Catastrophe at Kut – an Oxfordshire regiment under siege in Iraq, 1916

• An Online talk streaming at 7pm on Wednesday 20th October 2021 with a live Q&A with speaker Patrick Crowley.
• Siege of Kut, Mesopotamia (Present day Iraq) in 1916 was one of the greatest defeats the British Army ever faced in its history. 13,000 were taken prisoner, 4000 would die in captivity.
• The talk will include quotes and personal accounts from soldiers and officers of the Oxfordshire county regiment
• The event will be free to view on the museum website, no registration required, but donations welcomed.

Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock, will stream the next in a series of online talks and live Q&As via their website from 7pm on 20th October 2021.

The lecture will be given by retired Colonel Patrick Crowley and cover the story of the dramatic Great War siege of Kut, a fort in small town in what is now Iraq.

Just a simple town in between Basra and Baghdad, Kut al Amara was the site of a First World War conflict that is less widely known than others that took place in 1916, such as the battles of the Somme and Verdun, but one which would have a similarly catastrophic human cost.

Though initially successful on campaign in what was then known as Mesopotamia, as Allied forces pressed towards Baghdad, poor logistic support, training, equipment and command left them isolated and besieged by Turkish forces.

Numerous attempts to relieve those under siege at Kut would fail, and on 29 April 1916 the defenders were forced to surrender and the British Army suffered one of the worst defeats in its history.
Over 13,000 troops, British and Indian, were taken into captivity; around 4000 would not survive their incarceration, while others would undertake elaborate schemes to escape. Thousands more would be killed or wounded in the siege itself or in one of number of ill-fated attempts to relieve those trapped at Kut.

In this online talk, Patrick Crowley recounts the dramatic tale of the Siege of Kut and its terrible aftermath, while shedding some light on the personal experiences of the men of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry’s 1st Battalion. Hear stories of both the besieged themselves, and those involved in attempts to relieve them.

In one battle at Sannaiyat, part of a third attempt to relieve Kut, the Oxfordshire regiment suffered an astounding 88% casualties.

Patrick Crowley is a historian and battlefield tour guide, now retired from the Army after 34 years’ service in the Queen’s Regiment and Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. He was awarded the American Meritorious Service Medal for his own service in Iraq.

WATCH ONLINE: https://www.sofo.org.uk/whats-on/catastropheatkut/

ENDS

Your Mission Starts Here: Spy Oxfordshire Exhibition now extended until 24 April 2022. Featuring objects from the James Bond films.