100 Years Ago - Siege of Kut

BRIDGE OF BOATS AT SHEIKH SAAD




REINFORCEMENTS FOR THE TURKS SURROUNDING KUT

A CAPTURED TURKISH . IS·POUNDER KRUPP GUN


THE TURKISH SNIPER'S POST AT UMM EL HANNA


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The Siege of Kut

The Tigris had risen on January 16 four feet above its normal level at this season, and by January 22 it was seven feet above normal, and was flooding the flat plains far and wide

February 9, 1916

The Government of India announced yesterday that General Townshend is holding Kut-el-Amara as a point of strategical value, and that General Aylmer’s operations are intended to support him there. They further stated that “no withdrawal is contemplated.”
The announcement is an interesting disclosure of future intentions, but at present the chief anxiety is for a union between the forces commanded by the two generals. General Townshend has now been partially besieged at Kut-el-Amara for more than two months. He has with him the effective balance of the far too weak force with which he was sent to fight the battle of Ctesiphon, and certain reinforcements, drawn from the troops originally guarding the line of communications, which met him at Kut after his brilliant withdrawal in the face of the pursuing Turks.
The fact that he has held out so long indicates that he occupies a fairly strong position on rising ground in a loop of the river. He was fiercely attacked on December 8 and again on December 12, while on Christmas Eve the Turks penetrated the bastion of a little fort which guards his right flank. On each occasion he repulsed the enemy with considerable loss. For the last few weeks the Turks have treated him more respectfully, and on January 28 they were-compelled by floods to evacuate their trenches.
The enemy seem to be now directing their main efforts to opposing the advance of the relieving columns, which at present are entrenched twenty-three miles lower down the river. General Aylmer has a force on the left bank and General Kemball holds the right bank. Sir Percy Lake, who has assumed the chief command in Mesopotamia, reached the relieving columns on January 31, and found them held up by extensive floods. These columns first came into view on January 7, since which date they have only advanced a very few miles. They fought a successful battle on the 7th, when General Kemball took 700 prisoners. Another and far heavier battle was fought on January 21, when the enemy claimed to have inflicted serious losses. But by this time the advance had been temporarily paralysed by the inundations.
The Tigris had risen on January 16 four feet above its normal level at this season, and by January 22 it was seven feet above normal, and was flooding the flat plains far and wide. It is now said to be subsiding, but the receding waters leave behind a great expanse of deep mud which renders progress still difficult. The present position remains a deadlock, though the cheerful messages which continue to arrive from General Townshend indicate that he can hold out for a considerable time yet. He makes no complaint of short supplies, and he is no stranger to long sieges. Further strong British and Indian reinforcements are known to be on their way, but the means of transport are probably not unlimited.

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The Fall of Kut

There were Ministers in the Cabinet who must have been fully aware of the risk and the madness of this forlorn enterprise. Why did they suffer it to be sanctioned?

May 1, 1916

We have not had long to wait for further striking proof of the unhappy results of our present methods of Government. The lessons of Ireland are echoed from Mesopotamia.
The fall of Kut-el-Amara was not, of course, unexpected. The news has been received by the nation with the deepest regret, but with a strong determination that such irresolute and unjustifiable adventures as the attempt to take Baghdad with an entirely inadequate force shall be finished once for all.
There is universal admiration for the long and brilliant stand which the beleaguered force has made against desperate odds. General Townshend is not only a brave and skilful commander, but he is the soul of cheerfulness. To the last his messages have been full of hope and courage. He has kept up the spirits of the garrison, presented a manful front to the foe, and held on while the last scrap of food remained.
Despite the mistakes made in the earlier stages of the advance of the relieving force, it must be recognized that the failure to raise the siege was mainly due to almost insuperable physical difficulties. The Turkish divisions below Kut occupied formidable entrenchments in a flat, open, and treeless country, and the constant recurrence of floods made it futile to attempt to turn their field works. That the relieving columns were able time and again to reach the Turkish lines is a proof of the valour and determination of their unavailing assaults.
Honour impelled us to persist in our attempts to raise the siege so long as General Townshend was able to hold out, but it may now be acknowledged that the chances were always small. We were beaten, not by the Turks, but by the Tigris, the desert, and the swamps.

It is hardly necessary to say that the capitulation of the garrison of Kut has very limited military importance. The numbers involved are comparatively small, and Kut itself is merely a squalid little Arab town set in a loop of the river. Such interest as attaches to the siege and its unfortunate termination is almost exclusively political. The enemy will doubtless exploit the episode to the utmost, but their efforts are already heavily discounted. In India, for example, the probable fate of Kut has for weeks been understood just as well as in this country. A triumphal march of Turkish forces to the sea might have a disturbing effect upon India, but it is clear that the Turkish army in Mesopotamia is pinned to its present position, and cannot move down the river.
In Turkey and Persia Kut will not undo the deep impression produced by the fall of Erzrum and Trebizond, and by the continued progress of the Russian armies of the Caucasus. The Russian invasion of Armenia, and not the operations in Mesopotamia, remains the central factor of the military position in the Middle East. Meanwhile we should remember that the investment of Kut probably saved us from an attack on the Suez Canal last winter, and that we are still detaining a powerful army which the Turks would be glad to use farther north.
All this, however, does not in the least excuse the authors of this wretched and quite unnecessary chapter of the war. The responsibility for the decision which has led to the unfortunate capitulation of the garrison of Kut must be probed to the bottom without delay. Why was this small force sent marching through deserts hundreds of miles from the sea to take a city which the Turks were given ample time to reinforce and protect? The blame cannot be allowed to rest solely upon the misguided ardour of the military authorities on the spot, who were apparently led astray by the case with which the earlier victories of the campaign were won. Nor can Army Headquarters in India be left to bear the brunt of condemnation, although their medical and transport organization was gravely defective.
The ultimate responsibility for the attempt to advance to Baghdad rests with the Cabinet in London, and Ministers must explain their action if they can. There was never any military justification for an advance beyond Kut. A rush to Baghdad, followed by an early withdrawal, would merely have been a revival of the “butcher and bolt” methods which so long governed Indian frontier fighting. But there was no rush.
What seems to have happened was that General Townshend was kept for nearly six weeks after the battle of September 28, while the Government waited and hesitated. He was then impulsively flung forward, only to encounter at Ctesiphon the four well-trained and well-equipped divisions secretly brought by the Turks down the Tigris. If he ever had any chance of reaching Baghdad, which is doubtful, his prospects were ruined by the long delay while the Government were making up their mind.
There were Ministers in the Cabinet who must have been fully aware of the risk and the madness of this forlorn enterprise. Why did they suffer it to be sanctioned? Something must be radically wrong with a Government who, in spite of expert knowledge within their own ranks, are yet capable of issuing orders so certain to lead to disaster.
The Baghdad muddle is one more outcome of divided counsels and a superfluity of counsellors, with no strong hand in control. It has phases more damning than either the tragedy of Gallipoli or the folly of the last six months’ neglect of Dublin. It shows at its very worst the weakness and ineptitude of the present direction of the war. It will strengthen the universal demand for the reconstruction of the Government in a form which will guarantee decision and efficiency. The whole people are utterly weary of these interminable and quite unnecessary muddles.

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The Story of Kut

The Turks, who had learnt the quality of Townshend’s men, apparently made up their minds that the garrison were not to be beaten in open fight, and prepared to starve them out

May 1, 1916

The capitulation of General Townshend and the garrison of Kut-el-Amara, recorded today on another page, brings to a close one of the longest and most arduous sieges that any British force has ever undergone. For some weeks it has been realized that the prospects of relief were small. The relieving forces did their best, and attacked again and again with the utmost gallantry, although they had to advance across the open plain. They failed largely because the River Tigris was in flood, and all attempts at turning the formidable Turkish positions eventually became impossible.
Kut-el-Amara is a small and dirty village situated in a bend of the Tigris in the midst of the Chaldean desert. Its only outstanding feature is the blue glazed minaret of the local mosque; it has the usual Oriental bazaar, otherwise it consists merely of the mean dwellings of the Arab population. Kut is a place of no resources apart from the traffic passing up and down the river; indeed, the Tigris and the Euphrates are the beginning and the end of all enterprise, military and commercial, in Mesopotamia. It was this remote situated nearly 300 miles upstream from the base at Basra, and inaccessible at this season except by the river approach, that the devoted garrison had held, with gradually diminishing hopes of relief, for nearly five months.
The operations leading up to the defence of Kut are too little appreciated. Speaking in November, Mr Asquith said: I do not think that in the whole course of the war there has been a series of operations more carefully contrived, more brilliantly conducted, and with a better prospect of final success.
THE EARLIER OPERATIONS.
Pushing up the Shatt-el-Arab, with a naval force in support, we occupied on November 21, 1914, Basra, which had been the stronghold of the Turks at the head of the Persian Gulf for centuries. Thence the expedition went on to Kurna, at the junction of the Tigris with the old channel of the Euphrates; defeated the Turks at Ahwaz in the Persian lowlands in April and restored the pipeline from the oilfields; and seized Nasiriyeh on the Euphrates. Meanwhile General Townshend with the 6th Division had pushed steadily up the Tigris, and on September 28 he fought and won the brilliant action of Kut.

A mere record of victories, however, gives but a faint idea of the arduous work and the hardships endured by our troops in the overpowering heat of the Mesopotamian summer. Sir Mark Sykes, who was at Kut with our men in the autumn, summed up their experiences in the following words: These British soldiers, so clean and so cheerful have carried a wonderful load through this campaign. They have borne heat, vermin, mosquitoes, double duty, heavy casualties in the field; while sunstroke, heat-stroke and malaria have exacted a dismal toll.
From Kut General Townshend’s division advanced in mid-November towards Baghdad, distant by road about 100 miles. The Turks, who were anticipating large reinforcements, were in an entrenched position at Ctesiphon, Here, within 25 miles of Baghdad, General Townshend on November 22 fought and defeated a very large force of Turks. He was unable, however, to reap the fruits of his victory, for the arrival of fresh Turkish divisions made a retreat imperative.
BEGINNING OF THE SIEGE
General Townshend was back at Kut on December 3, and almost immediately he was cut off from General Gorringe’s division on the line of communications, with headquarters at the town of Amara. Within two days the Turks had got round to Sheikh Saad, some 40 miles lower down the Tigris, and though a hospital ship about the same time managed to run the gauntlet of the enemy’s guns, with some casualties, this was the last traffic that passed down the river from Townshend’s stronghold. It was a much-tried force which was now set the task of defending Kut till relief should be at hand. The men who a few months earlier were emaciated by the terrible heat, who for a year had been fighting a most arduous campaign, had lost over 4,500 of their number at Ctesiphon. Constantly wearied by excessive work, they had been obliged to beat a retreat in face of an enemy who greatly outnumbered them. Only the masterly skill with which this small force was handled, and the devotion of the men, British and Indian alike, enabled it to reach its destination in time.
The trials of this retreat are vividly suggested by the letter of an officer, who wrote: We had to fight a rearguard action all day, and marched 27 miles before we halted. After lying down for two or three hours we marched 16 miles more to within four miles of Kut. Here we had to stop because the infantry were too tired to move. Most of us had little or nothing to eat for two days.
Exhausted as they were, the men, however, had only three or four days to complete the preparations for the defence. It proved sufficient. The Turks, hoping to carry the position before General Townshend was ready, began an assault at once. On December 8 they shelled the defenders all day, and again on the 9th and for the whole of the next three days bombardments were varied by infantry attacks from all sides. After this failure the Turks desisted until Christmas. The fresh attacks were less costly to us, but there was one nervous moment when the enemy breached a fort on the right flank of the Kut peninsula, from which, however, the garrison promptly and with great gallantry dislodged him. This was the last serious attack.
The Turks, who had learnt the quality of Townshend’s men, apparently made up their minds that the garrison were not to be beaten in open fight, and prepared to starve them out.
CONDITION OF THE GARRISON.
The beleaguered force was in no enviable position. The miserable Arab town which they occupied was full of wounded, for in the first series of attacks alone they had 1,100 casualties and many were suffering from disease. There was also the chance that the plans for the relief expedition - about which General Townshend was kept informed by wireless - might be defeated by the rains or later by the Tigris inundations which prevail from March to May. So far as natural conditions were concerned, however, the British were in a better position than the Turks, who were on lower ground, and therefore liable to be flooded out by the river.
Both sides settled down to the work of improving their fortifications. If the British position was strong, so also was that of the enemy, and it was made infinitely stronger in the months which followed. Von der Goltz arrived to superintend the work. The loop in which Kut stands was enclosed by a line of nine redoubts, and there were further Turkish positions on the right bank opposite the town. Eight miles below Kut the Turks constructed the formidable position of Es Sinn stretching for 16 miles astride the river, with the Dujailah redoubt as its centre. About six miles lower down was the Sanna-i-yat entrenchment, four miles long, and also astride the river. The advanced entrenched position of the Turks was at Umm-el-Hannah, another six miles below on the north bank.
General Nixon - who remained in command until early in January, when he was succeeded by General Lake - hastened on the organization of a relief column, which on January 6 set out under General Aylmer from Ali Gharbi, about 80 miles below Kut. The next day the Turks were worsted in the action of Sheikh Saad, and they gradually retired to the position at Umm-el-Hannah. Here at the beginning of the system of defences above described General Aylmer tried to turn the Es Sinn position on January 21. We lost heavily, and did not get through.
Three weeks later the control of the operations was transferred from the Indian Government to the War Office, and stories began to arrive shortly afterwards of the terrible sufferings of the wounded, due to the medical breakdown. The later stages of the advance of the relief force will be fresh in the public recollection.
After January 21 there was no serious attack till March 8, when we tried in vain to break the Turkish line on the south bank of the river, and finally the great effort begun on April 5 by General Gorringe - who had now succeeded General Aylmer - this time again on the north bank. General Gorringe took the Umm-el-Hannah position, and the Turks fell back on Sanna-i-Yat. He attacked Sanna-i-Yat on April 9, but failed to carry it, and all later attempts to reach Kut were equally unsuccessful. A relief ship carrying stores got to within four miles of Kut, when it grounded, and was captured.
Of the circumstances of General Townshend’s force during this time little is known, except that he had not been attacked. Before the last desperate efforts of the relieving force were begun he had already been besieged for over four months, and was very near the end of his resources. He was said to have discovered a store of food which the Turks had buried, but whatever truth there was in this, it was known that for weeks the garrison had been existing on horseflesh.
Occasionally a Turkish airman flew over Kut and dropped a bomb, and there was some spasmodic artillery fighting, but the garrison throughout remained cheery and resolute. The whole country watched with admiration the gallant struggle and cordially endorsed the words of the King, who telegraphed to General Townshend his thanks for the “splendid resistance” he had made against great odds.