Siege of Kut

Siege of Kut

Part of: Mesopotamia Front

date	December 7, 1915 to April 29, 1916
place	Kut al-Amara and surroundings
output	Decisive victory for the Ottomans

Parties to the conflict
United Kingdom  British India	Ottoman Empire
Commander
Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend Fenton Aylmer George Frederick Gorringe	Nureddin Pascha Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz Halil Kut
Troop strength
15,000 (garrison) 31,000 soldiers (relief troops)	31,000 to 41,000 soldiers
losses
13,000 prisoners of war 1,800 dead and 1,900 wounded (garrison) 23,000 dead and wounded (relief troops)	10,000 dead and wounded

Siege of Kut al Amara is the name given to the five-month siege of 15,000 British-Indian soldiers and logistical troops in the small town of Kut by the Turkish army and the ensuing battles in the First World War 1915/1916.

background

On November 25, the British troops under Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend withdrew to Kut after the Battle of Ctesiphon . They reached the city on December 3, 1915. They had suffered considerable losses and had been decimated to around 11,000 soldiers (plus cavalry). Townshend decided to stay in Kut instead of retreating further to Basra . Kut was a good defensive position, but the supply was poor because the city was far from Basra.

The siege

Indian soldier after the siege

The Ottoman troops pursuing the British arrived at Kut on December 7, 1915 . Once it was clear that the Ottomans were strong enough to siege, Townshend let his cavalry escape south, under Colonel Gerard Leachman. The Ottoman troops consisted of around 11,000 soldiers and were commanded by the respected but old German general and military historian Freiherr von der Goltz . Goltz knew the Ottoman army well, as he had been modernizing it for twelve years. After three attacks in December, Goltz led the construction of fortifications around Kut and built defenses on the Tigris to protect himself from a British attack from Basra.

After a month of siege, Townshend planned to break through to the south, but this idea was rejected by its commander, General John Nixon , because he wanted to bind the Ottoman forces in a siege. But when he mistakenly heard that the troops only had food for a month, he believed a breakout was necessary. It's not clear why Townshend got false reports as the groceries would have lasted for more than four months. The first liberation expedition comprised around 19,000 men and was led by General Fenton Aylmer .

Battle of Sheikh Saad

British artillery during the Battle of Sheikh Saad

Main article → Battle of Sheikh Saad

At the Battle of Sheikh Saad, the British managed to drive the Ottoman troops out of Sheikh Saad.

Battle of the wadi

Main article → Battle of the Wadi

The Ottomans then had to retreat to a wadi 16 km away . There they were able to gain a tactical advantage against the British-Indian troops.

Battle of el-Hanna

Main article → Battle of Hanna

In this battle the Turks finally succeeded in defeating the troops led by Aylmer and forcing a British retreat.

First battle at Kut

After the defeat of Aylmer, General Nixon was replaced as Commander in Chief. More troops were sent out to support Aylmer's troops. He tried again and attacked the Turks on March 8th. At the Battle of Dujaila , in which the British lost 4,000 men, he suffered another defeat. Aylmer was released after the battle and replaced by Sir George Frederick Gorringe .

Gorringe had around 30,000 men available, which was roughly equivalent to the strength of the Ottoman troops. The Turks then dug trenches from Fallahiyeh to Sannaiyat . On April 5th, Gorringe let his soldiers attack the Ottomans and took Fallahiyeh with heavy losses. Attempts to conquer Sannaiyat failed. On April 6th alone, 1,200 British were killed there. After the unsuccessful attempts, the British directed their attack on Bait Asia held by Ottoman soldiers . Heavy rains, however, hampered Gorringe's advance. Nevertheless, on April 17th, Bait Asia was fully conquered. Halil launched a determined counterattack with 10,000 soldiers, which however could be repulsed by the British-Indian troops. During the fighting, the Ottomans lost 4,000 and the British 1,600 soldiers. Although the British suffered fewer losses than the Turks, the losses made further progress impossible for the British. Despite the lack of soldiers, Gorringe dared to attack Sannaiyat again. However, this was repulsed by Halil's troops and Gorringe lost 1,300 people.

Now it had become impossible for the British to free the soldiers besieged in Kut. Townshend and his exhausted and emaciated men had to surrender to the Ottomans on April 29th. The captured soldiers were taken to Anatolia for forced labor. Hunger, epidemics and physical violence on the part of the Kurdish and Arab guards resulted in high casualties among the prisoners. Out of 2,592 British captured, only 837 survived. Out of 10,436 Indians and Gurkhas, 7,423 survived. The reasons for the relatively lower number of deaths among the Indians and Gurkhas were due to better treatment and greater cohesion among the prisoners.

consequences

With the defeat of the British, the Ottoman Empire initially stabilized the Mesopotamian front. The British felt the defeat, especially in combination with the battle of Gallipoli, which had finally been lost four months earlier, as a great humiliation. This is one of the reasons why they later made great efforts to defeat the Turkish troops, e.g. B. massively expanded the port of Basra. It was not until early 1917 that the British army was able to carry out a new, more successful attack on the Ottoman Empire.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} The Royal Engineers Journal, Volume 80, The Institution of Royal Engineers, 1966, p. 348
2. ↑ ^{a b} A. J. Barker: The First Iraq War 1914-1918: Britain's Mesopotamian Campaign , Enigma Books, 2009, ISBN 0-9824911-7-4 , p. 211.
3. ^ Kaushik Roy: The Indian Army in the Two World Wars. BRILL, 2011, ISBN 978-90-04-18550-0 , 409
4. ^ ^{A b} Michael Moynihan: Black Bread and Barbed Wire: Prisoners in the First World War. Cooper, 1978, ISBN 0-85052-239-0 , 159
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Bruce Watson: Sieges: A Comparative Study , Greenwood Publishing Group, 1993, ISBN 0-275-94034-9 , p. 104.
6. ^ Piers Brendon: The Decline and Fall of the British Empire - 1781–1997. London, 2007, pp. 258 f.

literature

• Patrick Crowley: Kut 1916: Courage and Failure in Iraq . History Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7524-5447-4 .
• Nikolas Gardner: The Siege of Kut-Al-Amara: At War in Mesopotamia, 1915-1916 . Indiana Univ. Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-253-01384-2 .

Web links

Commons : Siege of Kut  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• The Turkish Army Report of April 30, 1916 on the surrender of Kut al-Amara
• Private telegram: Kut-el-Amara fallen (historical e-paper), Frankfurter Zeitung , Frankfurt May 1, 1916 ( archive PDF )
• http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/siegeofkut.htm
• firstworldwar.com