Siege of Kut (1915-1916): Britain's Humiliation in Mesopotamia

The Siege of Kut was a 147-day Ottoman siege of a British-Indian division at Kut al-Amara on the River Tigris, in what is now Iraq, from 7 December 1915 to 29 April 1916. It ended with the surrender of about 13,000 men under Major General Charles Townshend, a heavy blow to British prestige in the First World War.

Background: the advance up the Tigris

Soon after the Ottoman Empire entered the war in November 1914, a force from the British Indian Army landed at the head of the Persian Gulf to protect oil supplies and captured Basra. Encouraged by easy early victories, commanders in India and London approved an advance up the Tigris.

Townshend’s 6th (Poona) Division took Kut in September 1915 and pushed on towards Baghdad with long, fragile supply lines. At the Battle of Ctesiphon on 22–25 November 1915 it fought an Ottoman army under Nureddin Pasha to a standstill, losing around a third of its strength, and was forced to retreat.

The siege

Townshend’s exhausted troops reached Kut on 3 December 1915. Rather than continue the retreat, he decided to hold the town, which sits in a loop of the Tigris, expecting relief within weeks. Ottoman forces had surrounded it by 7 December.

Early Ottoman assaults, including a major attack on 24 December, were beaten off, and the besiegers settled down to starve the garrison out. The elderly German field marshal Colmar von der Goltz advised the Ottoman command, but he died in Baghdad on 19 April 1916, shortly before the end. Command of the Ottoman Sixth Army passed to Halil Pasha.

The failed relief

A relief force, the Tigris Corps under Lieutenant General Fenton Aylmer and later George Gorringe, attacked Ottoman lines downstream repeatedly between January and April 1916. Battles at Sheikh Sa’ad, the Wadi, Hanna, the Dujaila Redoubt and Sannaiyat were fought over flooded, open ground against well-prepared defences.

The relief attempts cost the British and Indian forces roughly 23,000 casualties, more than the number of men they were trying to rescue. On 24 April 1916 the river steamer Julnar tried to run supplies through to Kut but was captured.

Starvation and surrender

Inside Kut, rations were cut again and again, and the garrison ate horses and mules. Many Indian soldiers at first refused horsemeat for religious reasons until religious authorities gave permission. Scurvy, dysentery and other diseases spread among soldiers and townspeople.

In the final days Britain offered a large sum of money, reported as up to two million pounds, in return for the garrison’s release. Halil Pasha refused. On 29 April 1916 Townshend surrendered unconditionally, after destroying his guns and supplies.

Captivity

Some 13,000 prisoners were marched north towards Anatolia. Weakened by the siege, many died of disease, hunger, exhaustion and beatings on the march and in labour camps, including railway construction sites in the Taurus and Amanus mountains. Historians commonly estimate that around 70 per cent of the British rank and file died in captivity; Indian losses were also very heavy, and total deaths among the prisoners are usually put at around 4,000 or more.

Townshend himself was held in comfort on the island of Prinkipo near Constantinople, a contrast that damaged his reputation after the war. Officers in general were separated from their men and usually travelled by river or on horseback, while the ordinary soldiers walked hundreds of miles across desert and mountains.

By the numbers

Figures are approximate and differ between sources.

Key people

• Charles Townshend (1861–1924), commander of the 6th Division, who held Kut and surrendered it.
• Halil Pasha (1882–1957), Ottoman commander who accepted the surrender and later took the surname Kut.
• Colmar von der Goltz (1843–1916), German field marshal advising the Ottoman army.
• Fenton Aylmer and George Gorringe, commanders of the failed relief effort.

Timeline

• 1914, 22 November: British-Indian forces occupy Basra.
• 1915, 28 September: Townshend captures Kut.
• 1915, 22–25 November: Battle of Ctesiphon; Townshend retreats.
• 1915, 7 December: Kut is surrounded.
• 1916, January–April: Relief attempts fail.
• 1916, 19 April: Von der Goltz dies in Baghdad.
• 1916, 29 April: Townshend surrenders.
• 1917, 11 March: British forces under Maude capture Baghdad.

Consequences and legacy

A parliamentary Mesopotamia Commission criticised the planning and medical arrangements of the campaign in 1917. The defeat, coming soon after the Gallipoli campaign, led Britain to take control of the Mesopotamian front from India and reinforce it heavily. In Turkey, Kut is remembered as a great victory and commemorated on 29 April. The campaign was part of the wider struggle over the Middle East that also produced the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Arab Revolt.

Why it matters

Kut showed the dangers of overextended campaigns and poor logistics, and its prisoners suffered one of the war’s worst captivity ordeals. It also shaped the British conquest of Mesopotamia and the creation of modern Iraq after the war.