Now all roads lead to France and heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead returning lightly dance.
Edward Thomas, Roads

Friday, February 17, 2023

The Mesopotamian Campaign — A Roads Collection



Prisoner Column After the Surrender at Kut

The Great War's Mesopotamian Campaign was India’s major  contribution to the World War I. Total Allied casualties were 92,501. Of these approximately 15,000 were killed, 13,000 died of disease, 51,000 were wounded, and 13,000 were taken prisoner or were missing. One event stands out above all the other action fought in that theatre between 1914 and 1918. A force of 13,000 British and Indian troops surrendered to a Turkish Army at Kut-el Amara, Mesopotamia, now Iraq, on 29 April 1916. No fewer than 7,000 of those captured were to die in captivity. This was arguably the worst military defeat that the British Empire had suffered since the surrender of Lord Cornwallis’s army in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War.

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