The 2nd Battalion was in Poona, India, when war broke out and was shipped, as part of the 16th Indian Brigade, to Mesopotamia, where it was trapped in the Siege of Kut and captured by the Turks. (Of the 350 men of the battalion captured, only 70 survived their captivity.) During the siege, returning sick and wounded, and the few replacements who had been sent out, were unable to re-join their battalion, so they, and similar drafts of the 2nd Norfolk Regiment, were amalgamated into a scratch battalion forming part of the force attempting to relieve Kut. This battalion was formally titled the "Composite English Battalion", but was more commonly known as "The Norsets"; it was broken up in July 1916, when the 2nd Dorsets was re-constituted. The battalion then served in Egypt as part of 9th Indian Brigade in the 3rd Indian Division.