Hero of Kut-el-Amara

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 501, 2 November 1928, Page 9

Hero of Kut-el-Amara

WHY TOWNSHEND S CAREER ENDED

Wrote Indiscreet Letter to Austrian

(United P.A.—By Telegraph Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Associatioti)

95 am ‘ LONDON, Thursday. 11L reason why the late Major-General Sir Charles lownshend, the hero of Kut-el-Amara, was never promoted above the rank of Major-General is contained in his biography, which has been written by Mr. Erroll Sherson and published by Heinemann.

Ihe author suggests that General Townshend’§. career ended because of an indiscreet' letter which came into the possession of the War Office.

The story goes that Colonel Fitzgerald, military secretary to FieldMarshal Earl Kitchener told a journalist that General Townshend in the letter offered his services to Austria. The general Interviewed Mr. Winston Churchill, who said that he thought the letter indiscreet, but there was

nothing in it to prevent his promotion. The Selection Board, however, had been unanimous in not promoting him. “I am looking; for a command for you now,” Mr. Winston Churchill said, but nothing happened. The honours list for Kut duly appeared, but Townshend’s name did not appear.

It appears that General Townshend, learning of .the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, wrote to an Austrian friend, who was military attache at Paris in 1906 when General Townshend was the British attache there. His biographer continues: "Besides expressing his detestation of the murders, Townshend bewailed his own lot and spoke of the bad government of England, which he ought not to have done. “He did indeed say that he wished that he could get a transfer into the Austrian service, so as to get to the front, where he might be less unjustly treated. This was very different from applying for a commission in the Austrian Army as he was accused of doing. “Mr. Winston Churchill said that any clear-headed man reading the letter could see that General Townshend was not a traitor, even If his whole career had not proved his loyalty.”

Major-General Sir Charles V. F. Townshend, D. 5.0., routed the Turkish Army at the first battle of Kut, fought in September, 1915, but in turn suffered a reverse at Ctesiphon in the following November. He then retreated on Kut-el-Amara, which stands on a U-shaped bend of the River Tigris. He fortified the town which the Turks subjected to severe bombardment. The beleagured garrison repulsed several severe assaults, but after withstanding a seige for 193 days, Townshend was forced to surrender on April 29, 1916, to save his 9,000 men from starvation. In the course of attempts to relieve him the British lost nearly 20,000 men.