The Allied war against Turkish
forces gains momentum (and ground) in Mesopotamia as British and Indian troops
move along the Tigris River in early 1917, recapturing the city of Kut-al-Amara
and taking 1,730 Turkish prisoners on February 24.
Ten months after nearly 12,000
British and Indian troops had been captured there—considered by many the most
humiliating surrender in the history of the British army—Kut fell into the
hands of a British corps commanded by Sir Frederick Maude. After being
appointed commander of the Tigris Corps in Mesopotamia in July 1916 and of the
entire Mesopotamian front a month later, Maude had immediately begun to
reorganize and re-supply the troops in the region in preparation for a renewed
offensive against Kut.
In early January, Maude's
150,000 troops launched their attacks on Khadairi Bend, a heavily fortified
town on the Tigris north of Kut. It fell on January 29, and the British troops
continued onward to the main offensive, the Second Battle of Kut, which began
with attacks on both Turkish flanks on February 17.
Overwhelmed, Turkish forces
under commander Karabekir Bey retreated from Kut on February 24. They were
pursued by a flotilla of British naval gunboats, including the Mantis, Moth
and Tarantula. Outrunning their counterparts on the ground, the crew of
the British ships found themselves under fire from four Turkish vessels some 30
kilometers north of Kut at Nahr-al-Kalek. In the gun battle that followed, the
British soundly defeated the Turks, destroying three of the Turkish ships and
capturing the fourth, the former British monitor ship Firefly.
Encouraged by their victory at
Kut, Maude's forces pushed on towards Baghdad, which would fall on March 11.
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/british-troops-recapture-kut-in-mesopotamia
[24.02.2015]
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