Download or read book Death of an Army written by Ronald William Millar and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kut 1916 Courage and Failure in Iraq written by Patrick Crowley and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2009-11-17 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Kut 1916 written by Patrick Crowley and published by History Press. This book was released on 2016-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Siege of Kut al Amara written by Nikolas Gardner and published by Twentieth-Century Battles. This book was released on 2014 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Kut written by Ronald Millar and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-04-19 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kut: The Death of an Army is the fascinating, yet largely forgotten, story of the British-Indian Army, which was besieged in Mesopotamia from 1915 to 1916. It is an expert account of the tragic five-month Turkish siege, in which their enemies essentially outlasted them.The author reveals the day-to-day preoccupations of not only the Anglo-Indian forces, but their enemies the Turks as well as local civilians caught in the chaos. Throughout the campaign, the British were beaten back by the Turks, and the ever-prevailent human suffering of the men, so far away from home in this foreign ground, less than helped the cause: starvation, heavy shelling, inadequate medical supplies and disease were all taking their toll. By the end of the campaign, approximately 30,000 British and Indian soldiers had lost their lives.This informative book will be of interest to anyone wanting a concise and accessible introduction to the conflict and will be essential reading for both students of the First World War, as well as those who have a penchant for military history in general.

Download or read book The British Army in Mesopotamia 1914 1918 written by Paul Knight and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2013-08-09 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Captured at Kut Prisoner of the Turks written by Tony Spackman and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2009-04-21 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited diary is Colonel Bill Spackmans extraordinary personal record of his experiences as the Medical Officer of an Indian Infantry battalion during the Mesopotamian Campaign 1914 1916. In particular he describes the harrowing events of the five month siege of Kut and, after the surrender of the 10,000 strong garrison in April 1916, the hardships of the 1,000 mile forced march to Anatolia in Turkey. As a doctor he witnessed at first hand suffering the and deaths of many POWs, both British and Indian.The book goes on the record life in Turkish captivity which was relatively relaxed and fortunately, in sharp contrast to their earlier experiences.Written with humorous understatement and infinite good sense Captured at Kut : Prisoner of the Turks is a gripping read and will appeal strongly not just to Great War enthusiasts but all who enjoy reading of the triumph of men over extreme adversity.

Download or read book The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914 1918 written by and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Søgeord: Aylmer, F.J.; Chamberlain, J. Austen; Suliman Pak; Duff, B.; von der Goltz; Gorringe; Halil Pasha; Lord Hardinge of Penshurst; Kut al Amara; Lake, P.H.N.; General J.E. Nixon; Townshend, C.V.F.; Tyrkiske Hær; Shatt el Arab; Nasiriya; Lord Crewe; Basra; Barrett, A.A.; Baku; Bicharakoff; Dunsterville, L.C.; von Falkenhayn; Marshall, W.R.; Maude, F.S.; Robertson, W.R.; Wilson, H.H.; Baratoff, N.N.; Cobbe, A.S.; Jabal Hamrin; Sannaiyat; Shatt al Adjaim;

Download or read book The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914 1918 written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The First Iraq War 1914 1918 written by A. J. Barker and published by Enigma Books. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Allah made Hell, runs the Arab proverb, he did not find it bad enough, so he made Mesopotamia—and added flies. What was a British Army doing in this Godforsaken place and how had it all come about? A.J. Barker’s masterful retelling of the story of Britain’s first Iraq war in 1914 is a masterpiece of military history that provides many answers to the endless problems and realities encountered in Iraq since 2003. Prestige and power played a major role then as they still do today. If the British were dislodged from the Shatt-al-Arab, the effects would undoubtedly have reverberated throughout the whole of the Eastern world.

Download or read book Kut written by Ronald Miller and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Secrets of a Kuttite written by E. O. Mousley and published by . This book was released on 2005-02 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of this book was a subaltern in 76th Battery, X Brigade, RFA, 6th (Poona) Division, commanded by Maj-Gen Sir Charles Townshend. Mousley joined as a reinforcement from India at Ctesiphon in November 1915, which was the limit of the British advance up the Tigris to Baghdad. Unable to progress further the division retreated to Kut-al-Amara, where it was besieged for nearly five months and eventually forced into surrender on 29th April 1916 through starvation and disease. Repeated attempts by the Tigris Corps to break through and relieve the garrison had failed - at a cost of 23,000 casualties. This was probably the greatest humiliation inflicted on the British army during the war. Close on 12,000 men, British and Indian soldiers and followers went into captivity where over 4,000 died, many under appalling conditions. The first of the three parts into which the book is divided covers the retreat from Ctesiphon to Kut and the five-month siege, painting a graphic picture of the hardships involved. All the animals were slaughtered for food, and in a moving paragraph he describes the death of his own charger, which he could not bring himself to watch. He describes the brutality of the Turkish troops when they entered Kut, singling out the Kurdish rank and file as "the most barbarous savages in this country. It was the Kurds who, five or six years previously, had unsuccessfully rebelled against the Turkish authorities, refusing to serve in the army. Part II describes the trek to captivity aife as a prisoner of war. Despite protests the officers were separated from the men and despatched by river to Baghdad, the rank and file had to march, many of them dying on the way. While in captivity Mousley edited a magazine called Smoke, and one chapter is devoted to reproduction of extracts from it. His efforts to escape failed but eventually he was sent to a hospital in Stamboul and the third part of the book describes his experiences in a hospital in which he suffered starvation and neglect. Another atttempt to escape, via the Sea of Marmora, failed and he ended up in prison. The final chapters describe the end for Turkey and Mousley s manoeuvring to secure his release and his eventual return home

Download or read book Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I written by Edward J. Erickson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-02 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book A Kut Prisoner 1920 written by Harry C. W. Bishop and published by . This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Download or read book Battlefield Rations written by Anthony Clayton and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Army marches on its stomach, observed Napoleon, a hundred and fifty years later General Rommel remarked that the British should always be attacked before soldiers had had an early morning cup of tea. This book, written to raise money for the Army Benevolent Fund and with a Foreword by General Lord Dannatt, sets out the human story of the food and "brew-ups" of the front-line soldier from the Boer War to Helmand. Throughout, the importance of the provision of food, or even a simple mug of tea, for morale and unit fellowship as well as for the need of the calories required for battle is highlighted with many examples over the century. For many, until 1942, the basis of food was "bully beef" and hard biscuit, supplemented by whatever could be found locally, all adequate but monotonous. Sometimes supply failed, on occasions water also. The extremes of hardship being when regiments were besieged, as in Ladysmith in the Boer War and Kut el-Amara in Iraq in the 1914-18 war. At Kut soldiers had, at best, hedgehogs or birds fried in axle-grease with local vegetation. On the Western Front the Retreat from Mons in August 1914 was almost as severe. The transport of food is as interesting a story as the food itself, ranging from oxen, horses, mules, camels, even reindeer and elephants to motor transport and aircraft in different theatres at different times. The first airdrop of food, not very successful, was in fact at Kut el-Amara in 1916. The inter-war years experiences of mountaineers and polar explorers, supplemented by academic diet studies of the unemployed in London and North England led to the introduction of the varied composite, or 'compo' rations, marking an enormous improvement in soldiers' food, an improvement commented upon by the bully beef and biscuits-fed 8th Army advancing into Tunisia from Libya on meeting the 1st Army which had landed in Algeria with tins of compo. The Italian campaigns of 1943-45, especially the Salerno and Anzio landings and the battle for Monte Cassino, presented particular difficulties. At Cassino food reached forward units on mules with Basuto muleteers and Indian porters for the last stage to men in ground holes or scrapes. Soldiers landing in Normandy and fighting on into Germany were generally well fed even during a hard 1944-45 winter. The worst suffering, though, fell on soldiers in the Burma campaign, especially in the Chindit columns. In one unit, the only food available at one time was the chaplain's store of Communion wafers. Many men died unnecessarily from the results of poor feeding. In the end of empire colonial campaigns soldiers were generally well fed even if the food was monotonous. Units in the Korean War experienced difficulties at the onset; in the Borneo jungle campaigns of the 1960s the problem was not so much the provision of food for patrols as how to eat it without the smell of the food and refuse from the packs giving positions away. For the Falklands War special cold weather compo had to be provided and was eaten on the long 'yomps' or 'tabs' marches. The soldier on the streets of Northern Ireland often lived on egg "banjo" sandwiches but real hardship was suffered by one Welsh battalion besieged by the Serbs in Gorazde during the Bosnia operations when Vitamin C deficiency led to scurvy. The book ends with food supply, often based on whole or part swapping with American military food (usually below British standards) in the Iraq operations and in Afghanistan. An appendix sets out the contents of a typical box of rations issued to a soldier in Helmand in 2011, very generous in quantity and easily prepared. One side of the box carries a stern message to the effect that a soldier must consume the entire contents in order to maintain full fighting efficiency. Such injunctions were not marked on the boxes of food sent forward to the troops in the Boer War; there the boxes were stamped with the initials of the Senior Catering Office Field Force. "Scoffs here at last." The work has been compiled from documents in the Royal Logistic Corps Museum at Deepcut, from memoirs, letters and interviews, and from the superb collection of regimental histories in the library of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. All royalties due to the author for this book will be sent to the Army Benevolent Fund, The Soldiers' Charity.

Download or read book Iraq written by Geoff Hann and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2015-08-07 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Iraq is under threat from every quarter. Politics play havoc with ordinary lives; sanctions cut deep. However, today's rare visitors are met with a broad hospitality that belies years of deprivation

Download or read book Captive Anzacs written by Kate Ariotti and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the First World War, 198 Australians became prisoners of the Ottomans. Overshadowed by the grief and hardship that characterised the post-war period, and by the enduring myth of the fighting Anzac, these POWs have long been neglected in the national memory of the war. Captive Anzacs explores how the prisoners felt about their capture and how they dealt with the physical and psychological strain of imprisonment, as well as the legacy of their time as POWs. More broadly, it explores public perceptions of the prisoners, the effects of their captivity on their families, and how military, government and charitable organisations responded to the POWs both during and after the War. Intertwining rich detail from letters, diaries and other personal papers with official records, Kate Ariotti offers a comprehensive, nuanced account of this aspect of Australian war history.