ard another message, the last one to come through,
reached the relief forces, announcing the actual surrender:

"I have hoisted the white flag over Kut fort and towns, and the guards
will be taken over by a Turkish regiment, which is approaching. I
shall shortly destroy wireless. The troops at 2 p. m. to camp near
Shamran."

It was on the hundred and forty-third day of the siege that General
Townshend was forced by the final exhaustion of his supplies to hoist
the white flag of surrender. According to the official British
statements this involved a force of "2970 British troops of all ranks
and services and some 6,000 Indian troops and their followers."

About one o'clock in the afternoon of April 29, 1916, a pre-arranged
signal from the wireless indicated that the wireless had been
destroyed. It was then that the British emissaries were received by
the Turkish commander in chief, Khalil Bey Pasha, in order to arrange
the terms of surrender. According to these it was to be unconditional.
But the Turks, who expressed the greatest admiration for the bravery
of the British, readily agreed to a number of arrangements in order to
reduce as much as possible the suffering on the part of the captured
British forces who by then were near to starvation. As the Turks
themselves were not in a position to supply their captives with
sufficiently large quantities of food, it was arranged that such
supplies should be sent up the Tigris from the base of the relief
force. It was also arranged that wounded prisoners should be exchanged
and during the early part of May, 1916, a total of almost 1,200 sick
and wounded reached headquarters of the Tigris Corps as quickly as the
available ships could transport them.

The civil population of Kut-el-Amara had not been driven out by
General Townshend as had been surmised. This was undoubtedly due to
the fact that a few civilians who, driven by hunger, had attempted to
escape, had been shot promptly by the Turks. Rather than jeopardize
the lives of some 6,000 unfortunate Arabs, the English commander
permitted them to remain and the same rations that went to the British
troops were distributed to the Arabs. This, of course, hastened the
surrender, an eventuality on which the Turks undoubtedly had counted
when they adopted such stringent measures against their own subjects
who were caught in their attempt to flee from Kut. Although Khalil
Pasha refused to give any pledge in regard to the treatmen