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Show TURKS CAPTURE THE BRITISH AT m-lIA After a Siege Lasting 143 Days and With His Men Facing Starvation, Major Townshend Surrenders. DESTROYS HIS GUNS BEFORE GIVING UP Relief Army Held Back Less Than a Score of Miles Away; Campaign Proves Costly. LONDON, April 29, 12 noon. A Constantinople dispatch received by way of Berlin says that the vice chief commander of the Turkish army announces that the British, garrison at Kut-el-Amara under General Townshend, which surrendered surren-dered unconditionally, numbered 13,300 men, LONDON, April 29, 4:45 p. m. Major General Charles Townshend, commander of the British forces besieged at Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, by Turkish forces since last December, has surrendered. surren-dered. This information was contained in a British official statement issued this afternoon. The official statement added that General Townshend destroyed de-stroyed all Ms guns and munitions, be- fore surrendering. ! The British force which surrendered i amounts to about 10,000 men. The following statement was made: I "After a resistance protracted for I 143 days, and conducted with a gallantry gal-lantry and fortitude that will be forever , memorable, General Townshend has been i compelled, by the final exhaustion of ! his supplies, to surrender. Destroyed His Guns. "Before doing so he destroyed his '. guns and munitions. "The force under him consists of . 2S70 British troops of all ranks and services ser-vices and some 6000 Indian troops and ; their followers. ' ' General Townshend probably was driven to surrender to avoid starvation of his forces. A recent official Turkish communication said that the position of the British at Kut-el-Amara was critical, and that they were expecting to receive small supplies of food by aeroplane. An , official statement received yesterday i from London showed that a last effort ! to send supplies to the garrison had i failed. It was announced that a ship i laden with supplies had been sent up the Tigris, but that it had been grounded about four miles east of the city. Relief Impossible. Less than a score of miles away, on the banks of the Tigris below the city, is a relief army which for months had been attempting to reach the besieged forces of General Townshend. Of late the Turks' resistance has increased, and, aided by floodB, they have been able to hold the British in check. No official figures have been given out as to the number of troops which set forth from the Persian gulf in November No-vember of 1914 on the expedition which has now ended in surrender. Unofficially Unoffi-cially the number has been estimated as high as 50,000, but it was probably considerably smaller than this. This force has suffered heavy losses in severe battles with the Turks. The surrender of General Townshend is one of the few instances of the war in which an entire fighting onit of important im-portant numbers Las laid down its arms. It is one of the largest bodies of troops of the. entente allies which has surren dered, and larger than any other captured cap-tured French or British force. Early in December of last year, General Gen-eral Townshend 's army was beaten in battle at Ctesiphon, iehteen miles be- (Continued on Page Thirteen.) TURKS CAPTURE THE" - BESIEGED IP (Continued from Page Ono.) low Bagdad, and retreated to Knt-e!-Amara. liosioed hy a large army of Turks, the British defended .themselves so successfully that the Turks at length decided to .stiirvp them out. Alter it became evident that th- army lit Kut-el-Amflra would be nnnhlo to fiht itt wav out. a relief expedition was d i ? p n ft' h e d . As i t d re w near K u t it was opposed by formidable bodies of Turk?:, ;ind its advance was stopj'ied. The Turks, taking the offensive, pushed back the 1 iri i ish and indicted larye losses on them. Throughout the Mesopotamian rain-jiHiyn rain-jiHiyn The lighting has been heavy and the lusPEi severe. On April 14 it was admitted the Tigris nrmv up to that time hai lo.f 1 i'u'i men. In one engagement en-gagement alone, at Reitsea, on the right bank of the Tigri- a few nules b?iow Kut-el-Ajnarn, the Hrii-i-h hist 4(mi0, an-cord an-cord in:; tu an a inui:nvemen t from the Turkish war office hut vook. Surrender Expected. The eventual surrender of General Townskeud had been expected since the failure of the forces under Lieutenant , General Gorriuge and General Keary to break through 'the Turkish position at Saunuj-yut, just below Kut-el-Amara, ! on the Tigris river, and the tmsuccos-i'u tmsuccos-i'u attempt to send the blockaded army j provisions by steamers. It had been t.ou'h aud go with the small British ; force for many days. i The position of "Kut-el-Amara, which , is on a peninsula extending into the ' Tigris river, made it impossible to send supplies by air,vas there was no landing land-ing place 'for aeroplanes. While a supply ship, the loss of which was reported in an official British dispatch dis-patch several days ago, got beyoDd the Turkish main defensive lines at Essin, it was a forlorn hope, as the Turks in- vesting the city, advised of her coming, could easily sink her from shore, even should she escape the artificial barriers in the river. Chain of Misfortunes. As fur the forces which attempted to relieve General Townsheud, they met with almost continual misfortunes. On several occasions, just when it was bcr lieved they wore, on t lie point of success, rising waters made further progress impossible. im-possible. After penetrating Turkish positions, they were compelled to retire or runutin stationary, owing to the impossibility im-possibility of attacking the position at Saunayyal, which was surrounded by water. The British troops did actualjv attack the prepared position there after wading through mud and water waist, deep, but only to find when they did meet with some success that a failure at some other point made their sacrifice futile. The British public never lost faith in General Townsheud and even now that he has been forced to capitulate after destroying everything at Kut-el-Amara that might be valuable to the Turks, they look back upon his campaign as a brilliant one. |