Kûtül'Amâre Victory

History and importance of Kûtül'amâre

The town of Kut, 160 km. south of Baghdad, 350 km. north of the Persian Gulf, on the Tigris River, came under Ottoman rule during the conquest of Baghdad during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566). With the operation of steamships on the Tigris, the British Lynch Company established coal depots and fuel stations here. In 1869, the Lynch Company received a concession from the Ottoman Empire to operate ferries between Baghdad and Basra and started to use Kutül'amare as a station in between. The people of the region were mainly engaged in agriculture and transport. Jews in the region were engaged in gold processing and trade, while Christians were mostly engaged in tamarind trade.

British rule in Kûtül'amâre

The idea of driving the Turks to Asia and eradicating them from Christian lands, which started with the Crusades, would almost achieve this great plan in World War I. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I alongside the German Empire-Austria-Hungary alliance against the Entente states of England (United Kingdom), France and Russia.

The holy jihad was declared as the first thing. As a result of the agreement with Germany, all our armies participated in the war under the command of German generals.

Enver Pasha, the Minister of War at the time, had taken this decision on his own and had also signed a detailed authorisation and assignment agreement with Liman von Sanders, the head of the German military delegation. Enver Pasha did not allow anyone to learn the details of this matter.

The Germans wanted the Ottoman Empire and its army, weakened by the Balkan wars, to engage as many of their enemies' forces as possible. France and Russia expected the Ottoman Army to do their work on the Western fronts.

The British, on the other hand, wanted to protect their oil facilities in Iran. For this purpose, they invaded Basra on 22 November. Towards the end of September 1915, British General Townshend took action along the Tigris River. The forces of the Ottoman Empire, consisting of Turks and Arabs, were under the command of Colonel Yusuf (Bearded) Nureddin Bey. The British, whose aim was to take Baghdad, occupied Kutül'amâre on the way (26 September 1915). They fortified Kutül'amâre and turned it into a big base. On 22 October 1915, German Field Marshal Goltz Pasha, the commander of the First Army, was appointed as the head of the Sixth Army in the region due to the danger of the Russians, who had taken Erzurum in the north, advancing towards the south and uniting with the British.

On 22-26 November 1915, General Townshend started an offensive in the area called Selmanipak, 30 km. away from Baghdad. The battles that took place turned into a great struggle between the British trying to capture Baghdad and the Turks trying to stop them. After the British, who suffered many casualties, retreated to Kûtül'amâre, Bearded Nurettin was dismissed when he lost 1.600 soldiers in raids he carried out 3-4 nights in a row, and Halil (Kut) Bey, Enver Pasha's uncle who was one year younger than him, was brought in his place. Goltz Pasha instructed Halil Bey, who wanted to attack, that there were not enough soldiers and equipment to attack Kutül'amâre, which was very well fortified, and that it was necessary to condemn them to hunger and thirst by surrounding them. Meanwhile, after the siege started on 8 December, Goltz Pasha moved to the northern front. He fell ill on the way and died of typhus in Baghdad on 19 April 1916.

Siege of Kûtül'amâre

Halil Bey became the Commander of Iraq Group on 10 January 1916 and Mirliva (Brigadier General) on 26 March. General Townshend's efforts to break the siege did not work at all. The British forces, who came to help from outside, had to retreat with nearly 20 thousand dead and wounded in the Battles of Wadi, Felahiye and Sabis.

The first aerial rescue attempts in the history of the war also failed to save Townshend's army. During the siege, the British made the first known aerial resupply attempt during the siege with 3 Short 184 type seaplanes with 225 horsepower engines from the Ora Base on the Tigris for 26 days. However, some of the planes crashed, and most of the food and ammunition dropped from the planes either fell into the Tigris or into Turkish territory. Very little of it reached the British.

Unable to get help from land and air, a ship named Julnar from the Lynch Company set off camouflaged from the Tigris. However, it was spotted and when it came under intense fire from both sides of the Tigris, it was forced to run aground. The Ottoman forces completely captured the weapons, ammunition and supplies on this steamer. The steamer was named ‘Kendi Gelen’ and joined the navy.

The condition of the British soldiers in Kut was already very bad. The reason for this was widespread epidemics and lack of food. Although measures such as slaughtering horses and mules were taken to address the food shortage, this was not enough to correct the problem. For Muslim and Sikh soldiers who did not want to eat the meat of horses and mules, General Townshend got fatwas from the highest authorities of Muslims and Sikhs in India that they could eat horse and mule meat. Executions against desertions were not working either. Townshend would later write in his memoirs that 20 soldiers died of starvation and disease every day. German humour newspapers carried cartoons showing Townshend emaciated, tightening his belt to the last hole, and his soldiers scurrying to catch a mouse.

Townshend had no other choice but to start negotiations to get rid of the Turkish siege. For this purpose, General Townshend offered to give Halil Pasha 1 million British pounds sterling and in return he demanded that he be allowed to go to India with his army. This offer of General Townshend was rejected by Enver Pasha. Unconditional surrender was demanded. On 29 April 1916, General Townshend, who had no other choice, had the cannons and ammunition in his army destroyed and surrendered en masse with the soldiers under his command. Townshend handed over his sword and pistols to Halil Pasha. However Halil Pasha said: ‘These were yours until now, they will remain yours from now on’. He said that he would be honoured like Osman Pasha, the hero of Plevne.

After this surrender, 5 generals and 476 officers (272 British and 204 Indian), 9580 combat soldiers (2,592 British and 6,988 Indian) and 1306 wounded soldiers were taken prisoner.

The German newspaper Vossiche Zeitung described Kut ul Amare as the most painful military blow to the British Empire. For the British, Kut al-Amara is still remembered as the heaviest defeat in British military history. In fact, the British historian James Morris described the loss of Kut as the most humiliating defeat in British military history.

However, this victory was not permanent. The British received constant reinforcements and, just as they had laid a railway and a fresh water pipeline from Basra to Nassiriyah, they laid a railway from Basra to Nassiriyah and built fortifications in Felahiyah, just as they had laid a railway and a fresh water pipeline from the Sinai desert to Jerusalem after the canal operation. The Ottoman army could not resist these fortifications like the fortifications built up to Jerusalem.

British forces under the command of General Frederick Maude retook the city of Kut on 23 February 1917. Baghdad fell to the British on 11 March 1917. Halil Pasha had to retreat until Mosul.

Afterwards General Townshend returned to Istanbul. He was asked to stay in Heybeliada and Büyük Island for the rest of the war. He was given a boat of the Ottoman navy for his personal use. At the request of Grand Vizier Ahmet İzzet Pasha, he mediated with the British alongside the Turkish delegates at the Armistice of Mondros.

After the occupation of Istanbul, he was arrested and imprisoned in Bekiraga district. He escaped from here and travelled to Anatolia. He participated in the national struggle. He was appointed as the honorary consul of Mustafa Kemal in Russia. He met with Soviet leaders and later brought the gold bullion and weapons sent by the Soviet government to the Government of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. On 14 July 1923, he retired from military service. He died in 1957.

Townshend also retired from the army in 1920. He wrote a book called ‘My campaign in Mesopotamia’. He became an MP for Shroshire. He resigned after criticism about the captivity of the soldiers under his command at Kûtül'amâre. He died on 18 May 1924 in Paris, a disgraced man. When his will was published, it was revealed that the value of his entire estate was only £119.

References

Turkish War in the First World War: IRAK-IRAN Cephesi 1914-1918, 1'th Kısım, Genelkurmay Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt Başkanlığı Yayınları, Ankara 1979.

Charles V.F. Townshend, My Mesopotamian Campaign, The Battles of Kurna, Kûtü'l Amâre and Selmanıpâk, Trans. Gürol Koca, T. İş Bank Publications, Istanbul, 2012.

Memoirs of Halil Kut Pasha, the Hero of Kutü' Amare, Ed. Haz. Erhan Çiftçi Istanbul, TİMAŞ Publications, 2015.

Kütülamare Encounter, Commander-in-Chief Sir Percy Lake Report (ter. Hüsameddin). istanbul 1332;

Ahmet İzzet Pasha, The Facts of the War of Independence FERYADIM I-II. Volumes, Timaş Publications, Istanbul, 2017