al Kut

Kūt (كوت; also known as Kut-Al-Imara and Kut El Amara) is a city in eastern Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris River, about 100 miles south east of Baghdad, at 32.50°N, 45.82°E. As of 2003 the estimated population is about 400,000 people. It is the capital of the province long known as Al Kut, but since the 1960s renamed Wasit.

The old town of Kut is within a sharp "U" bend of the river, almost making it an island but for a narrow connection to the shore. For centuries Kut was a regional center of the carpet trade. The area around Kut is a fertile cereal grain growing region. The Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility, looted following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is located near Kut.

The British cavalry under Colonel Gerard Leachman succeded in breaking out, but Townshend and the bulk of the force remained besieged. Many significant attempts were made to relieve Townshend's forces, but all were defeated. Some 23,000 British and Indian soldiers died in the attempts to retake Kut, probably the worst loss of life for the British away from the European theater. Near the end of the siege, T.E. Lawrence and Aubrey Herbert of British Intelligence unsuccessfully attempted to bribe Khalil Pasha to allow the troops to escape.

Townshend with some 8,000 surviving soldiers finally surrendered Kut on April 29, 1916. The captured soldiers were impressed into slave labour until the surrender of the Ottoman Empire, more than half of them died. The British went back on the offensive in December of 1916 with a larger and better supplied force under General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude and reconquered Kut on February 23, 1917.