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Erik Sass is documenting the war's events precisely a century after they unfolded. This is the 231st installment in his series.
April 5, 1916: British Attempt to End Kut Siege Fails
By early April 1916, the plight of approximately 10,000 British and Indian soldiers besieged by Turkish forces at Kut Al Amara on the Tigris River had reached a critical point. Under the command of Major-General Charles Townshend, the outnumbered troops were gradually succumbing to starvation, the timeless foe of any besieged army. With food supplies rapidly depleting and expected to run out by late April, the Indian Expeditionary Force had just a few weeks to break the siege and rescue the starving defenders (pictured above, Indian soldiers in Kut operating an antiaircraft machine gun).
After the relief force failed to break the siege at Hanna, the British high command descended into chaos, hastily reassigning leaders in a misguided effort to speed up operations. General John Nixon, the overall theatre commander whose overconfidence had caused the disaster, was succeeded by Percy Lake. Similarly, Feynton Aylmer, who led the relief force near Kut, was replaced by Sir George Gorringe following an unsuccessful assault on the Dujaila redoubt, a Turkish stronghold southeast of Kut.
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Gorringe was bolstered by the arrival of the 13 Division, increasing his forces to 30,000, matching the strength of the reinforced Turkish Sixth Army led by Khalil Pasha (a modest advantage by World War I standards; pictured below, Turkish reinforcements arriving by raft). Despite being widely disliked by his men and officers for his abrasive demeanor, Gorringe had no option but to launch an immediate attack on Khalil Pasha's besieging army on April 5, 1916.
Great War Project
The climactic Battle of Kut, spanning April 5-22, began with a well-organized initial assault that found the Turkish frontline trenches largely empty. However, the operation quickly devolved into disorganized fighting across the muddy Tigris River plains. After an intense artillery barrage in the early hours of April 5, Anglo-Indian forces advanced and seized a significant portion of Turkish trenches at Hanna. The attack soon faltered due to overzealous British officers. Junior officer Edward Roe recounted:
At 4:30 a.m., the whistles blew, and we surged forward. Instead of the expected barrage of bullets, only a few scattered and poorly aimed shots met us. The first two lines were captured with minimal losses. The deafening explosions of hundreds of shells of various sizes filled the air, targeting the second Turkish position. The sky seemed alive with the sound of express trains... With no resistance, our officers lost control, ignoring orders to hold the captured trenches for twenty minutes. Waving their revolvers, they shouted, ‘Come on, boys, they’re retreating! Let’s push all the way to Kut!’... We charged toward the enemy’s second line, only to be hit by our own artillery fire. Men were obliterated in groups of eight by our howitzers and river monitors.
As Roe’s account indicates, the assault on the second Turkish defensive line at Fallahiyeh, late on April 5, quickly encountered intense resistance as troops advanced through the muddy terrain on both sides of the Tigris River. Sadly, the Anglo-Indian soldiers found themselves led by officers who were out of their depth:
This attack was not planned or practiced; we essentially charged into the unknown. I doubt any of the officers, whether senior or junior, had any understanding of the Turkish defenses, as no aerial reconnaissance was available. We blindly walked into disaster... Another costly lesson in the futility of night attacks unless every detail is meticulously planned in advance.
The Fallahiyeh defenses were eventually overrun after heavy British casualties, but the Turks had constructed yet another fortified line further upriver at Sannayiat. This final line, consisting of multiple trenches, shielded the rear of the besieging force. British assaults from April 6-9, 1916, were repeatedly repelled. The attack on April 9 proved especially devastating, as Turkish forces waited for the Anglo-Indian troops to cross no-man’s-land before illuminating the battlefield with flares and unleashing a deadly ambush. Roe himself was among the wounded:
... It was as if someone flipped a switch. The flares revealed their positions to us and ours to them. The Turks stood shoulder-to-shoulder in their trenches, with machine guns mounted on the parapets and soldiers in kneeling and standing positions. Before the flares faded, their shrapnel rained down on us. A storm of bullets from machine guns and rifles tore through our tightly packed ranks, cutting down men by the dozen. The sickening thud of bullets striking flesh echoed continuously... Dawn approached, and chaos reigned... I was hit in the left arm – stars exploded in my vision – and I collapsed.
After his advance stalled on the southern bank of the river, Gorringe shifted his focus to the northern bank, where he achieved some success. On April 17, his forces overran Turkish defenses at Bait Aisa and successfully repelled a fierce Turkish counterattack. However, progress on the northern bank soon stalled as well, forcing Gorringe to return to Sannayiat for one last assault on April 22.
As these final, desperate efforts unfolded, the beleaguered Anglo-Indian troops inside Kut were nearing total collapse, with their remaining food supplies, including horse meat, nearly exhausted. Colonel W.C. Spackman, a British medical officer stationed with an Indian infantry battalion in Kut, recorded in his diary on April 13:
The situation is becoming dire. Each day, we receive only five ounces of bread, which could easily be consumed in a single meal, though the only accompaniment is anchovy sauce!... The soldiers' rations consist of barley bread and about one and a half pounds of horse or mule meat, with a pinch of salt... Our bread supply will run out by April 21 unless further reductions are made, but we might manage a bit longer on a diet of mule meat and grass if absolutely necessary.
Meanwhile, the British faced natural challenges as severe as those on the Western Front, if not worse. As the final Battle of Kut dragged on without resolution, medical officer Edmund Candler noted that both sides were also battling extreme weather and flooding from the Tigris River:
On the afternoon of the 12th, we experienced a waterspout, a hailstorm, and a hurricane. The Tigris River on our left surged with spray reaching four feet high, while the Suwacha marsh on our right threatened to merge with the river and flood our camp... At sunset, a wall of water breached our forward trenches and the Turkish positions opposite, sweeping away equipment, rations, and tools. Some soldiers on our right had to swim to safety.
Both sides were also plagued by swarms of flies, as noted by Aubrey Herbert, a British intelligence officer, who described the situation in his diary in late April:
The flies are unbearable; this morning, they formed a dark, writhing mass everywhere—in my hair, eyes, and mouth, in my bath and shaving water, even in my tea and towel... Nothing I’ve ever seen or imagined compares to these flies. They multiplied until they seemed to fill the air itself, appearing in countless numbers. The horses were driven half-mad by them. Most of the flies were tiny, clustering into little balls when I wiped my sweaty face. They clung to my eyelids, lashes, lips, and nostrils. Speaking became difficult, and seeing was nearly impossible... They were like a visible fever, shimmering in the scorching light all around us.
Germans Push Forward at Verdun
As April 1916 began, the world’s focus remained on the brutal conflict at Verdun, where the German Fifth Army advanced around the fortress city despite fierce resistance from French divisions. These units, drawn from across the Western Front, were cycled through the Verdun slaughterhouse by theater commander Philippe Petain.
While the assault on Verdun appeared to be a full-scale German effort to seize the symbolic and strategically vital city, it was actually the cornerstone of German Chief of Staff Falkenhayn’s covert strategy of attrition. By targeting a critical objective the French would defend at all costs and then fortifying their positions, Falkenhayn aimed to force the French into endless counterattacks, ultimately draining their army of resources and manpower.
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The strategy almost succeeded, but a few critical oversights undermined it. Falkenhayn, obsessed with secrecy, failed to fully explain his true objectives to Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, the commander of the German Fifth Army leading the Verdun offensive. Believing the goal was simply to capture Verdun, the crown prince and his officers abandoned caution after their initial success, pushing forward aggressively in each new assault. This overextension continued until reorganized French defenses halted their advance, deviating from Falkenhayn’s attrition-based plan.
In reality, this meant the Germans often seized low-lying terrain instead of strategically advantageous ridges, leaving them exposed to devastating French artillery fire. As a result, the Germans suffered nearly as many casualties as the French, undermining the effectiveness of Falkenhayn’s attrition strategy.
Despite these setbacks, the German Fifth Army continued to advance through March and early April, engaging in numerous small-scale attacks and counterattacks as both sides fought for control of key positions. In March, German forces made gains near the villages of Forges, Regneville, Haucourt, and Malancourt. They also secured territory around Le Morte Homme (“The Dead Man”) on the Meuse’s western bank and near Fort Vaux on the eastern bank.
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Starting March 20, the fighting intensified on the Meuse’s west bank as the newly deployed 11th Bavarian Division pushed the French 29 Division back near the Bois d’Avocourt and Bois de Malancourt, west of the strategic Hill 304. Despite heavy casualties, the Germans advanced. By March 31, they captured Malancourt, followed by Haucourt on April 5 and Bethincourt on April 9.
Meanwhile, it took nearly a month for the Germans to secure the village of Vaux below Fort Vaux. This small area witnessed over a dozen attacks and counterattacks in March and April, though Fort Vaux itself remained unconquered.
As on the Meuse’s west bank, the battlefields here were littered with corpses, forcing soldiers to navigate around the dead while fighting for survival. A French staff officer described the German supply system on April 2, 1916, east of Douaumont, where chains of men passed entrenching materials like a fire brigade:
They worked without cover, standing upright as the chain stretched openly across the terrain, making them easy targets for French artillery. The French gunners didn’t miss their chance... Gradually, a second line formed alongside the workers, as the growing number of corpses created a protective barrier. Each fallen man added to the embankment, shielding his comrades until a fortified line took shape. Others dug trenches, buried logs, set up shelters and machine guns, and feverishly constructed defenses.
Later, a French sapper team courageously tunneled forward to plant explosives beneath the German fortifications, which had been built at great cost. The team was nearly wiped out, but their efforts helped reclaim the contested ground.
Suddenly, an explosion louder than the ongoing artillery erupted, sending fiery geysers into the sky and scattering debris over the remnants of the demolition team. The barricade was destroyed, but 75% of the brave squad had sacrificed their lives to achieve it. As the survivors lay battered and exhausted, the attackers surged forward, cheering... Over 6,000 German bodies were counted in an area just a quarter-mile square... The enemy had constructed a second barrier of corpses behind the first, using human remains to absorb the impact of incoming shells.
Later, French novelist Henry Bordeaux transcribed an unsent letter discovered on a wounded German soldier at Verdun. Dated April 2, 1916, it was addressed to his sister and brother-in-law:
I’m writing to let you know I’m still alive, though exhausted and terrified. Words can’t describe what I’ve endured here—it’s far worse than anything we’ve faced before. In just three days, our company has lost over a hundred men. There were moments I couldn’t tell if I was alive or already dead... I’ve lost all hope of ever seeing you again.
Another French officer recounted the grim scenes in trenches that had changed hands multiple times: “The dead were embedded in the trench walls—heads, legs, and half-bodies—left as they had been hastily cleared away by the shovels and picks of the work crews.”
By this point, the Germans had suffered approximately 82,000 casualties, compared to 89,000 French losses—and the battle was far from over. As one French colonel told his troops: “Your mission is one of sacrifice; this is a post of honor where the enemy will attack relentlessly. Each day, you will face losses as they disrupt your efforts. When the time comes, they will slaughter you to the last man, and it is your duty to stand firm.” The next major German offensive was set for April 9, as the Fifth Army prepared for a large-scale assault aimed at breaking through at Le Mort Homme.
Check out the earlier installment or browse through all entries.
