The Kasaba of Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, where a British Indian army was surrounded and besieged by Turkish forces from the end of 1915 until the British surrender on April 29, 1915. Photograph from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War.
The Kasaba of Kut-el-Amara
"When the armistice was concluded it was found that of 2,680 British N.C.O.s and privates taken at Kut, 1,306 had died and 449 remained untraced: that is, over 65 per cent. perished. Of the 10,486 Indians, combatants and followers, 1,290 died and 1,773 were untraced. 'These figures,' says the report, 'give the exact measure of the meaning of captivity in Turkey.' Most of the Kut prisoners perished in the terrible crossing of the desert between Samarrah and Aleppo in June."
Excerpt from an account of the investiture by Turkish forces of a British-Indian army under the command of General Townshend in Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia by Edmund Candler, an official British observer with the Relieving Force that was unable to break the Turkish siege. Attempting to seize Baghdad, the British had been defeated 22 miles short of their goal, and fell back to Kut to regroup and await reinforcements. They were instead surrounded by increasingly strong Turkish forces, and all attempts by the relieving force to break the siege failed. The armistice would not come for two and a half years.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, pp. 143, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
1916-05-06, 1916, May, Kut, Kut-el-Amara, Kut-al-Amara, Mesopotamia
