Kut Al-Amara was an unremarkable town nestled in a bend in the Tigris river, in what is today Iraq. Its history was thin, virtually non-existent, until it became the place of a great military defeat.
On April 29, 1916, approximately 13,000 starving Indians and Britons trapped inside the town gave themselves up to the Ottoman army.
They had been under siege for nearly five months, during which they had braved enemy fire, loss of comrades and gnawing hunger.
For their ambitious commander, Major General Charles Townshend, it was a career-ending humiliation, but for many of the ordinary Indian soldiers the surrender meant much worse: they would never see their homes again.
The path to Kut
The first Indian soldiers landed in Mesopotamia to take part in World War I in November 1914, a day after Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
By the next year, the Indian Army’s 6th Division headed by Charles Townshend was fighting its way up the Tigris River towards Baghdad, notching a string of easy victories.
In late November, the 6th Division reached Ctesiphon, where the Ottomans had anchored their formidable defences around the ancient ruins of an arched gateway.
Three days of savage fighting followed but Townshend’s outnumbered army failed to evict the Ottomans.
With the Ottomans in pursuit, the 6th Division conducted a fighting retreat, reaching Kut on December 3.
It was here that Townshend fatefully decided to make a stand with his 15,000 soldiers and civilian staff.