To Remember The Kut Al Amara Battle On The 100th Anniversary: The Experiences Beyond War İn Kut Al Amara In The Memoirs Of English Soldiers

Although British troops ultimately occupied Baghdad, before this occupation, their unconditional surrendertook in Kutal Amara will be remembered as an unforgettable defeat in their history. In this study it was tried to unearth Britains’ eye-witness accounts during the siege of Kut al Amara, by investigating English memoirs. It is very hard to rank the negative influences in order of importance that British troops faced during the siege. The first negative influences are the “Turkish assaults, bombardments and sniper shots”. When there were Turkish assaults in the early days of the siege, the artillery bombardments, some times heavy, some times intermittent and continue until the end of the siege, replaced these early days assaults. Turkish artillery bombardments seriously harmed British troops physically and morally. For this reason English soldiers mentioned these artillery bombardments as “hate” in their memoirs. As of mid of February, the bombs from planes reinforced these bombardments. Although the presence of Red Cross marker on the hospitals roof, the hospitals in Kut took shots accidentally during these air bombardments. And as for sniper shots, they restricted British soldiers’ daily activities throughout the siege during the daytime. A brigadier general who is one of the English brigade commander hurt by an sniper shot. The second negative influences are the “starvation and illnesses”. The decrease of the ration started late in January, make itself felt especially in March and turned almost into starvation in April. The Indian soldiers within British troops, who rejected eating horse and mule meat, were the groups mostly effected by starvation and illnesses. In parallel with insufficient nourishment illnesses, especially scurvy, limitted the troops combat ability. The native people of Kut also got their share of starvation too. To the end, the native children started begging and wailing piteously. The other effects are “cold and floods”. The British soldiers also struggled with the floods during the January, March and April. The floods became a greater source of anxiety for the British soldiers than Turkish assault. While floods sometimes cause soldiers to desert their trenches, mostly cause them to wait in knee deep water in their trenches during desert colds. When it was very hard to find wood for cooking during the last days of the siege, it was luxury of them to use wood for heating.

Keywords

Kut al Amara, Siege, Mesopotomia Campaign, Memoirs, War in Memoirs