Sanders, nor was he liked by the real power in the Ottoman Government, Enver Pasha. Despite the mutual dislike, in mid-October 1915, with the British under General Townshend advancing on Baghdad, Enver Pasha put Goltz in charge of the Sixth Army (see the Mesopotamian Campaign). Baron von der Goltz was in command at the Battle of Ctesiphon, which was a draw, as both sides retreated from the battlefield. However, with the British retreating, Goltz turned his army around and followed them down the river. When Townshend halted at Kut, Goltz laid siege to the British position (see the Siege of Kut). Much like Julius Caesar's legions at the Battle of Alesia, the Turkish 6th Army under the command of Halil Kut Pasha had to fight off a major British effort to relieve the Kut garrison while maintaining the siege. All told the British tried three different attacks and each one failed at a total cost of 23,000 casualties. The battles included The Battle of Wadi, The Battle of Hanna, and the Battle of Dujaila. Armenian Genocide During the 1915 campaign of the Russians in eastern Anatolia, German officers had recommended the selected deportation of the local Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia, in case the Russian advance caused an uprising. When Enver Pasha showed such orders to Goltz he approved of them as a military necessity. In the words of one historian, "Goltz's later actions to stop deportations indicate it is unlikely that he understood its larger significance." In December 1915 Goltz directly intervened, threatening to resign his command if the deportations were not halted. It was a measure of Goltz's stature in the Ottoman Empire that he, as a foreign military officer, was able, if briefly, to influence domestic policy. However, he was able to effect only a temporary reprieve, and then only in Mesopotamia. It would have been almost unheard of for a soldier to resign during wartime, and in the end Goltz did not do so. Death Goltz died on 19 April 1916, just about two weeks before the British in Kut surrendered on 29 April. The official reason for his death was typhus, although apparently there were rumors that he had been poisoned. In accordance with his will, he was buried in the grounds of the German Consulate in Tarabya, Istanbul, overlooking the Bosporus. Footage exists of his funeral cortège, flanked on both sides by military officers