The siege of Kut Al Amara (7 December 1915 – 29 April 1916), also known as the First Battle of Kut, was the besieging of 8,000 strong British-Indian garrison in the town of Kut, 100 miles south of Baghdad, by the Ottoman Army. In 1915, its population was around 6,500. Following the surrender of the garrison on April 29, 1916, the survivors of the siege were marched to imprisonment at Aleppo.

The 6th (Poona) Division of the Indian Army, under Major-General Charles Townshend, had fallen back to the town of Kut after retreating from Ctesiphon. The British Empire forces arrived at Kut around 3 December 1915. They had suffered significant losses and were down to around 11,000 soldiers (plus cavalry). General Townshend chose to stay and hold the position at Kut instead of continuing the march downriver towards Basra. Kut offered a good defensive position because it was contained within a long loop of the river. The problem was how to get supplies, since Kut was a long way from Basra.

The pursuing Ottoman forces arrived on 7 December 1915. Once it became clear the Ottomans had enough forces to lay siege to Kut, Townshend ordered his cavalry to escape south, which it did, led by Lieut. Colonel Gerard Leachman DSO. The Ottoman forces numbered around 11,000 men and were commanded by the respected but old German General and military historian Baron von der Goltz. Goltz knew the Ottoman army well, as he had spent 12 years working on modernizing the Ottoman army from 1883 to 1895. After three attacks in December, Goltz directed the building of siege fortifications facing Kut. He also, like Caesar at the Alesia, prepared for an attack from Basra, using the Tigris River, by building defensive positions further down the river.

Al-Kūt (Arabic: الكوت‎; BGN: Al Kūt; also spelled Kut-Al-Imara or Kut El Amara, Kurdish: Kût) is a kurdish city in eastern Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris River, about 160 kilometres (100 mi) south east of Baghdad. As of 2003^[update] the estimated population is about 374,000 people. It is the capital of the province long known as Al Kut, but since the 1960s renamed Wasit.

The old town of Kut is within a sharp "U" bend of the river, almost making it an island but for a narrow connection to the shore. For centuries Kut was a regional center of the carpet trade. The area around Kut is a fertile cereal grain growing region. The Kut Barrage was constructed in the city in the 1930s to provide irrigation water for the surrounding area. The Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility, looted following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is located near Kut.

The Kut Barrage is a barrage on the Tigris river, located in the modern town of Kut in Wasit Governorate, Iraq. It is 516 metres (1,693 ft) long, 10.5 metres (34 ft) high and consists of 56 gates, each 6 metres (20 ft) wide. The maximum discharge of the barrage is 6,000 cubic metres (7,800 cu yd), but actual discharge has not exceeded 2,000 cubic metres (2,600 cu yd) in the last 10 years. The barrage supports a road and includes a lock for boats passing up and down the Tigris. Its purpose is to maintain a sufficiently high water level in the Tigris to provide water for the Gharraf irrigation canal, which branches off the Tigris just upstream from the Kut Barrage. Before the construction of the Kut Barrage, the Gharraf canal only received water during periods of flood in the Tigris. The water level in the canal is maintained by the Gharraf Head Regulator, which was constructed at the same time as the Kut Barrage.