THANK you to Looking Back reader Brian Bates for sharing the above light-hearted looking photograph which actually represents part of a tragic story.

The photograph was taken outside the Antelope Hotel, Dorchester 100 years ago on July 25 1916.

During the First World War, the Second Battalion of the Dorset Regiment were fighting Turkish forces in Mesopotamia (Iraq), under Major General Townsend.

In November, 1915, Townsend decided to withdraw his troops to the city of Kut Al Amara.

Mr Bates said: “Kut was an easily defended position being in the loop of a river, so, when pursuing Turkish forces arrived on December 3, they decided not to attack it but lay siege.”

Despite attempts by the British to relieve the troops, the siege lasted 147 days, and when the 8000 troops surrendered, the captured men, including 350 Dorset men, had to march 1,200 miles to Turkish POW camps.

Mr Bates said: “The already emaciated men now had to face, sickness, the heat, inadequate rations and, at times, deliberate mistreatment.

“By the end of the march only 70 of the Dorset men answered the roll call.”

When news of the plight of the men got back to Dorchester the town reacted immediately by starting a relief fund.

The major fundraising effort was called Kut Day, on July 25, 1916.

Mr Bates said: “In Dorchester several vehicles were decorated to represent the Allies. One highlight was an Australian band, brought up from Monte Video Camp in Chickerell, which gave a concert in Maumbury Rings, whilst the Dorset Regiment provided music in the Borough Gardens.

“Bridport held its own Kut Day, with many of the surrounding villages taking part or raising funds themselves.

“By the end of the day a net sum of £104.16s.10p had been collected, the equivalent of over £9,000 today.

“The 70 members of the Dorset Regiment that survived as prisoners were treated to a dinner in Dorchester’s Town Hall, on February 25, 1919.

“It was there that the final total of donations to the fund was reported to be £3000.

“Three Dorchester men died following the surrender at Kut. William Dean, a young lad of 20, Ernest Standfield, aged 21 and 29 year old David Payne.”

n Brian Bates is the author of Dorchester Remembers the Great War” and Living with the Enemy –Dorchester’s Great War Prison Camp.