A Kut Prisoner

""The experiences related in the following pages are simply the individual fortunes of a subaltern of the Indian Army Reserve of Officers who had his first taste of fighting at the battle of Ctesiphon, and was afterwards taken prisoner by the Turks with the rest of the Kut Garrison, ultimately succeeding in escaping from Asia Minor. It is not intended to generalize in any way, since an individual, unless of exalted rank, sees as a rule only his own small environment and cannot pretend to speak for the majority of his comrades. The book is published in the hope that it may prove of interest to the many relatives and friends of the Kut prisoners."" This book is part of the World War One Centenary series; creating, collating and reprinting new and old works of poetry, fiction, autobiography and analysis. The series forms a commemorative tribute to mark the passing of one of the world's bloodiest wars, offering new perspectives on this tragic yet fascinating period of human history. Each publication also includes brand new introductory essays and a timeline to help the reader place the work in its historical context.

In those days travelling up the Tigris took a long time, and we spent a fortnight in reaching Azizie, a journey which can now be accomplished mostly by rail in two days. The regiment was accommodated on two of the river steamers, each having two big barges lashed alongside. The current is considerable and the heavily weighted steamer could only advance very slowly. In many places the river becomes very narrow, especially between Kurna and Amara, and much time was spent in bumping into sand-banks and struggling to get clear.

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Excerpt from A Kut Prisoner The experiences related in the following pages are simply the individual fortunes of a subaltern of the Indian Army Reserve of Officers who had his first taste of fighting at the battle of Ctesiphon, and was afterwards taken prisoner by the Turks with the rest of the Kut Garrison, ultimately succeeding in escaping from Asia Minor. It is not intended to generalize in any way, since an individual, unless of exalted rank, sees as a rule only his own small environment and cannot pretend to speak for the majority of his comrades. The book is published in the hope that it may prove of interest to the many relatives and friends of the Kut prisoners. Acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Blackwood, the Times of India, and the Pioneer for their kind permission to republish those chapters which originally appeared in these papers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

The surrender of the town of Kut-al-Asmara in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) by General Townshend was one of the worst British military disasters of the Great War - comparable to the fall of Singapore in World War Two. But even worse than the humiliating capitulation itself was the fate of the British and Empire troops captured by the Turks at Kut. This book offers a rare account of their suffering. The author, an Indian Army officer serving with the 66th Punjabi Regiment, was taken prisoner and marched to the town of Kastamuni in the Turkish heartland of Asia Minor. From here, incredibly, he managed to escape and make his way to freedom via the Black Sea. The book is therefore an exciting and unusual tale of escape from the Turks, as well as a story of military catastrophe. The author was one of the lucky ones: over half of the 8,000 men taken prisoner with him and put to hard labour by the Turks failed to survive the war.