort was scaled down. The British occupied the oil town of Mosul at the end of the war.