Second Battle of Kut

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Second Battle of Kut
partof=World War I


caption=Situation at Kut on February 22, 1917.
date=February 23, 1917
place=Kut, present-day Iraq
result=British victory.
combatant1=flagicon|United Kingdom British Empire
*flagicon|India|British British India
combatant2=flagicon|Ottoman Empire Ottoman Empire
commander1=flagicon|United Kingdom Frederick Maude
commander2=flagicon|Ottoman Empire Karabekir Bey
strength1=50,000
strength2=25,000
casualties1=?
casualties2=?

The Second Battle of Kut was fought on February 23, 1917, between British and Ottoman forces. The battle was part of the British advance to Baghdad begun in December 1916 by a 50,000-man British force (mainly from British India) organized in two army corps.

The British, led by Frederick Stanley Maude recaptured the city, but the Ottoman garrison there did not get trapped inside (as had happened to Townshend's troops in the previous year when the Ottomans had besieged Kut in the Siege of Kut): the Turkish commander, Karabekir Bey, managed a good-order retreat from the town of his remaining soldiers (about 2,500), pursued by a British fluvial flotilla along the Tigris River.

The British advance wore off on February 27 at Aziziyeh, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) beyond Kut. After three days' worth of supplies had been accumulated, Maude continued his march toward Baghdad.

External references

* [http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/kut2.htm Second Battle of Kut]