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3 unusual facts about siege of Kut


Siege of Kut

These Indian troops were involved in the capture of the frontier city of Karman and the detention of the British consul there, and they also successfully harassed Sir Percy Sykes' Persian campaign against the Baluchi and Persian tribal chiefs who were aided by the Germans.

Like Caesar at the Alesia, he prepared for an attack from Basra, using the Tigris River, by building defensive positions further down the river.

The first relief expedition comprised some 19,000 men under General Aylmer and it headed up the river from Ali Gharbi in January 1916.


Battle of Dujaila

The Ottoman Sixth Army, reinforced, pursued and laid siege to the town after attempts to storm the Anglo-Indian positions failed.

Battle of Hanna

Despite two more relief attempts, the garrison at Kut-al-Amara was forced to surrender to the Ottoman forces on 29 April 1916 (see Siege of Kut).

Battle of Sheikh Sa'ad

The Ottoman Sixth Army, now reinforced, followed and laid siege to the Anglo-Indian force at Kut-al-Amarrah.

The engagement was the first in a series of assaults by the Tigris Corps to try to break through the Ottoman lines to relieve the besieged garrison at Kut.

Beauchamp Duff

During the war, the Mesopotamian Campaign was under the responsibility of the Indian Army up until the disaster surrounding the surrender at Kut.

Kâzım Karabekir

In April 1916, he took over the command of the 18th Corps, which gained a great victory over the British forces led by General Charles Townshend during the Siege of Kut-al Amara in Iraq.

Mesopotamian Half Flight

The Indian Army soon met with stiff opposition outside Baghdad, and were forced back to Kut on 4 December, where the city was besieged.

Second Battle of Kut

The British, led by Frederick Stanley Maude, recaptured the city, but the Ottoman garrison there did not get trapped inside (as had happened to Townshend's troops in the previous year when the Ottomans had besieged Kut in the Siege of Kut): the Ottoman commander, Kâzım Karabekir Bey, managed a good-order retreat from the town of his remaining soldiers (about 2,500), pursued by a British fluvial flotilla along the Tigris River.

Sir Fenton Aylmer, 13th Baronet

He was in command of the first failed efforts to break the siege of Kut in 1916.

Having been promoted to lieutenant general, Aylmer was put in charge of the first effort to end the siege of Kut.


see also

Mesopotamian campaign

From the Ottoman perspective; Siege of Kut prevented Sixth Army to perform other operations.