The Siege of Kut (1915-1916)

In 1915 a British Indian division under General Charles Townshend advanced up the Tigris to take Baghdad. In November the Ottoman army stopped it at Ctesiphon (Selman Pak) near Baghdad, and Townshend fell back and dug in at Kut, in a loop of the Tigris.

On 7 December 1915 Ottoman forces surrounded Kut. The British made several large attempts to relieve the town, each beaten back with heavy losses. On the Ottoman side operations were directed first by the German field marshal von der Goltz and, after his death, by Halil Pasha; Kâzım Karabekir also fought here.

Starving and stricken by disease, the garrison surrendered on 29 April 1916, and some 13,000 soldiers and officers were taken prisoner. Historians rank Kut among the worst Allied defeats of the First World War. Ten months later, however, British forces attacked again and took Baghdad in 1917.