Kut 1916

Kut 1916 PDF Author: Patrick Crowley
Publisher: History Press
ISBN: 9780750966061
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The siege of Kut is a story of blunders, sacrifice, imprisonment and escape. The allied campaign in Mesopotamia began in 1914 as a relatively simple operation to secure the oilfields in the Shatt-al-Arab delta and Basra area. Initially it was a great success, but as the army pressed towards Baghdad its poor logistic support, training, equipment and command left it isolated and besieged by the Turks. By 1916 the army had not been relieved, and on 29 April 1916, the British Army suffered one of the worst defeats in its military history. Major-General Sir Charles Townshend surrendered his allied.

Kut 1916

Kut 1916 PDF Author: Patrick Crowley
Publisher: History Press
ISBN: 9780750966061
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The siege of Kut is a story of blunders, sacrifice, imprisonment and escape. The allied campaign in Mesopotamia began in 1914 as a relatively simple operation to secure the oilfields in the Shatt-al-Arab delta and Basra area. Initially it was a great success, but as the army pressed towards Baghdad its poor logistic support, training, equipment and command left it isolated and besieged by the Turks. By 1916 the army had not been relieved, and on 29 April 1916, the British Army suffered one of the worst defeats in its military history. Major-General Sir Charles Townshend surrendered his allied.

The Siege of Kut-al-Amara

The Siege of Kut-al-Amara PDF Author: Nikolas Gardner
Publisher: Twentieth-Century Battles
ISBN: 9780253013842
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Kut-al-Amara was the site of one of the longest sieges ever endured by British forces. On December 3, 1915, the 6th Indian Division under Charles Townshend sought refuge from pursuing Turkish forces inside the walled town. With no heavy artillery to destroy fortifications, the Turks circled the town, subjecting it to intermittent shelling, small arms fire, and infantry attacks. British relief units made repeated attempts to break through the Turkish lines. Meanwhile, within Kut-al-Amara a different sort of war was going on. Townshend's division was made up of Muslim sepoys, who had misgivings about fighting the Turks. Not only were the Turks fellow Muslims but they served the Ottoman Sultan, recognized by many as the Caliph, the spiritual and temporal head of Islam. The Turks played upon this potentially divided loyalty with a propaganda campaign intended to encourage desertion. Then, when a shortage of food forced the garrison to supplement its rations with horsemeat, Muslim and Hindu soldiers were faced with violating dietary restrictions in order to survive. For British officers, prolonging the defense of Kut was complicated by the need to combat disaffection and starvation among the Indian rank and file. A significant event in the British campaign in Mesopotamia, the Siege of Kut-al-Amara offers important insights into Britain's imperial army and its role in the Middle East during World War I.

Kut 1916: Courage and Failure in Iraq

Kut 1916: Courage and Failure in Iraq PDF Author: Patrick Crowley
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750962585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
The siege of Kut is a story of blunders, sacrifice, imprisonment and escape. The allied campaign in Mesopotamia began in 1914 as a relatively simple operation to secure the oilfields in the Shatt-al-Arab delta and Basra area. Initially it was a great success, but as the army pressed towards Baghdad its poor logistic support, training, equipment and command left it isolated and besieged by the Turks.By 1916 the army had not been relieved, and on 29 April 1916, the British Army suffered one of the worst defeats in its military history. Major-General Sir Charles Townshend surrendered his allied force to the Turks in the Mesopotamian (now Iraq) town of Kut-al-Amara. Over 13,000 troops, British and Indian, went into captivity; many would not survive their incarceration. In Kut 1916, Colonel Crowley recounts this dramatic tale and its terrible aftermath.

Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I

Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I PDF Author: Edward J. Erickson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135984573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This volume examines how the Ottoman Army was able to evolve and maintain a high level of overall combat effectiveness despite the primitive nature of the Ottoman State during the First World War. Structured around four case studies, at the operational and tactical level, of campaigns involving the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire: Gallipoli in 1915, Kut in 1916, Third Gaza-Beersheba in 1917, and Megiddo in 1918. For each of these campaigns, particular emphasis is placed on examining specific elements of combat effectiveness and how they affected that particular battle. The prevalent historiography attributes Ottoman battlefield success primarily to external factors - such as the presence of German generals and staff officers; climate, weather and terrain that adversely affected allied operations; allied bumbling and amateurish operations; and inadequate allied intelligence. By contrast, Edward J. Erickson argues that the Ottoman Army was successful due to internal factors, such as its organizational architecture, a hardened cadre of experienced combat leaders, its ability to organize itself for combat, and its application of the German style of war. Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I will be of great interest to students of the First World War, military history and strategic studies in general.

My Campaign in Mesopotamia

My Campaign in Mesopotamia PDF Author: Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend
Publisher: London, Butterworth [1920]
ISBN:
Category : Al Kūt
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description


The British Army in Mesopotamia, 1914-1918

The British Army in Mesopotamia, 1914-1918 PDF Author: Paul Knight
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786470496
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
When war broke out between the British and Turkish empires in 1914, the 6th (Poona) Division sailed from India to Basra to bolster Britain's allies, deny the port to enemy shipping, and secure Britain's Persian oil supplies. Further expansion followed: the capture of Al-Amara was the British Army's greatest victory of 1915. When an advance on Baghdad was repulsed, the Siege of Kut became the British Army's longest siege and greatest surrender. Attempts to relieve Kut led to unsuccessful battles that were bloody and muddy even by Western Front standards. Under new leadership, revitalized and reinforced, the British avenged their defeat when Baghdad was captured in March 1917. Thereafter, the British Empire committed, in campaigns of limited value to the overall war effort, huge levels of manpower and materiel desperately needed elsewhere. What was created was modern Iraq and the first Arab government in Baghdad in over 400 years. This detailed history places the campaign in context of Allied operations in the Middle East and sheds light on several unsung heroes of the war, including General Charles Townshend whose spectacular 1915 victories led to humiliating defeat and captivity in 1916; General Frederick Stanley Maude whose March 1917 entry into Baghdad preceded General Allenby's entry into Jerusalem by eight months; and Miss Gertrude Bell, a "female Lawrence of Arabia" who played a central role in the creation of the new Iraqi state.

Gallipoli & the Middle East 1914–1918

Gallipoli & the Middle East 1914–1918 PDF Author: Edward J Erickson
Publisher: Amber Books Ltd
ISBN: 1908273097
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
With the aid of over 300 photographs, complemented by full-colour maps, Gallipoli and the Middle East provides a detailed guide to the background and conduct of World War I in all the theatres in which Ottoman forces were engaged.

Desert Hell

Desert Hell PDF Author: Charles Townshend
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
Modern Iraq was created deliberately by the British over the seven years following their first invasion in 1914. Charles Townshend provides an informative and compelling explanation of that conquest and examines how an initially cautious strategic invasion by British forces led to imperial expansion on a vast scale.

The Ottoman Endgame

The Ottoman Endgame PDF Author: Sean McMeekin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143109804
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
An astonishing retelling of twentieth-century history from the Ottoman perspective, delivering profound new insights into World War I and the contemporary Middle East Between 1911 and 1922, a series of wars would engulf the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, in which the central conflict, of course, is World War I—a story we think we know well. As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the “wars of the Ottoman succession,” we know far less than we think. The Ottoman Endgame brings to light the entire strategic narrative that led to an unstable new order in postwar Middle East—much of which is still felt today. The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East draws from McMeekin’s years of groundbreaking research in newly opened Ottoman and Russian archives. With great storytelling flair, McMeekin makes new the epic stories we know from the Ottoman front, from Gallipoli to the exploits of Lawrence in Arabia, and introduces a vast range of new stories to Western readers. His accounts of the lead-up to World War I and the Ottoman Empire’s central role in the war itself offers an entirely new and deeper vision of the conflict. Harnessing not only Ottoman and Russian but also British, German, French, American, and Austro-Hungarian sources, the result is a truly pioneering work of scholarship that gives full justice to a multitiered war involving many belligerents. McMeekin also brilliantly reconceives our inherited Anglo-French understanding of the war’s outcome and the collapse of the empire that followed. The book chronicles the emergence of modern Turkey and the carve-up of the rest of the Ottoman Empire as it has never been told before, offering a new perspective on such issues as the ethno-religious bloodletting and forced population transfers which attended the breakup of empire, the Balfour Declaration, the toppling of the caliphate, and the partition of Iraq and Syria—bringing the contemporary consequences into clear focus. Every so often, a work of history completely reshapes our understanding of a subject of enormous historical and contemporary importance. The Ottoman Endgame is such a book, an instantly definitive and thrilling example of narrative history as high art.

On The Road To Kut, A Soldier’s Story Of The Mesopotamian Campaign [Illustrated Edition]

On The Road To Kut, A Soldier’s Story Of The Mesopotamian Campaign [Illustrated Edition] PDF Author: Anon (Black Tab)
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782891757
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Includes 56 original illustrations and a map of the area. Our anonymous author was part of the 6th Poona Division, Indian Army, the first of the British Empire’s forces to be deployed to Mesopotamia during the First World War. Fighting and marching through sweltering temperatures forced much inactivity on the British and Indian troops as much as their Turkish and Arab opponents. The author in his irreverent style remarked: “From 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. it was hot. From 9 a.m. to 12 damned hot. From 12 to 5.30 much too damned hot.” The campaigning seasons in this part of the world were hot, difficult and fraught with ambush and disease. Black Tab’s struggles and travails as he marches with his comrades to the relief of Kut are punctuated with witty asides, and amusing vignettes, maintaining spirits in the face of adversity. An interesting memoir from an often forgotten campaign.