Halil Kut

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Halil Kut (Turkish: Halil Paşa) (1882-1957) was an Ottoman regional governor and military commander. He was the senior commander of Ottoman forces in Mesopotamia, now Iraq, during World War I.

Halil Pasha was the uncle of Enver Pasha, one of the triumvirate (along with Talat Pasha and Cemal Pasha) controlling the government of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. He was appointed governor of the Baghdad province (present day Iraq and Kuwait combined) and was also the commander of the Turkish 6th Army from 1915 till the end of the war in 1918.

Main article: Mesopotamian Campaign

His greatest success during his command in Iraq was the encirclement and 143 day Siege of Kut, and the eventual surrender of the British Expeditionary Armies on April 29, 1916. However, credit for this success is shared with his German military advisor in the battlefield, Field-Marshall Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz. After the death of von der Goltz in Baghdad on April 19, 1916, and after fresh British forces were massed in Iraq front after this surrender, and outnumbered and outgunned the Ottoman forces there, Halil Pasha's armies were eventually defeated by the joint British and Indian troops.

Halil Pasha was ordered by the Minister of Defense Enver Pasha to move some of his troops to Persia in 1917^{[citation needed]} in an unsuccessful attempt to destabilize the British supported government there.

However, this cost him in his failure to defend Baghdad in 1917 (see the Fall of Baghdad). In 1918, his army was defeated by the joint British-Indian armies and he surrendered the remains of the 6th Army in October 1918 (see Battle of Sharqat), allowing the British to occupy Mosul just as the great war ended.

He was jailed by the British Occupying Forces in Istanbul, but escaped from captivity and moved to Moscow. In accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Moscow (1921) between the Ankara Government and the Soviet leadership, he carried the gold bullions sent by Lenin to Ankara, which was in return for the release of Batum by Turkish forces to the Soviets. Since he was not permitted to stay in Turkey at the time, he first moved back to Moscow and then to Berlin.

He was permitted to return back to Turkey after the declaration of the Turkish Republic in 1923. He died in 1957 in Istanbul.