Kut, or Kut el Amara (properly Kut al Imara), was
in 1914 a native town of about 6,000 inhabitants on the left bank of
the Tigris, built largely of mud and enclosed by a mud wall. It lay
at the base of a small peninsula formed by a loop of the river. An
intermittent watercourse, the Shatt el Hai, joined the Tigris at Kut
with the Euphrates. A large modern town has grown up around the old
centre.
On the 6th August 1915 it was agreed that the
Indian Expeditionary Force "D", which in its advance
inland had now reached Nasiriya, should advance on Kut; and on the
28th September, in the "Battle of Kut, 1915", the Turkish
covering forces were defeated. The Turks retreated, and the town was
entered on the 29th. On the 11th November the advance was resumed;
but in the Battle of Ctesiphon (22nd-24th November) it was brought
to a standstill by severe casualties, and by the 3rd December the
force was back in its entrenched camp at Kut. The Turks followed
closely, and the Defence of Kut lasted from the 7th December to the
28th April, 1916. The troops besieged in Kut were the 6th (Poona)
Division of the Indian Army, composed of British and Indian units,
and certain other small detachments. They numbered 3,152 British and
8,455 Indian officers and men, and about 3,530 followers. In
January, March and April, desperate attempts were made to reach the
town and raise the siege; they were abandoned on the 26th April,
after more than 23,000 officers and men had become casualties.
Meanwhile the beleaguered force had suffered 3,776 casualties,
including over 1,800 dead; and of the civil population (part of
which had been allowed to remain) 247 had been killed or died of
wounds. The garrison capitulated on the 29th April, 1916. Nearly
12,000 British and Indian soldiers and followers, weak and ill, were
taken prisoners, and more than 4,000 of these died in enemy hands.
The town was reoccupied by British troops in February 1917, and at
the end of June it became an administrative, railway and hospital
centre.
The War Cemetery was made by the 6th (Poona)
Division in October 1915 - May 1916; one grave was added in June
1917, and 112 in 1921-22 by concentrations from other sites. It now
contains the graves of 395 soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians,
belonging or attached to British or Indian units (including nine of
the Madras Artillery Volunteers); Indian soldiers, labourers or
followers; one man of the Royal Indian Marine; one man of the
Mauritius Labour Corps; and two Armenian refugees. Five of the
British soldiers are unidentified. The Register records particulars
of 417 War Graves.
Of the graves moved into Kut War Cemetery after
the Armistice, 110 came from Kut Old Wall Cemetery or Kut Camp
Cemetery. Others included:
KUT OLD WALL CEMETERY lay in cultivated fields on
the North side of the town, within the first-line defences of
1915-16. It contained the graves of 15 soldiers from the United
Kingdom who fell in October-December 1915.
KUT CAMP CEMETERY was outside the town, on the North. It was begun
in July 1917 by the hospitals stationed at Kut, and used until 1921;
it contained the graves of 95 soldiers from the United Kingdom
