Second Battle of Kut

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Second Battle of Kut
Part of World War I

Situation at Kut on February 22, 1917
Date February 23, 1917
Location Kuk, present-day Iraq
Result British victory
Combatants
British Empire Ottoman Empire
Commanders
Frederick Stanley Maude Karabekir Bey
Strength
50,000  ?
Casualties
 ?  ?
Mesopotamian Campaign
Fao LandingBasra – Qurna – Es Sinn – Ctesiphon – Umm-at-Tubal –1st Kut –Shiekh Sa'ad – Wadi – Hanna – Dujaila2nd KutBaghdadSamarrah Offensive – Jebel Hamlin – Istabulat – RamadiSharqat

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. Thence, after a short pause, Maude would continue his march toward Baghdad.

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