After the surrender, the Ottomans forced the British and Indian POWs to embark upon a brutal "death march" to POW camps in Anatolia, during which the prisoners were forced to march under the scorching hot sun while being deprived of water, food and medical care while constantly being whipped by the Kurdish and Arab tribesmen the Ottoman state had hired to guard them; those who faltered on the "death march" were shot on the spot. In the evening, the men on the death march were given biscuits to eat and water to drink. The only reason why the guards kept their charges alive was to rape them and during the course of the death march all of the POWs were repeatedly gang-raped. McKnight stated in an interview that: "Once they arrived in the prisoner-of-war camps, conditions were little better and hundreds died every month from starvation or being beaten to death by the odd casually brutal Turkish guard". The Indian Muslims serving as support troops at Kut were the only POWs (other than the officers) who were well-treated by the Ottomans and many promptly joined the Ottoman Army to fight against the British. When the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, only 30% of the British and Indian soldiers taken prisoner at Kut in April 1916 were still alive with the other 70% having died in either the death march or in the POW camps.