Forgotten Victory of the Ottoman Empire: Kut al-Amara Exhibition

The exhibition prepared for the 100th anniversary of Kut al-Amara, the greatest and most meaningful victory we won after Gallipoli (Çanakkale) in World War I, set out to remember and evoke this forgotten victory.

The story of the victory that resulted in the capture of the 13,300-strong British army, which was besieged in Kut al-Amara on the Iraqi Front on April 29, 1916, after a 4,5-month siege, was told with the help of various photographs, documents, newspaper articles, pictures, maps and objects from the period. In the chronological selection, the siege was traced day by day through the memoirs of the 44th Regiment Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mehmed Reşid. Many documents and objects that allow this historical event to be better understood, such as the echoes of the siege in the British press, the correspondence of the 4th Army Commander Halil Pasha who took over the British army, a letter sent to the house of a soldier martyred in Kut al-Amara, and various items used in the war, were included in the exhibition.

The exhibition, held at Lütfi Kırdar International Convention and Exhibition Center on May 10, 2016, was visited by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and top state officials.