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The Siege
In the winter of 1915-16, Kut el Amarah, a primitive and filthy settlement on the banks of the Tigris, was the scene of the most humiliating - and possibly most futile - disaster to befall a British force until the rout of Singapore in 1942. It was here that General Townshend decided to hold out with his division of 10,000 combatant troops against a superior besieging force of Turks and Arab conscripts after his abortive attempt to capture Baghdad. The Siege of Kut lasted one hundred and forty-seven days - an epic of endurance, starvation and disease - until Townshend finally surrendered.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1969
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About the author
Russell Braddon
81 books22 followersRussell Reading Braddon was an Australian writer of novels, biographies and TV scripts. His chronicle of his four years as a prisoner of war, The Naked Island, sold more than a million copies.
Braddon was born in Sydney, Australia, the son of a barrister. He served in the Malayan campaign during World War II. He was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese in Pudu and Changi prisons and on the Thailand-Burma Railway between 1942 and 1945.
In 1949, Braddon moved to England. He described his writing career as "beginning by chance". The Naked Island, published in 1952, was one of the first accounts of a Japanese prisoner of war's experience.
Braddon went on to produce a wide range of works, including novels, biographies, histories, TV scripts and newspaper articles. He was also a broadcaster on radio and television.
Proud Australian Boy: A Biography of Russell Braddon by Nigel Starck was published in Australia in 2011.
Braddon was born in Sydney, Australia, the son of a barrister. He served in the Malayan campaign during World War II. He was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese in Pudu and Changi prisons and on the Thailand-Burma Railway between 1942 and 1945.
In 1949, Braddon moved to England. He described his writing career as "beginning by chance". The Naked Island, published in 1952, was one of the first accounts of a Japanese prisoner of war's experience.
Braddon went on to produce a wide range of works, including novels, biographies, histories, TV scripts and newspaper articles. He was also a broadcaster on radio and television.
Proud Australian Boy: A Biography of Russell Braddon by Nigel Starck was published in Australia in 2011.
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April 21, 2023
Russell Braddon recounts the Siege of Kut as a vivid study in failure. This sorry tale of military and political incompetence, resulting in the death or capture of 43,000 Anglo-Indian troops by Nureddin Bey's Turkish Army, proved Britain's greatest humiliation of the First World War. Braddon eschews dispassionate analysis, lamenting the British and Indian soldiers whose "fate was decided for them by idiots" (10).
Britain's involvement in Mesopotamia (Iraq) mixed inertia and ambition. At the impetus of India's government, troops captured the oil fields around Basra in fall 1914. This action resulted in few casualties and secured vital resources for the British military. But these easy victories encouraged Indian officials to dream bigger: Viceroy Beauchamp even envisioned Mesopotamia as a potential colony. In late 1915, General John Nixon planned an offensive towards Baghdad, in service of prestige rather than military necessity. "Nowhere, in any of the Allied theaters of war, was there glimmer of hope: except, perhaps at Baghdad" (82).
Enter Major General Charles Townshend. Descended from Field Marshal George Townshend, Wolfe's second-in-command at Quebec, Townshend was a gallant soldier but a ceaseless climber. He served with distinction in the Sudan, but was best-known for defending the Northwest Frontier post at Chitral in 1895. This small but dramatic victory won him a Victoria Cross and an audience with the Queen. The attendant fame fed Townshend's already healthy ego; "Chitral Charlie" incessantly badgered superiors for high command, styling himself an expert on military strategy. "Restless, ruthless, highly professional and loyal only to his own relentlessly driving ambitions" (30), Townshend finally won wartime appointment to the 6th Indian Division.
Townshend revealed his true character after Nixon proposed an initial, limited advance on Ctesiphon. Privately Townshend expressed doubts, even writing General Murray of the Imperial General Staff a letter attacking Nixon's unclear goals and insufficient manpower. "His military judgment... would prove to have been flawless," Braddon notes (61). When Nixon consulted Townshend, the latter raised none of these objections. Indeed, he even suggested "he would almost certainly pursue the enemy" to Baghdad (65). He mused: "Who knows that I shall not eventually become Governor of Mesopotamia?" (27) Ambition overruled reason, and in September 1915 Townshend's 6th Division began their advance.
The campaign started well. Using a makeshift fleet of barges and river steamers dubbed "Townshend's regatta" (44), the General navigated the treacherous Tigress and Mesopotamian swamplands. He bested the Turks in several battles, though often more by luck more than skill: at Es Sinn, a brigade became lost deploying and accidentally ended up in the Turkish rear! Finally at Ctesiphon Townshend's luck ran out, suffering heavy casualties in a Pyrrhic victory. By late December Townshend fell back on the fly-blown, filthy village of Kut el Amara, where Nureddin soon encircled him.
The 147 day siege (the longest in British history) proved a horrific ordeal for 6th Division. Drawing on firsthand accounts from surviving soldiers, Braddon recounts their plight in graphic detail. Plagued by dysentery and typhus, besieged by lice and sand flies, harassed by hostile locals, Turkish shellfire proved their least nagging worry. After several months the men resorted to meals of horse heads, dogs and dry grass. Medical supplies proved inadequate, the men suffering as "their bowels and stomachs disintegrat[ed] into green slime... chang[ing] from lean men into leathery skeletons" (260). It makes for painful reading.
These long-suffering soldiers were ill-served by their commander. Townshend, so energetic and decisive a few months prior, froze under duress. His communications with Nixon brimmed with panicked miscalculations of supplies (saying, for instance, he had a month's worth of food when he really had four) and veiled accusations of indifference. A hastily-organized relief force - ironically led by General Aylmer, Townshend's savior at Chitral - ran into dogged Turkish resistance. Townshend made no efforts to break out or materially aid Aylmer. Incredibly, Townshend forbid even sorties, reasoning that "sorties out... inevitably involve a withdrawn in: and too many withdraws sap morale" (142). His only leadership came through increasingly pompous and delusional communiques, which confused as often as they inspired.
Finally, on April 29th, 1915 Townshend surrendered. Despite his declaration to "go into captivity with my troops" (335) the General enjoyed comfortable confinement, hobnobbing with Turkish officials and even becoming an ad hoc diplomat at war's end. His soldiers weren't so lucky, enduring a forced march through Mesopotamia, then worse. Some labored on the Baghdad-Berlin Railway; others languished in prison camps, where they endured to floggings, rapes, summary murder and general ill-treatment. Meanwhile, the Indian government censored all mention of Kut, even as exchanged prisoners began trickling home and Parliament investigated misconduct.
Braddon recounts this disaster in angry, venomous prose. A former POW himself (recounted in The Naked Island), Braddon makes no effort to hide his contempt for Townshend and his superiors, or his sympathy for the rankers who suffered at their hands. He describes with contemptuous relish how British officers dined on plum cake and champagne while their soldiers ate moldy biscuits and brackish water, or Townshend and staff shipping sporting equipment alongside military supplies. "No one questioned, then, the validity of the social hierarchy" (86) which placed officer comforts above soldier necessities.
It's true, as recent historians like N.S. Nash (Chitral Charlie) and Charles Townshend (Desert Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia) argue, that General Townshend executed India's ill-advised policies and Nixon's boneheaded strategy. His tactical ability and physical courage on the road to Kut are commendable. His changing clothes while observing a battle, presumably intended by Braddon to demonstrate Townshend's foolishness, shows his coolness under fire. It's certainly unfair to blame Townshend for his treatment in captivity. And it's notable that the soldiers Braddon interviewed almost to a man "believe[d] [Townshend] to be a brilliant leader and a splendid man" (9).
But Townshend made the decision to stand at Kut, a town of marginal importance and limited defensibility. He was responsible for his hysterical telegrams that panicked Nixon and Aylmer into ill-advised rescue attempts. He remained inert while Aylmer's men died trying to relieve him. Finally, anyone declaring himself a genius equal to Belisarius, Bonaparte and Clausewitz en route to catastrophe invites derision. Anyone more concerned with accession to a peerage than his men deserves limited sympathy. And any General asking his starving soldiers to "give a little sympathy to me" (209) is indefensible.
The Siege is a remarkable book. True, Braddon's fiery, contemptuous anger undermines any pretensions to objectivity. For all that, it's still among the best books ever written about military disaster.
Britain's involvement in Mesopotamia (Iraq) mixed inertia and ambition. At the impetus of India's government, troops captured the oil fields around Basra in fall 1914. This action resulted in few casualties and secured vital resources for the British military. But these easy victories encouraged Indian officials to dream bigger: Viceroy Beauchamp even envisioned Mesopotamia as a potential colony. In late 1915, General John Nixon planned an offensive towards Baghdad, in service of prestige rather than military necessity. "Nowhere, in any of the Allied theaters of war, was there glimmer of hope: except, perhaps at Baghdad" (82).
Enter Major General Charles Townshend. Descended from Field Marshal George Townshend, Wolfe's second-in-command at Quebec, Townshend was a gallant soldier but a ceaseless climber. He served with distinction in the Sudan, but was best-known for defending the Northwest Frontier post at Chitral in 1895. This small but dramatic victory won him a Victoria Cross and an audience with the Queen. The attendant fame fed Townshend's already healthy ego; "Chitral Charlie" incessantly badgered superiors for high command, styling himself an expert on military strategy. "Restless, ruthless, highly professional and loyal only to his own relentlessly driving ambitions" (30), Townshend finally won wartime appointment to the 6th Indian Division.
Townshend revealed his true character after Nixon proposed an initial, limited advance on Ctesiphon. Privately Townshend expressed doubts, even writing General Murray of the Imperial General Staff a letter attacking Nixon's unclear goals and insufficient manpower. "His military judgment... would prove to have been flawless," Braddon notes (61). When Nixon consulted Townshend, the latter raised none of these objections. Indeed, he even suggested "he would almost certainly pursue the enemy" to Baghdad (65). He mused: "Who knows that I shall not eventually become Governor of Mesopotamia?" (27) Ambition overruled reason, and in September 1915 Townshend's 6th Division began their advance.
The campaign started well. Using a makeshift fleet of barges and river steamers dubbed "Townshend's regatta" (44), the General navigated the treacherous Tigress and Mesopotamian swamplands. He bested the Turks in several battles, though often more by luck more than skill: at Es Sinn, a brigade became lost deploying and accidentally ended up in the Turkish rear! Finally at Ctesiphon Townshend's luck ran out, suffering heavy casualties in a Pyrrhic victory. By late December Townshend fell back on the fly-blown, filthy village of Kut el Amara, where Nureddin soon encircled him.
The 147 day siege (the longest in British history) proved a horrific ordeal for 6th Division. Drawing on firsthand accounts from surviving soldiers, Braddon recounts their plight in graphic detail. Plagued by dysentery and typhus, besieged by lice and sand flies, harassed by hostile locals, Turkish shellfire proved their least nagging worry. After several months the men resorted to meals of horse heads, dogs and dry grass. Medical supplies proved inadequate, the men suffering as "their bowels and stomachs disintegrat[ed] into green slime... chang[ing] from lean men into leathery skeletons" (260). It makes for painful reading.
These long-suffering soldiers were ill-served by their commander. Townshend, so energetic and decisive a few months prior, froze under duress. His communications with Nixon brimmed with panicked miscalculations of supplies (saying, for instance, he had a month's worth of food when he really had four) and veiled accusations of indifference. A hastily-organized relief force - ironically led by General Aylmer, Townshend's savior at Chitral - ran into dogged Turkish resistance. Townshend made no efforts to break out or materially aid Aylmer. Incredibly, Townshend forbid even sorties, reasoning that "sorties out... inevitably involve a withdrawn in: and too many withdraws sap morale" (142). His only leadership came through increasingly pompous and delusional communiques, which confused as often as they inspired.
Finally, on April 29th, 1915 Townshend surrendered. Despite his declaration to "go into captivity with my troops" (335) the General enjoyed comfortable confinement, hobnobbing with Turkish officials and even becoming an ad hoc diplomat at war's end. His soldiers weren't so lucky, enduring a forced march through Mesopotamia, then worse. Some labored on the Baghdad-Berlin Railway; others languished in prison camps, where they endured to floggings, rapes, summary murder and general ill-treatment. Meanwhile, the Indian government censored all mention of Kut, even as exchanged prisoners began trickling home and Parliament investigated misconduct.
Braddon recounts this disaster in angry, venomous prose. A former POW himself (recounted in The Naked Island), Braddon makes no effort to hide his contempt for Townshend and his superiors, or his sympathy for the rankers who suffered at their hands. He describes with contemptuous relish how British officers dined on plum cake and champagne while their soldiers ate moldy biscuits and brackish water, or Townshend and staff shipping sporting equipment alongside military supplies. "No one questioned, then, the validity of the social hierarchy" (86) which placed officer comforts above soldier necessities.
It's true, as recent historians like N.S. Nash (Chitral Charlie) and Charles Townshend (Desert Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia) argue, that General Townshend executed India's ill-advised policies and Nixon's boneheaded strategy. His tactical ability and physical courage on the road to Kut are commendable. His changing clothes while observing a battle, presumably intended by Braddon to demonstrate Townshend's foolishness, shows his coolness under fire. It's certainly unfair to blame Townshend for his treatment in captivity. And it's notable that the soldiers Braddon interviewed almost to a man "believe[d] [Townshend] to be a brilliant leader and a splendid man" (9).
But Townshend made the decision to stand at Kut, a town of marginal importance and limited defensibility. He was responsible for his hysterical telegrams that panicked Nixon and Aylmer into ill-advised rescue attempts. He remained inert while Aylmer's men died trying to relieve him. Finally, anyone declaring himself a genius equal to Belisarius, Bonaparte and Clausewitz en route to catastrophe invites derision. Anyone more concerned with accession to a peerage than his men deserves limited sympathy. And any General asking his starving soldiers to "give a little sympathy to me" (209) is indefensible.
The Siege is a remarkable book. True, Braddon's fiery, contemptuous anger undermines any pretensions to objectivity. For all that, it's still among the best books ever written about military disaster.
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